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Questioner

I heard you talk about the Vorin languages have a vowel shift. I'm a linguist so...

Brandon Sanderson

I'm kind of bad at vowel shifts, but it does have a vowel shift. You'll see Kalak being called Kelek, and some of these things like this. And I try to stay consistent with it, but I've also not been as rigorous with it as I maybe should be. Peter always points out little errors I've made. So it's a vowel shift that has some inconsistencies, how about that. But of course, real-world vowels shifts have it.

Questioner

You need to publish something only about the conlang.

Brandon Sanderson

Only about the linguistics? Yeah, having an assistant who has a degree in linguistics is really handy. Peter's been of very big use, particularly on Stormlight, because I didn't have him before those books. I just kind of had to muddle through it. And now I've got him. I'll call him up and say, "Pronounce this; pronounce this." There are lots of names in Stormlight that I can't pronounce that he can... The Arabic /q/ ...he can do, and I can't. Which we use a lot in some of the names over in Azir, and stuff like that.

SpaceCoreIsMyDad

One of the listener chapters mentions that the human language was easier to be understood because remnants of it were preserved in the listener songs. Does this mean there was human help in writing the listener songs? If so, who were these humans helping the listeners reject the forms of power?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow! What excellent questions! I hope to be able to show this in flashbacks eventually.

Questioner

We’ve been arguing about how to pronounce the character, either it’s “Say-zed” or “Sayzd”?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, that’s one of the most contentious name decisions that I’ve chosen. Before I tell you the answer, I will preface it by saying I don’t say the names right, in a lot of times. For instance I say “E-lawn-tris” like everyone else, but in world they say “Elayn-tris” because of the system of language that’s been built. I say “Kel-seer” and they say “Kel-see-ay,” in-world. And so I’m American and I use my pronunciations I say “Say-zed”.

However, that may not be the way they actually say it. And beyond that, every reader of a book has the ability to rewrite the book as they wish. A book doesn’t exist until you’ve read it. I write a script, I write- I get you hopefully seventy five percent of the way there but the last twenty-five percent is you, it’s participatory. And as you write, you create the images of them in your own imagination and that becomes the right interpretation for you. And you have line [inaudible] veto.

When I read Anne McCaffrey’s books the dragons are these unpronounceable things in my head that I could never actually because it’s just something a dragon can say. And it has very little relationship to the letters that are there on the page. I have a friend, who when he reads the Wheel of Time- the first time when Thom Merrilin shows up in the books, on screen, it says he has these big drooping moustaches. My friend said, “No he doesn’t.” And he cannot imagine Thom Merrilin with a moustache. To me, the moustache is an integral part of who Thom Merrilin is. It’s like him, he’s the moustached guy! Well, theres a couple other moustached guys but Thom’s the first moustached guy in the Wheel of Time! And so, you have the right to say it however you want.

Questioner

How do you come up with names that sound awesome?

Brandon Sanderson

It's harder than it sounds, no pun intended... If you wanna know how to name things, find the podcast where we answer that on Writing Excuses, we go into in depth, that'll help you out. But basically I'm looking for, like, lists of baby names from languages that I don't speak, and trying to play with those names until I find something that sounds good.

BlackYeti (paraphrased)

If an Awakener were born deaf, could they Command using sign language?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO. He initially said yes, but then couldn't remember if he changed it or not, so changed it to RAFO.

Questioner

Her name, Lift, is it literally like 'lift', the sound, or is it translated from Rosharan, like the word lift?

Brandon Sanderson

It is translated from Rosharan.

Questioner

Is it a nickname?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'll RAFO that. But that is actually, it's whatever in Rosharan...not in Rosh...in Reshi, whatever in Reshi...and Reshi is the Iriali language family, so...

Questioner

I teach at university, and I had to grade a paper about Way of Kings. It dealt with Colonial and post-colonial structures, religion, fashion, and language. Did you do that consciously or subconsciously, especially the colonization part?

Brandon Sanderson

It's very conscious, that part. The Alethi are in part, based on the Mongols, particularly when the Mongols invaded China, then became Chinese culture, which I find a very fascinating period in history, where the Mongols became a Chinese Dynasty, they actually also became an Arab dynasty over in the Near East. It was just this really interesting thing. So you've got colonialism before colonialism happening there. And I was very aware with the subtext of the Parshendi being a major theme of a people that didn't just enslaved a people, they enslaved them and took away their minds, that I couldn't shy away from dealing with these topics and these concepts. You see as the series progresses, it becomes-- You've got people like Kaladin who are essentially good people, but not understanding at all even their own biases, which is how we all are. These are things I want to deal with, because I find them interesting. They're important now, but it's, I think, important to how humans work and interact and see the world. Because I think this has been happening since the beginning of our history as human beings. And so it's something that is fascinating to me, and something that I think a lot of us wrestle with, and I wanted my characters to deal with that.

