#more language

Cue me realizing there isn’t a straight translation. Cue me realizing there’s only one (1) metallic element given any sort of name in Mando’a: beskar, which is Mandalorian iron made of a metallic alloy (steel, which itself is an iron alloy, hence Mandalorian iron).

Cue me wanting to dissect the word beskar to figure out where it comes from.

After fighting with my brain for an hour, I finally just made it simple: since beskar is a confirmed alloy of which iron is the major part, then I just need to identify which part of the word is ‘iron’. Easily said and done if one considers that be means ‘of’ in Mando’a, leaving skar to mean iron. (I also cross referenced the Mando’a dictionary to make sure there weren’t any other words composed of skar as a word fragment in any form; it’s not). Literally translated then, beskar means ‘of iron’ which makes sense considering it’s an iron alloy - an alloy made of iron. Thus beskar transliterated is ‘alloy of iron’.

Now I want a word for ‘metal’, because ‘iron’ is too specific to be the only related word in Mando’a. 

I started by looking for ‘forge’, like a blacksmith forge, thinking it might hold a clue. It didn’t. ‘Forge’ in Mando’a is actually nau’ur kad: lit. light up a sword. And, like, I can see where that’s coming from? But it’s more poetic than functional. This is when I recall the word goran: blacksmith, metalworker.

Cool. Okay. ‘Metal’ is included in ‘metalworker’, so I might be a step closer. Unsatisfied with the poetic version of forge, I decide I want a single word that means something closer to what ‘metalworking’ implies; I turn goran into a verb by adding -ar, making it goranar: metalworking, and call it good. 

But I still want to isolate ‘metal’. Alright, so what part of goran is ‘worker’? Turns out that borarir is worker, and it’s base is bora: job. Instead, goran might come from gotal’ur: make, create/ gotal: made, created (an ‘-ized’ suffix). This is cool because tal means blood, so the Mandalorians seem to believe that to create something is very symbolic/ritualistic (like putting your blood, sweat, and tears into something). 

(Kay. Taking the Mandalorian culture into account, it would seem that they would have definitely practiced metalworking as an artform, right? Historically, only the nobility had swords because only they had the time to learn how to properly use them, and we’ve seen that the Mando’ade who aren’t soldiers are often agriculturalists. Yet kad is still a known word, and beskar is basically a deity. It would make sense that, in their development as a culture/society, metalworking would have been way big especially as an art form (I look back at the p o e t i c term for ‘forge’ as an example). It then stands to reason that there’s no reason why the words I want to create don’t exist. They’re just... buried. Deep. Just throwing that out there so I seem less crazy lmao.)

Now, I would think that ‘metal’ would be something close to ‘iron’ considering, logically, there would be a word for ‘metal’ first and then iron later as it was found to be the superior metallic element, especially in alloy form. Kar shows up in a few words, like kar’am: breath, kar’ta: heart, kar’tayl: awareness, knowledge, and kar’taylir: know, hold in heart. As far as kar’ta goes, ta is obviously derived from tal for blood. The am in kar’am is ‘change’. Taylir is hold, keep, preserve. Comparing with mandokar (which we should all know the meaning of by now, it’s used so. often), we can assume that kar either has something to do with the ‘self’ or is more an indication of something personally/culturally/spiritually precious (not the soul, though; colloquially, manda is used as ‘soul’). Furthermore, kar seems to be used in words where emotion is involved (like, 9.5/10 times). 

Personally, I think that kar could mean ‘iron’. Think about it: ‘iron change’ or the ‘change in iron’ to indicate breath just like how different levels of oxygen within the metal itself would affect quality. ‘Iron blood’ which, like, duh, but they wouldn’t have had the tech at the time to know human blood contains iron; they would have just compared the red of rusted iron to the color of blood, which, still cool. Mandokar would then be ‘an individual of/containing iron’ which fits with the definition.

Now, I can’t really get behind the fanon definition of kar being ‘star’. I can’t, because Ka’ra is ‘stars; ancient Mandalorian myth - ruling council of fallen kings’, so I would think ka would be ‘star’ and ra derived from the short list of words that start with ‘ram-’: ramaanar: die (general term), ramaanla: mortal (in the sense of fallible or vulnerable), ram’ika: raid, ramikad: commando, ramikadyc: commando state of mind, ram’or: attack, beseige, ramorla: beseiged, and ramser: sniper, marksman. Considering ika is a known diminutive, ram probably boils down to ‘battle’ or ‘war’ or something similar. Ka’ra then, would literally be something like ‘warrior stars’ - the great warrior kings of the past. 

Back to to beskar, then, which I can actually keep breaking down. In the dictionary is bes’bev: Mandalorian wind instrument also used for combat, a large metal flute with a sharpened, cut-off end. Knowing that laar is song and bes’laar is music, but also knowing that a defining feature of pure beskar is the ringing sound it makes when hit against more pure beskar, and bev: needle, spike, and considering my ‘metalworking as art’ theory, I can see where bes’bev comes from for sure, especially if we assume beskar as a word was created first so that bes could be used to indicate the sound of the metal-strikes. 

(Fun Facts: laar shows up again only in galaar: hawk, jai’galaar: shriek-hawk, the two conjugations of laar that give us ‘singing’ and ‘sing’, and werlaara: myth (archaic). Now, jai- comes from jair: scream, shriek, so that word’s self-explanatory. But werlaara is cool, because wer is archaic for ‘eon’, and laara would be the conjugated form of laar once again. From this we catch a glimpse of ancient Mandalorian culture - namely, the way they told stories: using music. Just thought that was supper cool.)

That still doesn’t really help me except just show where other words branched off. So. Square one (1): beskar breaks down into be: of and skar: iron. I would think the ‘s’ comes from the word for metal, especially if iron specifically, using the kar as an indication of strong emotion, is extra important as a metal to the Mandalorians. Based on the words I could find, the best match seems to be eso: flank, side. (Think of how the metal would have been used as armor to protect their flanks/sides). Look at bes; look at eso. I think metal might have been beso, because they would have used metal for armor before they ever used for art considering their warrior-clan history (again, in my head). So, beso: metal. 

Back to goran, ‘cause I think I’m on to something here. So, the closest to ran I could find was rang: ash. Considering the role that ash actually plays in forging metal objects, that makes a lot of sense to me if goran is a metalworker/blacksmith. If I think about how ne’tra is ‘black’, it’s not inconceivable that the ‘ra’ in goran is actually derived from that (again, ran means nothing by itself, and ra is ‘or’). The ‘n’ is most likely just tacked on bc why not and to make it a noun. That just leaves go which seems to have a direct link to whether the word is about creating/making something or not. Conclusion: go: the shaping of something. 

In the end, I couldn’t pin down a specific word for ‘alloy’, but I might get there someday. Thoughts? Sorry for the rambly-ness of this whole thing. I leterally was typing this up as the thoughts hit lol.

TL;DR: 

beskar: alloy of iron (from be: of and assuming kar: iron)

goranar: metalworking

kar: a uniquely Mandalorian word used to indicate extreme emotional/spiritual importance to the subject; iron

ka: star

bes: a uniquely Mandalorian word that indicates the equally unique sound made by hitting two pieces of pure beskar to together

beso: metal