Old Tongue Project

[Corvo the Crow]

I did a quick search but didn't find any thread like this.

 

We know little of the Old Tongue except a few words given to us, but we can improve upon our knowledge; a lot of the names we see are "corruptions" of names in our world, words from the old tongue would probably be the same. Through participation from people speaking different languages and some logic, I believe we can "learn" more about the old tongue.

Below are a few:

 

Garth: it means garden in old english; So the name of house gardener likely arised as a later translation into the common tongue after the andals came and they were possibly called as garths before that; we have similar examples in other houses, Durrandons coming from Durran Godssgrief, Casterlys coming from Corlos son of Caster, Lannisters coming from Lann the clever would be some good examples of houses taking the name of the founder.

suffix "-ly": It could denote belonging, two examples would be Manderlys, who gave the river Mander it's name (or maybe the other way around) and Casterlys.

suffix "-don" It possibly means son (of), house Durrandon come from Durran Godsgrief. This brings into my mind a question, was it Bran the builder who built the Wall and had a son Brandon? Or was it Brandon the builder, having also a son Brandon? If it is the second, would that mean Starks are a cadet of another house, house Brandon, forgotten to the world and history? The second option also brings another possibility, We know several structures built by Bran(don) the Builder, a seemingly impossible feat travelling all around westeros, building The Wall and Winterfell and Storm's End and maybe other buildings also. It would make it much more possible if it was a member of a now extinct house, House Brandon, building all these in a span of decades or even hundreds of years.

 

Weg: Giant? We know of two giants, Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun and Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg, called Mag the Mighty. Mag the Mighty is a chief of sorts to the Giants so could his name be just that,

Mag Mighty Chief To Giants?

Mar: According to wiktionary the word "Mar" has among it's meanings to crush (icelandic)  and to damage (english). So can we consider someone who crushes "Mighty"? or Maybe he is Mag (the) Crusher?

Wun: It likely means "one"; AWOIAF says Wun Wun is named after some football player wearing number 11. What would that make

 

Bottom edit: Some of the above got me thinking; We have some first men houses with names denoting a profession, such as fisher or Ironsmith and such and with  thought of Gardeners being Garths, coming from Garth Greenhand who is said to made the land bloom and the thought of several Brandons building the Wall and other buildings, is it possible that First men had a caste system of a sorts? Families would keep the same occupations over time, at least until some time they migrated to Westeros.

[Humble Maester]

I think the biggest issue you'd run into with your "Old Tongue" project would be that the language doesn't exist in any form. GRRM has never actually created the language (as he is no Tolkien in this aspect) so you could just pick a word and two in one place or another and hope GRRM pays attention that he uses them in a consistent manner. Or the language just will not be a consistent one.

Any suppositions derived from the language should be considered via the lens that GRRM gives us but I don't think they will have too much of significance for his work. He is not a linguist.

E: my language wasn't a consistent one.

[Vaedys Targaryen]

Rather off topic:

2 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

<snip>

Garth: it means garden in old english;

<snip>

Oh God, house Gardener was full of Moon Moons.