Nightfire

Also, is there a common reality/universe throughout all of you works (WoT excluded)? The gods and magic system of your books you have mentioned as pieces of a larger source. I know I am mistaking the language a bit; it was a while ago that I read this. But Preservation and Ruin were linked and you referenced possible deities in Elantris, not to mention Austre. I know your magic systems are all well thought out and the rules have practical founding. With this in mind, I assume your deities and beings of power would have universally applied links and rules as well. I figure they all exist in the same multi-verse.

Brandon Sanderson

I am remaining mostly closed-lipped on this topic, as I don't want to spoil the story and discovery. There is a lot of discussion about it on my website. I can confirm what I've said earlier, that there is a common character appearing in the books, and that there is a single cosmology to all of the Shardworlds and their books (Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, White Sand, Dragonsteel, The Silence Divine, etc. Those last three are unpublished, by the way.) There is also a connection between how the magic works in each book, as well as the fundamental metaphysics of the worlds.

jimmy0056

 I was just wondering are kelek and kalak the same person?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, indeed they are. A vowel shift happened in the language between the two time periods.

Questioner

So, kind of a support question... The nature of Investiture and metals, is it just solid Investiture that's metal or is all Investiture some kind of state of metal?

Brandon Sanderson

So this gets back into your idea of metal. Do they all represent metal? Well, I'm fascinated by states of matter, if you can't tell, and I'm fascinated by groupings on the periodic table in our world. I am fascinated by how certain things share... properties with one another but not other properties. When I was building the cosmere, I loved this idea of this pure Investiture, this solid state Investiture which looks like metal, but its not a metal that would be on our periodic table, and none of them are, but they share some properties with metals. You look at it and you're like "That's a metal!" But is it? Well it wouldn't go on the periodic table in our world. It's its own thing. 

So yes and no. 

Billy Todd

Is that similar to the way that a Rosharan calls all birds "Chickens"?

Brandon Sanderson

No, the way that Rosharans call all birds "chickens" or all alcohols "wines" is actually me maybe feeling more clever than I am, putting in seeds from book one that-- This just happens in linguistics, where certain words sometimes narrow in definitions, other times they broaden in definition. Just how we call Googling something, searching for it. There are people who are joking that movies are just going to be called Disneys in the future. I love the linguistics of this, and I wanted to indicate that the word for "bird" just spread through Roshar as "chicken" because those were the birds that they knew about. And wine was a pretty good one. There aren't grapes on Roshar, right. They call them "wine"; none of it's wine. You wouldn't call any of it wine. Because they don't have grapes. But this is a word from a planet from when they used to have grapes, that they used for this thing, that eventually replaced the word and became the generic. You see it more often in our languages the other way, Peter can talk more about this. Words will become more and more narrow over time.

life_b4_death

I would love to know how Mr. Sanderson comes up with such wonderful names.

Brandon Sanderson

I use a bunch of different methods. Some involve creating a language, or parts of it, and building names out of that. Usually, though, I'm looking in those for something with the right sounds. I'll usually "audition" a name for a while by trying it in a book and seeing how I like it.

I also look for certain linguistic markers that can signify a character's country of origin. Symmetrical names for some people from Alethkar, for example.

iBooks

Your book, Shadows of Self, just released today. What do you think will shock fans the most?

Brandon Sanderson

I have a feeling that the ending will be the most shocking part, followed closely by how magnificently Wayne butchers our language.

iBooks

No spoilers now! Why did you decide to focus on Waxillium Ladrian in this book?

Brandon Sanderson

Wax is the heart of these books, though it has been tough to get past his rough exterior. I wanted to really dig into who he is.

Questioner

You were saying that you had, somewhere in the Middle East, was it  English or were they reading it in...

Brandon Sanderson

Oh good question, were they reading it in English or Arabic? They were reading in English, they were reading the UK editions. So I don't know that I have-- Well, I know I have my books in Turkish but I don't think there are any actually in Arabic. There's some sister languages, but not Arabic.

Questioner

Are there any author's skills that you envy, besides Robert Jordan?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah! (laughter) No, there are. There are things that Pat Rothfuss does that I think are wonderful. Mostly, his poetry of language, that, I envy his ability to do that. Jim Butcher's ability to pace is just fantastic, and so, I look at him and say, wow, I want to have the ability to pace like that. You know, there are a lot of authors that write really good books that I look at and say, wow, I want to learn from that. And then you do, because that's what you do as a writer. You're like, I learned from this.

