He mores than insinuated, we know these aren't names but epiteths of scorn the people used for these people and that the Forsaken adopted as names. They all have a meaning.

This comes from the tradition of the honorifics (which also have a meaning), no doubt. Instead of honorific titles, the people gave the Forsaken a scorn third name, eg Elan Morin Ishamael (that's probably how they refer to them when they wanted to identify who they were. Not "Ishamael, who was the philosopher Elan Morin Tenodrai once", but "Elan Morin Betrayer of Hope", and then just "Ishamael" after a while. The Forsaken turned that around and adopted those names of infamy as their only name, made them badges of honor. To the AOLers (and we see this enduring with the Seanchan), honorifics mattered a lot. That is why Shai'tan bothers to strip the dead Forsaken or their name and re christened them as he wishes. The gesture is meaningful to them (especially to Lanfear, who not only created her own scorn name and made it flattering, and who is the only one who's got a very insulting name now - though being named after a dagger can also be pejorative and implies you're the weapon/told whielded in the hand of someone else and moving as this Hand wishes. Shaidar Haran is the Hand the names refer too, obviously).



It's a little bit more complicated than that, I'm afraid. The grammar and rules for compound words are funky, and we just have enough examples to puzzle out rules exist, not what they are. It's not based on languages like English or French (some think he followed some rules of word formation from sanskrit, mixing it up with other grammar rules). We don't really know if lan is the word for daughter. The "stand alone" word to say daughter isn't necessarily the root word meaning daughter in compound words, it is probably la + something else, or something else + la (the "something else" being another root word, the one for person/human being, for instance. Let's say fictitiously it's "ay". Just "daughter" would be said ayla. Or the full word may be lana or lanna (quite a few WOT names end with that), the root form la (if there's only one, that is... lan may be a variant). If you form a compound with it, you use the root "la". If la is within the word, a "n" mark it's a root word and not a syllable, thus "lan-something". If it's the termination of the compound, the n is added between the previous syllable and "la", thus Sere-n-la. We know "la" is a root word for daughter, as we have two examples of its use. "n" is often used for the plural of words ending in "a" (Zomora/Zomoran - and it's probably formed of the roots zo and ora), but we don't know for sure the function of a letter like "n" in a compound like Lanfear, if it's part of the root or a marker. It may mark the possessive, but it rather seems to indicate "la" isn't a syllable in a word but a root word within the compound (the same way, I don't think mael means "hope" or "sam" means destroyer as such. I think "sa" is a prefix or root word with the general meaning of "to end", perhaps "to end voluntarily" or "to end with violence" and the "m" turns the prefix to noun "someone who ends something", or "a person or thing that ends something violently" I think the root word for "hope" is ael, not mael - and even the final "l" may not be part of the root, but transforming it, or marking a case). When a root word makes it impossible to aggregate to it a voiced marker like "n/m", the root words seems to be separated by an apostrophe in writing, and (in real languages) it often indicates a longer pause than usual between the two parts of the word.

You see there why there would be so many ways to translate the OT into the new: the root words/prefixes/suffixes often express more general concepts (there'd be a limited, if large, amount of those) rather than an individual, fixed meaning. In the OT, you could probably define anything by aggregating concept-words when the more common/usual vocabulary fell short. In short, it was really complex, subtle and creative.. and it formed patterns of meaning from threads/roots.

This is what the NT simplified: it doesn't form words from root words, or when it did it fixed the form. It has set in stone some AOL compounds to form a fixed vocabulary, gradually transforming these words(through pronounciation, through simplified spelling etc.) so the old root words are no longer recognizable, nor understood (an example would be Amyrlin, and in the fourth Age how the meaning of Tar Valon will get lost when the word Tar will be merged into Arvalon). So in the NT the words became more like words like European languages, and someone who knows can recognize latin or greek prefixes or an old concept word like "aqua"/waterin them, while the rest don't even know. The rules of compound words are longer understood by those speaking only the NT - and they go back to OT names for special things they don't really have a word for (like Asha'man - interesting this one, as Asha means guardian, and isha means its opposite: betrayer. The root word is thus "sha", with a positive vs. negative prefi. In the OT, sa-m-m-ael might possibly translated in such various ways as "crusher of wishes", "ender of dreams" or "destroyer of hope". It's hard to be sure, because a lot of concepts vary from one language to another, and words that are like synonyms in English aren't in a fairly close language like French - so wishes/dreams may have nothing to do with the concept of hope in the OT (fictitiously speaking, as RJ went nowhere as far as that in his language creation, except for a few words for which he mentionned the different possible meanings)

