The Wheel of Time Companion

by Robert Jordan

Without the Oath Rod, a channeler’s age was somewhat in proportion to strength, though it wasn’t an exact proportion. Stronger channelers lived longer, up to more than eight hundred years for a Forsaken-class channeler. Aging occurred at a rate that would take channelers from the age at which one slowed to the apparent age of sixty or so. This relatively young maximum apparent age was an artifact of the healthful effects of the One Power. With the Oath Rod, Aes Sedai lifespans were capped at about three hundred years maximum.

  Oaths, Three. See Three Oaths

  obaen. A musical instrument of the Age of Legends. Asmodean was said to have played it, although no one in the Third Age knew what it was.

  Oburun. A nation that arose after the Trolloc Wars.

  Ocalin, Sabeine. See Sabeine Ocalin

  Ogier. A nonhuman race of giants who lived in stedding. They were noted for their love of knowledge, their exquisite stonework and their work with plants, particularly the Great Trees found in the stedding. They were sensitive to the mood of a place, and could feel the Forsaken’s unrestrained effects, without knowing what they were. They could sense evil, if strong enough, such as in Shadar Logoth. Ogier could see better by moonlight than could humans.

  One bit of secret Ogier knowledge, lost to Aes Sedai after the Breaking, was that Ogier did not originate in this world. There was a legend of sorts that they had to and would leave one day, so that they could come again with the turning of the Wheel. This legend and the facts were all kept extremely close. Many Ogier knew of the Book of Translation, and knew that it was something never spoken about to any other than Ogier. Some knew that it contained information about the coming of the Ogier to this world. Scholars among them knew that it told the exact method by which they came, and also how to use that method to depart if needed.

  Discounting accident or illness, Ogier were known to live as much as five hundred years, though four hundred or so was more common. Ogier acted as police during the War of the Shadow, and maybe as protectors of the Da’shain Aiel. During the Time of Madness, the stedding offered sanctuary to male Aes Sedai, who were buffered from the effects of the taint on saidin while there. They were unable to channel, or even to sense the Source, and one by one they left the shelter of the stedding, unable to stand the inability to channel any longer. While still staying largely in the stedding, these male Aes Sedai grew the Ways and created the Waygates, each, of course, outside the stedding. Stedding were already being abandoned because of the Breaking, and thus not all by far were so connected.

  Before the last male Aes Sedai left the stedding, they presented the Talisman of Growing to the Elders. This allowed the Ogier to make the Ways grow branches using Treesong.

  During the Breaking the land and sea shifted so dramatically that the stedding were lost or swallowed entirely. Those Ogier that survived the upheaval of land and sea found themselves homeless and adrift, wandering in search of their lost sanctuaries. Among Ogier this time was known as the Exile. After many years their Longing for the peace and beauty that only existed within the stedding became so strong that they began to sicken and die; many more died than did not. The Talisman was carried on the Exile, and once the first stedding were rediscovered during the years of the Covenant of the Ten Nations, it was used to grow more Ways, both to newly rediscovered stedding and to the Groves that Ogier planted near the cities they were building for humans. After that time the Ogier did not leave the stedding for extensive periods. If an Ogier stayed Outside for too long, the Longing took him and he began to weaken. If he did not return, he died.

  The total Ogier population between the Aryth Ocean and the Spine of the World was slightly less than 500,000, inhabiting forty-one stedding. There were Ogier west of the Aryth Ocean as well, and they survived, though they did not pick up the skill of working stone. Unlike those to the east, they were pushed more toward the fierce side of Ogier nature. They had no Exile, and so avoided the Longing; of necessity they took part in the wars that enveloped Seanchan before the conquest, and to some extent participated in the intrigues. Anything else could well have meant being swallowed up or destroyed, and sometimes they had to fight in defense of their stedding. Ogier there took part in the war that led to the empire founded by Luthair Hawkwing. Ogier were recognized in Seanchan as extremely formidable fighters and were forbidden to bear arms outside the stedding, except those serving as bodyguards for the Imperial family, which they provided to show that they were loyal to the Empress. This bodyguard, called Gardeners, was a part of the Deathwatch Guard, though not da’covale like the rest. Sometimes a noble would be loaned a few Gardeners; usually this was seen as an honor, but it could be a caution that the throne was watching. The Seanchan rather approved of folk who lived in places where channeling would not work.