Kedatrecal

I was wondering if you could clarify how The Sleepless communicate between all the members of their horde and each other? They are described as buzzing, so are they relaying messages from hordeling to hordeling across huge distances or do they have so kind of more specialized telepathy?

Brandon Sanderson

It's mostly telepathic; hordeling buzzings are more like emotional punctuation, like body language in humans.

Brandon Sanderson

The other thing that was working for this character, that really made me interested in writing her story, was that she had a really failed Instagram. Not very good at it, thought she was better than she was. And I started putting little... she'll write out (you'll see one of them, when I get to it), she writes out what she calls Emma's Instructions. And these are just lists of things on how to live your life, that she writes out. The theory is, she's gonna post them on her blog.

So this character was really, really interesting to me. Particularly when I matched her up with the story I was working on, which is: the secretary to the Justice League has to save the world. So what it is is, Emma (I'm gonna read from the middle of the book, so I'll catch you up), she is an intern to a group called The Apocalypse Guard, which is basically a super hero team. They are not in the book. She is in the book, because they end up getting called away to do something, and through a kind of weird set of circumstances, she ends up on a planet that is doomed to be destroyed in a couple of weeks that they were planning to save. But they all have been called away to something else, and she's the only person from the Apocalypse Guard on the planet. She's the intern. And she's not very prepared for this, she does not speak the local language, it's kind of an apocalyptic wasteland that she's landed in. She's found a couple of people to be her guide, at this point, you'll see. But she has no idea what she's doing. And all she knows is that the planet's going to be destroyed in three weeks.

I actually did the worldbuilding on this based on some of the old-school concepts of the Flood. Where some of the old writer's believed, before Noah's Flood, all the water was in the sky, and you could see it up there, in the firmaments they called it, and then it came crashing down. And before that, some of the medieval theologians thought that there were no oceans until the water came crashing down. So I've always found that a really interesting image, so that's what's happening on this planet. She'll look up, and there's water in the sky. Big ocean in the sky... that is going to come crashing down in three weeks.

Questioner

Why do you have to make so many of your terms and names in your books so confusing? I'm going to be using Mistborn as an example: Feruchemy, Hemalurgy--

Brandon Sanderson

I think they're cool. Part of the answer is I look for the way languages are built. I try to do things in the way that it's going to feel natural but also foreign, and that is really tough. Like, it's going to feel alien, it comes from a different world, but it's natural to do and remember, and it is also based on the world.

If you think Mistborn is hard, read Elantris. All of those names are based on some linguistics that, I realized as I wrote the book, this is one is even tougher. So sometimes I'm looking for things that are more familiar and less strange, sometimes I'm looking for things that are more strange. At the end of the day it's just whatever I think sounds cool.

Cheese_Ninja

Did Kaladin say the words of the 2nd Ideal of the Windrunners in modern day Alethi or the ancient tongue that Dalinar uses in his visions?

Brandon Sanderson

He spoke them in his own language.

Questioner (paraphrased)

How do you come up with names?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He takes a culture then breaks down the linguistics of it and its kind of complicated but he uses the rules from one language, then breaks them and makes his own?

DrogaKrolow

OK, I’ve got a question about AonDor.

Brandon Sanderson

Ok.

DrogaKrolow

So it's a lot like functional programing.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

And my question is: could you write a higher-level language of programming with that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

Oh...

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm. But. Only an Elantrian could make it, like, work, right? Not compile but could execute the function. They would have to type it out and execute it. Like if you were just-- Even if you just gave it to them, they would have to retype it and go. But yes, you could.

DrogaKrolow

Couldn't you like-- Is there an Aon for define, definition? So like you could go and define some really long sequence of Aons and then assign it to a simple shape.

Brandon Sanderson

Right.

DrogaKrolow

Then draw the symbol, and would it work?

Brandon Sanderson

Right right, object-oriented. This is realistically plausible, you would have to write all this stuff and call the function and have this constantly in a state of kinetic Investiture. But that is reasonable. I mean it's not so far off from things they actually did with much fewer-- much fewer lines of code, if you wish, in the past. It's what Elantris itself was.

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'm entering a portion of my current book [Mistborn] where I have to devise a lot of names. Anyone want a Cameo? I could throw in something close to your name, or perhaps a version of one of your usernames, if you wish. Firstcomers get speaking parts.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, Lord Rian Strobe just got added to the book. He's even got a line! (He asks a young lady to dance.)

Brandon Sanderson

OutKast: Elariel is a good fantasy name--won't have any problems with that.

