[Glorantha] Let's Speak Pelandan!

Kevin McDonald wrote:
> I took a stab at this project a few years ago,
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> http://kpmcdona.home.mindspring.com/carmania/culture/language.html
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Agraketa - basket:
I suspect this is two ideograms: AgraKeta. Keta could be an inflection of Ket. If that is so, Ket might mean something like concentration or accumulation, later coming to mean town, city or tribe by extension. Agra might mean something like produce or goods, so a basket is something that enables you to accumulate produce in one place.

Anu - under
We already have other ideograms meaning under: tuk, tarbus. Anu therefore probably means something else. AnuDiDala is also called Veskerele's House and the God Caves. Anu therefore might mean house or cave.

Baka - ?:
My guess is this literally means 'small plant', but generally any kind of non woody plant. AronBaka is a cognate of ErenBaya, who on the Gods Wall holds a tree and a leafy plant. Aron means tree, so I guess that BaKa refers to the leafy plant in some way. We agree that Ka means small; I guess Ba means plant.

Da - child?
I think it means 'and'. We have EthEloDaTanno, 'whose children are light and dark'. Tanno means dark, Eth means something like 'first', 'original or 'origin of' and Elo means light. My interpretation would give EthEloDaTanno as 'origin of the light and dark (ones)'.

De - holder
I guess that you choose this so dedaddi means 'stick holder'. We have dedaddi explained as "She who holds the the Council Staff". Dedi certainly means 'people' (DediZoraRu). My guess is that Dedi means 'crowd' or 'group of people', and that Deddi (council) is derived from it, with dedaddi being a contraction or inflection of Deddi-Addi: Council Staff.

Deneg ? torch? being?
Eria is life , and DenegEria is 'Daughter of Life', so Deneg ought to be 'daughter'.

Der ? going back, betrayal?
Your suggestion takes Valare's explanation of DerMaElsor at face value. I speculate that Der means 'semblance' or 'similarity'. That fits with what DerMaElsor is, but also gives an explanation of Dero (but different from the provided one) as 'dissembling'. You seem to agree that Der in itself has some kind of negative connotation (we have DerMerth and DerDromus).

Feder - hand painted.
(I neglected to delete this entry from my list). I think Valare is wrong. Ka means small and, I suggest, 'handy'. That suggests that Karanda, rather than Feder, means 'hand painted'.

Maradan ? could be MaraDan ? apart from mother I suggest Vogmaradan is VogMaraDan, literally '(the) apart (from the) mother person', 'the mother' being MaElsor.

Mu ? fruit?
I agree. And then 'muru' would be MuRu, 'our fruit', that is, 'our offspring'.

Sarta ? chieftain?
I guess that Sa is an inflection of Si (collective, family), so sarudaran is SaRuDaran, literally (of) clan (of) our father, meaning father-of-our-clan, and thus 'male ancestor'.

Upelvi -Bounty of All?
Vi means 'great', so this is probably UpelVi or UpElVi, perhaps meaning something like 'a great quantity of'.

Vog - movement
We have VogMaradan as 'the apart/separate person', so I suggest Vog as apart or separate and Voga as separation or movement-apart.

Oria has similarities to Beseda ('plenty'), so Oria might mean something similar. Let us say it means something like bounty, or riches. What might Peloria mean? A possibility is that PelOria means the same as Dara Happa, 'Land of Riches', in which case Pel would mean 'land'. If that was so, and KarAnda means 'hand(y)-painted', then PelAnda means 'painted land' or 'land of painters', which makes sense.

The explanation of Pelanda's name as coming from Daxdarius' city would then be wrong; in any case the city seems to be more commonly called Peldre rather than Pelandre. Perhaps the land gave the city its (second) name, rather than the other way around?

Note also that Daxdarius is the Dara Happan title of the Hoplite Emperor; no Pelandan word has an x in it. It might be a Dara Happan spelling of his name. I would suggest the Pelanda original is DaakDaran (incflected, perhaps, as DaakoDaran), literally 'father (of) strangers' but meaning Lord of Strangers: his imperial title rather than his personal name. As Zora means corpse, Zera might mean killer and Zeridexus might be ZeraDaako, 'killer of strangers'.

Joerg Baumgartner wrote:
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> One term I missed (but which may instead be Dara Happan) was
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> nari (plural neri)

I think the word is Enari.

Stewart Stansfield wrote:
> I attempted this in part before (looking mainly for those of rude note or connotation)

And ILH-1 gives us Uir, 'phallic' or 'phallus'. Received on Wed 27 Sep 2006 - 01:23:07 EEST