  It was the perquisite of the highest nobles to have Ogier gardeners, though they were something more than gardeners. They were bodyguards, conventionally unarmed because of the prohibition. Instead, use of garden tools and staffs and sticks was developed into a martial art. There were no physical differences, and few social differences, between the Ogier west and east of the Aryth Ocean, except that the Seanchan Ogier were more willing to fight. By standards of Ogier east of the ocean, they were hasty; humans could hardly see it. No stedding in Seanchan was connected with any stedding east of the ocean, nor with each other. Seanchan Ogier had never heard of the Ways.

  The two groups of Ogier were completely unaware of each other until the time of the Last Battle.

  Ogier Gardeners. Ogier members of the Seanchan Deathwatch Guard; unlike the human members, they were not da’covale. See Ogier

  oilfish. A fish that produced valuable oil, found in shoals off Mayene. The oil from these fish was the major competitor for olive oil both in cooking and in lamps. Mayeners knew the location of the oilfish shoals, which no one else did.

  Okatomo. A noble House of Kandor. See Niach Okatomo

  Old Cully. A gnarled beggar in Ebou Dar with one eye, no teeth and a habit of bathing only once a year. He was the feared leader of a circle of Darkfriends that worked for Jaichim Carridin. Cully sent Darkfriends imitating beggars to kill Mat; they did not succeed.

  Old Deer. A wolf that Perrin talked to after he and others set out to find the kidnapped Rand.

  Old Grim, Old Hob. See Dark One

  Old Jak. A man up a tree in the song “Old Jak’s Up a Tree.”

  Old Road. The road to Deven Ride south of Emond’s Field; it became North Road to the north.

  Old Sheep, The. An inn found in Ebou Dar. Mat talked to Maylin, a beautiful serving girl there, when he was searching for Olver.

  Old Tongue. What became known as the Old Tongue was the language spoken during the Age of Legends, though it is unknown what it was called then, if indeed it had a name. It was believed that a drift in language began some time during the Breaking of the World, but whether it began that early or not, it was well under way by the time of the Trolloc Wars. Although nobles and the educated still spoke the Old Tongue, a simpler language, much less ambiguous, had come into use among the common people. This simpler language was noted, disparagingly, as early as 250 AB; at least, that was the earliest record available. Very likely, if it existed earlier, scholars considered it beneath notice. By the Trolloc Wars it truly was very nearly a separate language. Those who spoke it alone had difficulty understanding the Old Tongue. By that time, however, many nobles and educated commoners, if not all, had apparently learned the tongue in order to communicate with the lower classes. Nothing from the time records any name separating the two; the one was apparently considered a lower-class dialect of the other.

  By the time of Artur Hawkwing’s rise, the two languages were still in use, but by then had become mutually unintelligible. Nobles still spoke the Old Tongue among themselves, and more educated commoners also used it, especially on formal occasions, but in many ways it had become the second language, because everyone knew and used the speech of the commoners. Certainly books were being printed in the common tongue as
early as FY 700.

  In some ways the death of Artur Hawkwing’s empire was the death of the Old Tongue. Increasingly, the speech of commoners was used even by nobles. Knowledge of the Old Tongue became a sign of education, and considered a necessity among the nobles of many lands, but in truth relatively few had any real knowledge of it. The number of books printed in the Old Tongue began to decrease after FY 700. It was generally accepted that by Artur Hawkwing’s death, no more than half the books printed were in the Old Tongue, and the last book printed for general distribution in the Old Tongue was believed to have been about 200 NE, though there were occasional oddities after that time.

  Every nation came to speak dialects of the same language, differing mainly in speech rhythms, accents, pronunciations, slang and the like; anyone from any nation could understand anyone from any other nation. That included Seanchan and Sharans, whose speech sounded strange but was still intelligible. Luthair Paendrag’s invasion replaced the languages of the natives in Seanchan with the language of the common people from Artur Hawkwing’s time.