Tekiel: Can probably use that one straight-up, if you want.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, 'House Erikeller' just got mentioned as one of the major noble houses in the book. They probably won't have a big part, but they are weapons merchants, which I thought you might appreciate.

Gemm, I didn't so much as give you a character as base an entire cultural dialect off of your language patterns. They're a bunch of underground street punks who like to speak in a slang that (intentionally) confuses everyone else. There is a character in the book from that culture, though he's a few years younger than you.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, House Elariel and the Lady Stace Whiten just got cameos. House Elariel throws a party that some characters attend; Lady Whiten is a young woman that is supposedly one of characters' dates, but he ditches her. (Sorry. He's kind of like that.)

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, busy night.

First off, House Tekiel showed up in the book. In connection with that, I managed to work in House Geffenry and House Izenry.

My favorite for the night, however, is the appearance of Lord Charleir Entrone. He shows up only as a corpse, having been stabbed in the back while in a drunken stupor, but he has a reputation of being a twisted connoisseur of underground bloodfight gambling.

Questioner

How do you handle names, because it's like the hardest thing to do properly

Brandon Sanderson

So, easy mode is to pick a culture, a real world analog to your-- to one of your-- each culture in your book. Go get a list of baby names from that culture in our world. Play with those names. Don't steal them; play with them until you-- try to find something that works for you. That sounds right, and things like that. Hard mode is to come up with kind of some-- learn some linguistics, and build the names based on--

Questioner

From the ground up, kind of thing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, don't build the whole language, but kind of build sounds, the morphemes, this sort of stuff. And then build names around that.

Brandon Sanderson

Sazed and Tindwyl discuss the Deepness

When it says that "Sazed was the one who presented Tindwyl with the accumulated knowledge of the Keepers gathered while she was gone" that's a lot more involved than you might think. It included him reciting to Tindwyl hundreds of hours worth of information, the two of them sitting there, him speaking, her memorizing. It took them months, during which time they really got to know each other well. I think that's probably when he first started to have feelings for her.

I've worried about the romance between them, and not just because of Sazed's nature as a eunuch. Tindwyl isn't presented as the most sympathetic character in the series, yet Sazed is one of the most likable. I worry that readers won't be able to see to the depth of their affection for one another. I didn't originally intend to give Sazed a romance in this series, but when I was working through book two, I saw how many things it would help facilitate. You'll see what I mean later on.

By the way, you should recognize Tindwyl's line about making "occasional exceptions." That's virtually the same language she used with Elend when suggesting that it was okay for him to have a romance with Vin. That was the first hint I seeded that Tindwyl might have a soft spot for romance, and be willing to overlook some of her strict rules if love was involved. In truth, if Tindwyl were going to admit her real feelings to herself, she didn't come to the city for Elend. She came hoping–yet dreading–that she'd find Sazed there.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, so here's the thing. I want to write a sequel to ELANTRIS someday--or, at least, I want to leave myself open to the possibility.

The first book is named after the city of Elantris, where most of the action takes place. The sequel, set ten years after the first book, will take place in the capitol city of the prime antagonists in the series. For cohesion, this book should probably be named after that city.

So, here's the problem. Usually I have months and months to settle on a book title, and I'm usually pretty happy with what I get. However, I don't have an opportunity to write the book this time before I name it. I mention the city that will be the title of the next book several times in ELANTRIS. I have to make certain I really like this city name now, since I'll probably name a book after it sometime in the future.

So, I've been digging for ideas. The country the book will take place in is called 'Fjorden.' As you might guess from that name, the dialectical genre of the culture is a Scandinavian spin-off. (It's kind of a guttural Norse--Scandinavian with some harsh Germanic sounds thrown in.)

Other words in the language:

Hrathen, Dilaf, Arteth, Dakhor, Grondkest, Svorden

I need a name for the new city that would work well as a book title (i.e., it needs to be fairly easy to pronounce, and needs to sound cool) but that still fits with the linguistic style of the region.

Here are some I've come up with so far. What do you think of these? Which is your favorite? Which don't you like?

Zinareth, Widor, Velding, Klynair, Valinrath, Skaln, Vallensha, Vallinor

Brandon Sanderson

The original (in-text) name of the city was 'Widor.' Back then, however, I wasn't thinking of a sequel.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Nine

Dinosaurs

I’d like to be able to tell you where this came from, why I put it in the book, but . . . well, I have no idea. Remember, this book was–in essence–a long free write. I didn’t have much of an outline, setting, or anything else in mind. When I got to this point in the book, I thought, “Hey, talking dinosaurs. Let’s put those in.” So I did.

