An Adventure In Conlang Etymology (or: 'We Can't Keep Calling It Randland')
I was trying to come up with a plausible in-universe name for the main continent where the bulk of the action in Wheel of Time takes place. Fans have come up with various nicknames like "The Westlands" or "Randland" since it has no actual name.
This lack of a canonical name for the continent just barely makes sense in the context of the people who live there and are only aware of like, one actual continent besides theirs (named 'The Land of Madmen', or as we know it, Australia).
But it makes no sense in the context of the Seanchan, who have their own continent (Seanchan) and are deliberately heading to invade- I mean, return to- another. The Seanchan have got to have a name for the continent they're invading!!! Even if they just call it their homeland! That counts as a name, and if I put it into the conlang, it'll be official.
So how would we say "homeland" in the Old Tongue? (cut for length, but I have an answer!)
Well, presumably "home" plus "land". I know what "land" is off the top of my head- "-hol", it's in Sindhol ("Neverland") and Aridhol ("Land of Harmony"). But the Old Tongue dictionaries are not giving me a straight answer on "home". The two words that supposedly have "home" in them are "Rhyagelle" ("Homecomers/Those Who Come Home") and "Manetheren" ("Mountain Home"). That doesn't give me a ton to work with- they don't have anything in common.
I looked at "Hailene" ("Forerunners/Those Who Come Before") to see if I could pattern-match there and pick out "come", since supposedly that's part of the translation for Rhyagelle too. But as you can see, they have nothing in common either. A literal translation of "Hailene" is something like "Lead-Beforers":
Hailene - Forerunners, Those Who Come Before
hael - lead
ailen - before
e - plural?
Hael-ailen-e = "Lead-Beforers"
"Ylet" is supposed to be "to come", but to be honest I don't really see that in "Rhyagelle". What I do see as a plausible breakdown is "Home-Gathering-Over-The-Waters":
Rhyagelle - Homecomers, Those Who Come Home
Rh = home (from rhiod, a world or land)
yag = gatherer or gathering (could be a conjugation of ylet, "come", but after looking at all the words where the root "yag" appears, I think it might mean something like "gatherer" or "gathering".)*
elle = (over) waters (from drelle, waters of)
āHome-Gathering-Over-The-Watersā
*(from nouns: kramtor, store vs kramayage, development; procol, map vs profel, test (v) vs proyago, experience; loviyaga (los = forward + vyavi = writing + yag = gathering?, memory; tyagani, respect vs tyaku, keep (v))
That would make the 'home' word a variation on 'rhiod', which means specifically 'a world or land' (rather than -land which appears to be -hol). "Rhiod" seems to indicate a specific sphere of influence, and/or a conceptual area, which could explain how "rh" came to mean "home".
I tested this idea by trying to get an etymology of Manetheren ("Mountain Home") that made sense to me. I took some liberties with the construction, both because I really could not find any old tongue words that made sense in context and had "th" in them, and because the original Old Tongue place names are canonically real mouthfuls (AlāCairāRhaienallen, anyone?) that have gotten shortened over time (Cairhien).
Manetheren - Mountain Home
ma - important, special
ranell - mountain range (apparently not to be confused with "dore" which means "mountain" and is normally what we see used; the exception is Mafaldadaranell, the original name of Fal Dara)
tom - among
rh- home (guessing from rhyagelle - homecomers and rhiod = a world or land)
en - plural
Ma'ranell'tom'rhen = "Special Home Among The Mountain Ranges"
If you say "maranelltomrhen" kinda fast it sounds enough like "manetheren" that I'm satisfied with this as the 'original' meaning and Manetheren as the garbled/shortened version, which means I can go ahead and say that "rh" probably means "home".
So! With all this information, I'd like to present a potential in-universe name for Randland, at least among the Seanchan and maybe even the people who actually live there: "Marhol".
Ma- important, special
Rh - home
hol- land
Marhol = "Important Homeland" = āThe Continent With No Nameā
As a bonus, it has the same two-syllable snap as "Randland" or "Westland".
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