  Old Tongue remained in the world among two groups. It was the language of the Ogier, which they spoke among themselves, although of course they were completely fluent in the common language as well. It was also true that many folk in the Two Rivers had the peculiar ability to understand and even speak in the Old Tongue when under stress, although they could not do so under ordinary circumstances; it was an effect of the strength of the old blood of Manetheren.

  WORDS AND PHRASES IN THE OLD TONGUE

  Old Tongue was a language difficult to translate because many words could mean many different things, and a variety of words could be used to mean the same thing. Old Tongue was also highly nuanced. For example, there were various ways to say the same thing. Thus “Hill of the Golden Dawn” translated literally was “Gold Dawn Hill.” But in other instances, Old Tongue words meaning “of the”—al or an, for example—might sometimes be integrated into the phrase as well.

  By the same token, some words that might be considered significant to the meaning of a sentence in modern language—modifiers, for example—might be missing in Old Tongue; rather, meaning had to be gathered from the context and the instinct of the listener or reader.

  As with English, Old Tongue was full of “illogical inconsistencies.”

  VARIOUS RULES

  Pluralization:

  There was no simple convention for plurals.

  Suffixes an, in, on, es and en all could indicate pluralization in some context or another.

  Sometimes the n suffix was all that was needed with some words ending in a vowel, as tai/tain.

  Adding a, as sei/seia.

  Adding i, as shar/shari.

  Removing a letter, as dareis/darei.

  Using a contraction, as athan/atha’an.

  Adding e after a.

  Using the same word for both singular and plural (particularly words that end in n in the singular, but other cases as well).

  Verbs:

  Little was known about verb conjugations.

  There were no standard verb endings.

  The ae suffix would convert an active verb to the passive voice.

  The suffix ane converted the verb to past tense.

  The noun form of a verb was often created by adding the suffix nen.

  Adjectives:

  These frequently followed the noun they modified, and were used for emphasis.

  Numbers:

  The root of each number had one of two suffixes: -yat, descriptive of material objects; or -ye, descriptive of the immaterial, such as ideas, arguments or propositions. Perhaps this convention was a reflection of the philosophical underpinnings of the culture, which recognized the importance of both active and passive, male and female, material and immaterial. This was depicted graphically in the Aes Sedai symbol, the black and white disc.

  The numbers 11 through 19 used the base numbers from the ones series, followed by the suffix ’pi.

  The suffix ’shi denoted multiples of ten (the -yat/-ye suffix was dropped above the teens).

  The word deshi meant one hundred, and ’deshi was used as a hundreds suffix.

  The word tuhat meant one thousand, and ’tuhat was used as a thousands suffix.

  Word Order:

  As with Latin, inverted constructions were common; word order could vary for emphasis, but whereas Latin’s case endings facilitated meaning, the Old Tongue relied on context and intuition for meaning; this offered partial insight into how those individuals whose primary language was Old Tongue, such as the Forsaken, could adapt so readily to New Tongue—not only was the Old Tongue the protolanguage of Third Age language, but the prominence of intuitive skills used to derive meaning gave them a significant advantage in language adaptation.

  Word order of a sentence could vary according to the perceived beauty of the spoken sound. As one might expect, two people speaking (or writing) identical words with precisely the same meaning might use different word order to conform to their notion of aural beauty; the listener or reader would nonetheless understand each sentence similarly.

  Words of Particular Importance:

  Though not a firm rule, articles were often omitted where the word had gained some importance in the culture, such as being a title or having a special meaning.

  Words and/or their modifiers were sometimes capitalized to indicate increased importance, such as a’vron becoming Ma’vron.

  Words could also be capitalized to demonstrate meaning expanded to a larger entity, such as cuebiyar meaning a heart, but Cuebiyar meaning the heart of a people or nation.

  Compound Words:

  Compound words were made by simply combining words, or through use of an apostrophe.