I enjoyed them, however, and had a lot of fun using them. They show up later in the plot–if I add something to a book, even in a free write, I don’t want it to be random. Things exist in stories for a reason, even if that reason is to give a deeper explanation of where the English language came from.

Questioner

On that note, in Secret History, Kelsier's reading the symbols. Does he not-- I mean he is able to understand them...

Brandon Sanderson

Right, right. So, if you go look really closely at what happens with Kelsier before he's able to start reading the symbols and understand the language, you can relate it to things in the cosmere that I've talked about before for how he's able to do that.

Questioner

I also had a question about Sazed. When you were writing him as a character. So, I noticed he says "I think" a lot, which is a very Japanese thing to do.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. So, I've used this before; Galladon does it too, "kolo." A lot of Earth languages do it. Japanese is one, Korean does it. And it is one of these things-- we don't do it the same way in English. "You know?" But it is one of those things, and it is a cultural thing from the Terris people, and should be a tick that will help you pick out people who have been socialized like Terris people.

Wish Brown

How often do you wish you could go back and change something in one of your published works? Even something as small as a piece of dialogue or the name of a character or place?

Brandon Sanderson

I go back and forth on this. At the end of the day, I've kind of settled on "I'm fine not changing things." We do change things; every time we do an update for, like, a leatherbound or something, there are little continuity things we are going to tweak here and there, and I've talked about them kind of at length on stream. Way of Kings, we cut out a few of the references where I had made metaphors to things that characters in-world just wouldn't make metaphors to, because I had not written in Roshar long enough to really settle into how to use the language right for them. So that sort of stuff.

Large-scale changes, though, I've kind of decided that the books have to remain a snapshot of who I was when I wrote them and not become a continual work in progress, constantly having fundamental style and narrative changes. The artist in me wants to. Totally wants to. Wishes that that were normal for books. But the fans need to be able to rely on... if they've got a first edition copy of Way of Kings, that things are not going to fundamentally change between editions. A line here or there might get tweaked to work better or to fix continuity errors, but it's still gonna be the same book. And I kind of just have to accept that as an artist. Creating this large-scale thing that is the Cosmere, there's gotta be both give and take here. The give from me is: acknowledging some of the earlier books will end up being the weakest as I get better as a writer and as I understand what to do with the Cosmere. But the take is that I can kind of continue to give context to those earlier books by developing the rest of the Cosmere in interesting ways.

Ethan

What's the word for Lift's name in her language?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't know the actual word. I haven't written it down. I am translating the meaning of her name. They're not saying "Lift." It means "to elevate or raise up."

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fifteen

When I teach writing, one of my major educational philosophies is that an author must understand his or her strengths. If you do something well, play to that strength. Write books that show off what you can do. This isn't a reason to ignore, or to not work on, your weaknesses. However, like the opportunity cost laws of economics, the more time you spend on your strengths, the greater rewards you're going to receive. That translates to better books, a better chance of publication, and better sales.

Every writer is different. We can't all do everything perfectly. As a writer, one of the things that I don't do is beautiful prose. I don't think my prose is bad, but it is somewhat utilitarian. Some authors, like Orson Scott Card, can turn this minimalism into a strength itself. I'm not there yet–I still write with a more flamboyant style, I'm just not a brilliant prose craftsman like Gene Wolfe or Ursula LeGuin. I think I do other things, however, that are better than those two can manage.

Anyway, despite that acknowledgement, I occasionally write a paragraph that I just think is beautiful. The first paragraph of chapter fifteen is probably my favorite descriptive paragraph in the book. I love the imagery and language of it. Perhaps others will see it as trite–I had to end up changing the first line of the prologue, after all, which I also thought was beautiful. However, one of the nice thing about being published is that I can look at this paragraph in a bound hardcover and say, "I did that."

Questioner (paraphrased)

[Brandon] said in the lecture that he took a programming course in college. He was asked if we will ever see a programming language as a magic system?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

We already have. Reread Elantris.

Questioner [Alternate wording from stormfather's report] (paraphrased)

He's taken programming classes, and someone wanted to know if he'll apply that knowledge into magic systems.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, see: Elantris.

GyozaGuy

Allik Neverfar has those medallions that let him to talk to people in their language, but he has an accent because it knows his parents aren't from that area. So I'm wondering, if he and his parents are both using those in a foreign land, does he no longer have an accent and his parents would?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say that they would both still have an accent. 

GyozaGuy

So it's not connected--

Brandon Sanderson

It's connecting to the soul of his parents and it's kinda picking that out. There are ways around that. If you are really good with the way Connection works and things like that. Obviously you've seen Hoid speaking without an accent all over the place. The medallions are kind of a crude, early version of doing that sort of thing, not really in control of the magic more, and so I wanted to build in some little indications that things are not quite as fluid as they will someday get.

