Nistar

[Hoid the Former Drifter he/him]

Did anyone catch the fact that "nistar" is the hebrew word for hidden or mysterious, and that the fused named nistar actually has this title?

[HoidvsVoid]

Nice catch. Brandon is known for utilizing different languages at times, including Hebrew, in a number of occasions. Because of a spelling error in one of his books, I first thought that Adonalsium had an extra 'i' instead of an "L", making it an even more obvious Hebrew term for God. Then when I saw another book replace the "i" with the "L", I did some research and got a little less excited. Though it is still a pretty close match.

Edit: After a quick search in the book, it actually says "Adonasium". Not an extra "i" but a missing "L". Doesn't really change much, but just clarifying.

Edited December 14, 2020 by HoidvsVoid

[Hoid the Former Drifter he/him]

31 minutes ago, HoidvsVoid said:

Nice catch. Brandon is known for utilizing different languages at times, including Hebrew, in a number of occasions. Because of a spelling error in one of his books, I first thought that Adonalsium had an extra 'i' instead of an "L", making it an even more obvious Hebrew term for God. Then when I saw another book replace the "i" with the "L", I did some research and got a little less excited. Though it is still a pretty close match.

he has two jewish editors which helps; also a lot of what he does is getting close but not exact; for example the fused have the hebrew masculine suffix -im when plural; in addition, shamayim means heaven, and the Heavenly ones are Shanay-im; close, but not exact. That ignoring the fact the Shadows for Silence (and the rest of the title) is a story very loosely based off the jewish laws of sabbath. I saw some other things but i can't remember off the top of my head.

[Necessary Eagle she/her]

3 hours ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

Did anyone catch the fact that "nistar" is the hebrew word for hidden or mysterious, and that the fused named nistar actually has this title?

The other one, too, forgot the name atm

[Hoid the Former Drifter he/him]

another thing: The Masked ones are called mavset-im (there might not be a T) and in hebrew, a mask could be called a masveh

 the deepest ones are called maka-im and a word for depths in hebrew is amak

the flowing ones are shetel-im and in hebrew, flow is shetef. very similar.

many of the calligraphic phonemes match their hebrew counterparts

 

if found another one: nistar's partner is the light one or something like that and his name starts with ur, which means light. Also urithiru is a tower with its own light, and it's in a place originally known as ur.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Hoid the Drifter

[Honorless he/him]

Good catches, @Hoid the Drifter!

For anyone who's curious, here is where they were mentioned:

Quote

“The Pursuer has found the Windrunner’s parents, Ancient One,” Venli said. “I’m certain of it. He posted two nightform Regals at the Radiant infirmary.”
“Which ones?”
“Urialin and Nistar.”
“‘Light’ and ‘mystery,’” Leshwi said, translating their names from the ancient language. Like many of the Regals, they had taken new names for themselves upon their awakening.

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Honorless

[coolsnow7]

On 12/14/2020 at 2:44 PM, Hoid the Drifter said:

Did anyone catch the fact that "nistar" is the hebrew word for hidden or mysterious, and that the fused named nistar actually has this title?

Yup! 14 years of Jewish education paying off  

Edited December 21, 2020 by coolsnow7

[FollowYourMuse she/her]

On 12/14/2020 at 9:01 PM, Hoid the Drifter said:

Also urithiru is a tower with its own light, and it's in a place originally known as ur.

I took the information of Ur being the original name to correlate to the Mesopotamian City/State of Ur where the Ziggurat of Ur was built. 

Ur has been at times linked to the biblical town of Abraham, though some scholars believe that is a different city named Ura or Urfa. 

 


 

Edited December 26, 2020 by FollowYourMuse

[HoidvsVoid]

Brandon stated on his youtube channel in the video "How Do I Come up with Names—Brandon Sanderson" (around the 3:00 minute mark) that the original language of Roshar, the Dawnsinger language, was based off of Arabic and Hebrew.

So that pretty much confirms some of the connections.