"h" appears to be another sound/marker you can use in some words to break root words. Semir/h/age, Ra/h/vin, Mog/h/edien (one would be the root for spider or even insect, and the other word qualifies the species. So Mog'kal could be "red spider" and "moghedien" is specifically a small venomous species of spider that hides to fall on its preys by surprise)

La/n/fear, Grae/n/dal, Dema/n/dred. Mesa/a/na (the double wovels and consonants are also a divider/marker of some sort, as in "Tuath'a'an" or Cal/l/andor.

Then, Sa/m/m/ael, Isha/m/ael, Balt/h/amel, Agi/n/or.

The language is fairly complex, for instance some of the root words can be abbreviated in some instances (miere avron becoming m'avron, and these perhaps are only allowed in poetry/versification, and there appears to be markers of emphasis too (that transform "dedicated" into "those who are dedicated", and "shadow falling" into "where the Shadow falls". Etc.

There are also subtelties, like the variations between Shadar/Shadow and Shaidar/Dark or Darkness (ai instead of a may denote an emphasis, eg: ael means hope, but aiel refers to someone who dedicates himself to turning hope/dreams into reality. "aiel" wouldn't be the root word for dedication, but mean dedicated only in this context ). The "root" Shai for dark is also present in Shai'tan (tan appears to be an hyperbole of some kind, in this context translating as Great Lord. My guess is that "tan" is indifferently "god", "creator", "the great lord", or quite possibly also "the source". xx'tan would be the True Source, the complete form of the root word would mean the Creator, honorifics may translate as "the source of the light"/"the great lord of the light", the "lightgiver" etc..)

Generally speaking, there appears to be not one set of rules to the OT, but several, that is there are several levels in the languages, far more complicated then the differences between Shakespeare and street slang. The rules and word formations aren't the same in everyday speech and poetry, for example, or to form proper names (where abbreviations of root words, or the use of more poetic forms of some words may be common). The names of the Forsaken may not all follow the "everyday speech" rules of the more casual words we know about (very few, except for those forming proper names for people, places, groups etc. actually).

I think that considering they're all formed by root words and we don't even know for sure how to spot them in words (and thus it's almost impossible to differentiate a meaningless syllable in a two syllable root word from a real root word), it's pretty much pointless to try to puzzle out the names of the Forsaken until we get the encyclopedia. RJ spoke of the possibility to include his OT grammar, compound rules and vocabulary of compounds, and I guess his list of established root words/suffixes/prefixes as well. Surely Harriet means to include that. He made up just a few hundred compounds, IRRC, made up the rest as he needed it.



There's not a whole lot. The names we can puzzle out are those RJ gave us. We would have had to guess "moridin" is death unless he told us, because we couldn't isolate the word in the Horn verse (and the lucky guess would have come up with Grave, not "death" - it's another example of concept word rather than words as we have them in English). Most likely, Moridin is the stand alone concept word for death, but it's not the root word for death in compound words. It may not mean grave literally either, in the sense that it can be used for burial ground, only when you use "the grave" figuratively for "death" in a poetic context.



Could also be the root concept word for anything sharp or that cuts. We don't really know what is a concept word and what isn't, and how basic or elaborate they are.

Actually, here's something new for you, you have it upside down: Aran'gar is the left-handed dagger and Osan'gar the right-handed dagger (I know this because the same prefixes are used for eastern/western in some place names).

The root words/prefixes are os and ar (al or ali in other words), not osan and aran. Os is the root word for right, but also for east, and ar is left/west.

Again, we can't say we know the words to say "the left" or "the east etc. - that's most likely more complex words starting with Os and Ar. We know two of their root forms in compound words (Ar and Al, or Ali, and Osan and Osen), not the words for the left and the right (wich is more likely longer words. If we know the words, my best guess best is that they appear in full in the place names, thus the word for "the left" is maybe Alin or Alind, and the word for "the right" is Osen or Osend. The words also mean east and west. North and South probably are the same word from in front and behind, or up or down). In the Aran'gar/Osan'gar compounds, the prefixes/roots probably means, or implies "held by" the left/right (hand, implied only). This may have something to do with the "a" or "an" termination of the prefix.