GyozaGuy

So it's more of a hack and not a rewrite of the Connection.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, exactly.

Bluebar

It's not a direct link from them to the Investiture.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. If you find someone who's using the magic themselves, you'll see that they-- like Dalinar didn't have, the people who spoke with Dalinar didn't have accents when he was using the same sort of Connection magic to give them linguistics and things like that.

Pygmalion

......wooooooooooooooah......

I still can't stop thinking that in my head. It's all that's really coming to mind at the moment.

I made the stupid mistake of finishing the book this afternoon in a public place. Therefore I looked like a complete moron as I burst into tears when Elend died. I think it was a good ending. I'm still not totally decided on that. I'm just in shock.

It's just so amazing how the books progressed, developing into this huge cosmic epic that I never expected from just reading The Final Empire a year ago. I guess in some sense what I'm feeling is a slight sense of... awe, maybe? I want to know how he comes up with stuff. I mean seriously, talk about not just writing another fantasy series.

But I'm also shocked that no one else seemed to have figured out that Sazed was the Hero of Ages. I thought it might be him when I started the book, but it could as easily have been Vin or Elend. But at about a third of the way through, page 215 to be exact, there was this line from Sazed thinking in his head:

"I am, unforunately, in charge."

Sound familiar?

"I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages."

No one else would have used the same wording as Sazed did when he was thinking to himself. I have to assume that was intentional on Brandon's part. It was very subtle... I'm actually surprised I noticed.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gratified that you noticed. The Terris dialect IS very subtle. That speech pattern is one hint, the other is the use of "I think" to soften phrases at the ending. Beyond that, Sazed speaks with compound, complex sentences using frequent hedging to indicate that he's often uncertain. (That's another Terris speech pattern, not wanting to offend with language.)

The epigraphs in this book particularly (though I did it for Kwaan too) are intended to "sound" Terris, and like Sazed in particular. I didn't think anyone would catch it. You made my day!

Tyran Amiros

Why does Bastille say they're speaking Melerandian in book 1 and Nalhallan from book 2 on?

Brandon Sanderson

When I originally wrote Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians, I put that in there partially as a throwaway joke. Melerand is one of the main kingdoms in Dragonsteel, and I thought it would be amusing for them to be speaking that language somehow filtered into this world. By the end of the book I decided that Alcatraz could not be anywhere in the same continuity as Dragonsteel and that I was probably wrong for including that. Though there are other jokes in there relating to my other books—it's much like the scene where Quentin speaks in Spook's dialect. Those were just jokes, inside references to my other books.

Remember that Alcatraz was written as a writing experiment, not as something that I was intending to publish. As the series grew more serious to me, meaning that I developed what I actually wanted to happen—which with me usually happens as I write book two of a series, when I sit down and build an arc for the entire series—I "realified" Alcatraz's world a little bit, if that makes sense, made it its own substantial thing. So at that point it wasn't appropriate for them to be speaking Melerandian anymore.

mcase19

Are all cosmere languages derived from Yolish (like French and Spanish are to Latin) or did the Shards create them on their own?

Brandon Sanderson

Some peoples other than those on Yolen predate the Shattering of Adonalsium, remember. So no. But many others do share a common root.

Questioner

Is there any meaning behind the name "Adonalsium", that we could know in the moment or find out?

Brandon Sanderson

Other than the fact that I look to real world languages for inspirations in order to evoke the right feelings... If we technically go into how these names were in the cosmere, they may not actually be those names. I'm picking names that evoke the right things to people in our world.

Hairu_Caul

The problems of transporting investiture reminded me of asymptotic freedom a lot, is an analog of that at work in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

I'd say yes, but with fair warning that I am not an expert on quantum mechanics.

manugutito

Regarding this, I remember asking a question a while back about a chapter's annotation of two ardents measuring some flamespren's sizes, where sizes are fixed once measured (like real-life projective measurements in quantum mechanics). And then the annotation with Navani stating that flamespren are trapped and then the gem divided and used for conjoined fabrials, which sounds a lot like entanglement and/or cat states. So I'd say you may not be an expert but you sure know enough to at least make this a fun read for a physicist!

Brandon Sanderson

I've joked before that the way I treat Quantum mechanics in some of these spren relationships is the way that people THINK quantum mechanics work. But I did use some intentional entanglement language in the explanation I think you're referencing. (If it's the place where she's explaining something similar to the famous two marbles in a bag thought experiment for explaining entanglement.)