  When words were combined and the end of the first word was identical to the beginning of the second word, they would often be overlapped, as in la and anfear becoming lanfear.

  A NOTE ON SPEECH:

  In the Age of Legends, accents and idioms used in the spoken language varied according to a person’s region of origin and station in life, as would be expected in any language.

  OLD TONGUE DICTIONARY

  The meanings of most words in the Old Tongue have been lost over the Ages. The following is the extent of our understanding.

  a—(prep.) of; also, makes plural when added to the end of a word

  aada—(adj.) dear

  aagret—(adj.) awake

  aan—(n. & adj.) one (masculine)

  Aan’allein—(n.) One Man, or Man Alone, or Man Who Is an Entire People; Aiel term for Lan

  abakran—(n.) amount

  a’dam—(n.) leash; used by the Seanchan

  ae—(v. suffix) denotes passive voice

  aend—(adv.) ever

  aes—(n.) all; everyone; the public body; civilization

  Aesdaishar—(n.) Glory of All; name of the palace in Chachin

  Aes Sedai—(n.) Servants of All

  aethan—(n.) shield(s)

  Aethan Dor—(n.) Red Shields: an Aiel warrior society

  afwadh—(n.) well

  agaroum—(n.) disgust

  aginor—(n.) a Forsaken; compound word that means “slicer of the living”

  agit—(n.) living organism

  ahenila—(n.) current, as in a river

  ahf—(n.) wind; i.e., an air current

  Ahf’frait—(n.) a Trolloc band; literally, “strong wind”

  aiel—(n. & adj.) dedicated; Aiel— the Dedicated

  ailen—(conj., prep. & adj.) before

  ain—(v.) is; one form of the verb “to be”

  airach—(n. & adj.) living

  aird—(adj.) tall

  ajah—(n.) an association created for a specific purpose; capitalized, it refers to a group of women within the White Tower organized to accomplish a specific goal

  akein—(n.) swallow; i.e., a type of bird

  al—(prep.); “for the,” or “of the”; also, a prefix added to the first name of Malkieri kings

&n
bsp; alantin—(n.) brother; used as short for “Tia avende alantin,” “Brother to the Trees”; how Selene/Lanfear addressed Loial

  al’cair—(adj.) the gold(en)

  Al’Cair Dal—(n.) the Golden Bowl, a canyon in the Aiel Waste

  al’cair’rahienallen—(n.) literally: Gold(en) Dawn Hill; ancient name for Cairhien, used by Ogier throughout the Third Age

  al caldazar—(n.) red eagle

  aldazar—(n.) eagle(s)

  aldieb—(n.) west wind (the wind that brings the spring rains); name of Moiraine’s horse

  alep—(n.) son

  algai—(n.) battle person, fighter

  algai’d’siswai—(n.) Aiel term meaning the spear fighters; literally, battle person of the spear

  alget—(v.) fight

  Al’ghol—(n.) a Trolloc band; literally, the soulless

  algode—(n. & adj.) cotton; a plant fiber from the Aiel waste

  allein—(n.) man

  allen—(n.) hill

  allende—(v.) pass, as in passing through or by, not as in handing something over

  allwair—(n.) key

  am—(generally prefix) pertains to beauty

  aman—(n.) dragon; Aman—the Dragon

  amela—(n.) friend

  amotath—(n.) attraction

  an—(prep.) of; of the; for the

  an—(suffix) used to indicate plural form

  ande—(n.) rose

  andi—(suffix) denotes stone-like quality

  andillar—(n.) stone

  ane—(suffix) used to indicate past tense

  anfear—(n.) night

  angreal—(n.) “of the power to channel”; a device that enhances the power to channel

  anouge—(v.) cough

  ansoen—(n.) lies

  ara—(suffix) indicates possession, i.e., “my” or “of mine”

  arahar—(n.) curtain

  aran—(adj.) right-hand or right-side

  aran’gar—(n.) right-hand dagger; also the name of a reborn Forsaken

  aridhol—(n.) “land of harmony”; city of the Second Covenant

  aris—(n.) harmony; see aridhol