Brandon Sanderson

Sazed's Speech Patterns

Sazed thinks here, I am, unfortunately, in charge. Look back at the very first epigraph of the book. Notice a similarity? All of the epigraphs in this novel use Sazed's distinct language style. They sound so much like how he talks that I thought, at first, that it would be blatantly obvious from the first few chapters. Fortunately for me, most people don't pay that much conscious attention to how characters speak.

Questioner

The Horneater names are very similar to Polynesian names...

Brandon Sanderson

That is the direct inspiration. I love how Polynesian languages sound, and it's something I've been wanting to use for years.

Shuaroo

Have I gone crazy or did he misspell Kal's mom's name twice [in the Stormlight Four preview chapter]? It's Hesina, is it not? But its listed as Hessica twice.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I always write her name the way it was in 1.0 of the first book, not the place one I changed it (to be more in line with Alethi naming conventions.) So Karen or Peter always have to go through and change it several times for me.

At least I've stopped writing tin as silver these days. Whatever I do in the first draft tends to get embedded into my muscle memory as far as names.

Sharuu

Ha! I figured it was something like that, but started getting paranoid that I completely misremembered anyway. Besides, I imagine that, especially writing at the speed you do, it's easy to overlook the smaller details.

Brandon Sanderson

It's also something about the way my brain works. I still have trouble writing Galladon instead of Galarion, which was his original name. Often, near the end of a book, I'm making tweaks to get the languages and naming more consistent--and some names just don't fit any longer. But my brain rarely wants to accept the changes. (Notably, though, I took easily to Kaladin--who was originally named something else, but a name I never really liked.)

Protaokper

Huh! Sorry if you’ve answered this before, but what was Kaladin’s original name?

Brandon Sanderson

Merin. I know. In my defense, it fit the linguistics at the time.

Questioner

Can you give me a hint on the Easter egg in the map of Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh boy, hint of the Easter egg.

Questioner

What particular skill do you need for it? Is it a different language?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it is not linguistics.

Questioner

Is it math related, like with stormwardens and how they study the..

Brandon Sanderson

It is math related, but once again, let me remind you. This is not going to be a mind blowing revelation. It is going to be a nifty thing. Someone actually got close at one of my signings and when they asked about it they noticed something. It is a fun Easter egg that will tell you more about the history of the world.

JoyBlu

Szeth, when he writes when Gavilar dies, what language was that written in?

Brandon Sanderson

That was written in Alethi.

JoyBlu

Where did Szeth learn Alethi?

Brandon Sanderson

He has been living among them for a long time, and Alethi was also part of his training.

Gamerati

What's going on with the "diya, tiya, niya, siya" at the bottom [of a prototype Steel Alphabet chart] there?

Isaac Stewart

This was based originally, the sounds, and we kind of diverted from this direction... So, I was a missionary in the Philippines, and I speak Tagalog, and I was really interested in the way that old Tagalog has this symbol system, where they would put marks in different places, depending on which vowels and things. So those are Tagalog sounds right there, that they use in their language, and I just threw those in there as extra letters. I didn't know what we were gonna do yet.

The "diya" actually is a "J" sound. Tiya is a "CH" sound. "Ñ," we find that in Spanish, we find that in Tagalog. And then "Sh." But we didn't really go down that path completely. That was more experimentation. You can see here there's a letter "NG," which is another very common letter in Tagalog.

Questioner

How do you come up with all these names?

Brandon Sanderson

I do the language first and then I build names that fit. There’s no science to it, just instinct.

usuyami

Are there any languages with clicks anywhere in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, though I'm loathe to use them in text because of how people roll their eyes at fantasy novels that try to be too cute with non-standard (meaning non western Earth) symbols in naming.

Questioner

My question is for both of you: regarding the translation process, is word-for-word translation more important or do you go with the feeling and how much communication is done with Brandon during the process?

Translator

When I was at university, I had two lecturers. One said: "The original is sacred. You mustn't do anything too original. It's so important, you have to remember/take everything." and the other when I went fifteen minutes later to another class it was "Oh dear. It should read well. Forget the original, it should read well". So I think I found a kind of balance between those two stances.

Brandon Sanderson

And I always tell translators to err on the side of reading well rather than preserving the exact words. Particularly because, some of the languages we're translating into, you can't preserve exact words.

When Anna wrote to us I sent her to my assistant Peter, who is an editor and continuity editor and I let him interface with all of the translators because I would probably just ask him anyway to look the details up in our wiki. We do occasionally have to answer new questions, though, because for instance -- as Anna pointed out to me -- Polish has a lot of gendered words that aren't gendered in English and sometimes I'd use a phrase and would have to say whether this person was male or female.

Badloss

I love, love Brandon Sanderson but I feel like every time he needs a "magic word" he just takes two regular words and jams them together.

Dreamshard, Shardblade, Shardplate, Lightweaving, Mistborn, Coinshot, Pewterarm, Coppercloud, Surgebinder, Soulcaster, etc etc etc

Sorry u/Mistborn I still love you

Brandon Sanderson

It's done intentionally. Let's look at our options.

I can create all-out fantasy words for terms like this. (Lait or crem from Stormlight are examples.) Problem is, the more you do this, the more you pile a difficult linguistics on top of a reader. The more words like this they have to learn, the more difficult it is to get into a story. If you were doing it, perhaps you'd go this direction. I feel that overloading on these terms is dangerous. Already, the main reason new readers put down my books is that they feel overwhelmed by the worldbuilding.

So we have the second option. Use a latin, germatic, or greek root and create a word that FEELS right, has some mental connection for the reader, but which isn't a real word. Allomancy/Feruchemy/Hemalurgy. Veristitalian. To a lesser extent, Elantris.

This so called "Harry Potter Spells" method gives some familiarity to the naming, makes them stick a little better in people's heads, which makes the books a little easier to get into. But they're also distracting to some readers who say, "Wait. There's no Latin in this world, so where did Latin root words come from?" And for others (particularly in translation) those roots mean nothing, and so these all end up lumped into the first group.

The final method is the pure Germanic method--creating compound words. It works in English very well because of our Germanic roots--and is one of the main ways (other than turning nouns into verbs or the other direction) that we create new words. Supermarket. Masterpiece. Newspaper. Thunderstorm. Footprint. Firework. Heartbeat. Yourself. None of those look odd to you because they are words that are "meant" to go together in your head.

I use some of batch one, some of batch two, but I do favor batch three--it does what I want it to. Works in the language, has an "otherworld" feel but is also very quickly understood by someone new to the series. There are arguments for all three methods, however.

Phantine

You can also just go the route of using an English word despite it clearly not being accurate.

"He tied a ribbon around his horse's third antennae, and patted its chitinous flank."

Brandon Sanderson

Agreed. Re-contextualizing English words can work too--I find it particularly useful to do what I mentioned above. Take a verb and make it a noun or vice versa. Or use a verb in a way that you normally don't. (Awakeners or Lashings are examples from my work, though Spice from Dune is one of the grand-daddy examples of this. As it is for a lot of fantastical linguistics.)

Brainless

Is the Cognitive Realm on other planets called Shadesmar?

Brandon Sanderson

For simplicity's sake in translation, for the most part, we are going to use the word Shadesmar, acknowledging that in some of the languages it may be a different word. But the cosmere standard used in Silverlight and things is Shadesmar. That's just for ease of talking about it but the scholars in Silverlight they use the actual word Shadesmar. I'm going to force Eric to do some heavy lifting for me on some other things like this.

Chaos

<Expresses that not everyone will be pleased about this WoB>

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah I suspect that as I move into Era 4, Cognitive Realm might start replacing it, the more scientific term, but Shadesmar is the colloquial term. 

Questioner

I don’t know if this question will come out right...is there a difference between being an author that works for Tor and an author that Tor works for?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Most authors, you'll find, are actually independent businesspeople who license their books to a publisher for various languages, and so I don't actually work for Tor. Now, Tor and I get along really well, and they've done very well by me, but I've also done very well by them, and so we have a very good working relationship. But actually I, as a businessperson, license them the books, and that means that I control all the characters, they can't insert or change anything without my approval—they can't even change commas without my approval—and that's the way it goes for most people. Now, everything outside the cover I have is theirs, their packaging, so that's why authors don't get a lot of say in cover and things, because the marketing copy on the cover, the picture and stuff, that's the publisher's. They license the works. So, there is a difference. There are some authors who will do a work-for-hire sort of thing, like I did with the Wheel of Time. I work for Harriet on the Wheel of Time. I am employed by her. It's a very good contract—I mean, she was very awesome to me—but at the end of the day, I am an employee working for her, a contractor working for her, and in that case, it's a different sort of business relationship.

Questioner

I’m a bit of a music nerd. I would love to know if Alethi music is based on any real-world music theory? And if so, which culture?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I was going basically into Middle Eastern music, because that’s one of the basic touchpoints, particularly, for their writing system and their language and things like this. But I tried playing around with different music theory and scales (and I never had a music theory class, despite playing trumpet for years), and I talked to my writing group about my ideas, and they’re like, “That doesn’t work, Brandon. Just don’t do that.” So I didn’t end up putting it into the book, I ended up tweaking it quite a bit. But that is where the roots would be.