Azor Ahai, Shierak Qiya, and other things I learned from the Arabic Dictionary

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

So I read Frank Herbert's Dune for the first time a few months ago, and he uses many Arabic words in the text so I finally got an Arabic-English Dictionary to look up the words.  The best English phonetic one I could find is Steingass A Learner's Arabic English Dictionary, if you feel like looking up some of these references.  And while looking up Dune references I found a number of words that Geroge used for ASoIaF.

 

Shierak Qiya comes from the word śarqiyy (sounds like "sharqiya") and śarik ("sharik") and śariqa  and and their variants which mean "rising sun, dawn, red, eastern, oriental" and "to split in two"  and "to scintillate, to emit sparks" (pg 538-540) *

Shierak Qiya literally means "Dawn" and to "redden".  The Bleeding Star/the Red Comet is Dawn, and Dawn is the Red Sword of Heroes, Lightbringer.  And the Azor myth centers around a sword breaking, and saraq means "to split in two" and comets are made of ice and the Stark family sword is Ice and it is split into two red swords. 

 

Azsar which means "red" (on the same page as sariq)

Ashar  means "dawn" "first light of the morning" (pg 483 under sahr)        azor ~ ashar,

Asar means "to forge a sword" (pg 8)

The best I can come up with for Ahai in Arabic is laha / lahi  which means "serpent, God" and Red Serpent is a fitting name for the Red Comet.  In Hindi asur ahi  means "demon snake"

aś'ar means "hairy" and word comet comes from "hairy star" in Greek

azar means Lazarus, which is someone who comes back from the dead.

Which all supports the theory that the story of Azor Ahai is a mythologized account of how the Red Comet ended the Long Night, by knocking the Second Moon out of Eclipse alignment.

 

The prophecy of Azor Ahai says that he will be born amidst salt and smoke under the bleeding star.

The Bleeding Star is The Red Comet/Dawn and the Dayne sigil is a depiction of the Red Comet and Ashara  means "dawn" and check this out

 

amid / amud means "dawn" and "pedigree" (pg 728) [achau dwyn means "to trace a pedigree" in Welsh]

asjar means "salt" is directly above asar  / asara  (pg 694) which means "to be hard" and "to have a difficult childbirth"  and on the next few pages there are a bunch of asar words, and asar means "to be pregnant in the tenth month" that is, to carry a baby well past its due date.

and on the same page as asjar, there are two words right next to each other that mean "night-watchman" and "wolf" which are synonyms in Arabic, ass and as'as  (pg 693)

dahn means "smoke" (pg 357 and dahn means "anointed" and "to have little milk" (pg 376) and the Dayne's have lactation problems, and Jon needed a wet nurse Wylla which Ned Dayne also used.  adarr means "yielding abundant milk"

 

Jon is a night-watchman and a wolf, and he was born under the Dayne sigil, to Ashara Dayne, asjar dahn, salt and smoke.   It is a mistranslation.

 

Davos goes to White Harbor in a boat called the Merry Midwife, aśar  means "merry" and walad  means "midwife".  Asar means "prisoner" and sara means "refuge, to protect" and walad means "birth, son" and wilad means "birth, and confinement" and willas means "wolf" and sarah means "wolf" and is in the same entry as as-sirhan  "first light of dawn" And Jon was born at the Wolf's Den.

 

*and śirak means "fellowship, companions" and I think the Last Hero and his companions is a reference to this [and in LoTR the Fellowship comes back to the Shire to find Sharky /Saruman has destroyed the Shire]

 

[Sandy Clegg]

Nice.

Whenever people discuss 'what question they would ask George if they had the chance', I always think: never mind that. Just give me a sneak peek at the pile of reference books he keeps by the side of his word processor. That's where the gold is!

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

This isn't Arabic, but I have posted previously that I think Ashara is the Sloe Eyed Maid, and I have been collecting dictionary entries for "Sloe-Eyed" that define it as having blue-black/ purple eyes.

I just found a totally different one last week in Bartlett's Thesaurus that gives sloe-eyed as "black-haired"

Ashara has black hair and purple eyes.  Ashara is the Sloe-Eyed Maid.

 

Also I found something about the origin of the name Dayne, in the Oxford English Dictionary (1888) the word deign means "to deem worthy" one of the alternate spellings is Dayne. 

And their sword Dawn is only handed down to a Dayne who is deemed worthy of it.  You have to earn it, its isn't just given to you by hereditary right.  Which is the main theme of several of George's works, that is the main plot of Windhaven.

Edited January 22 by Fun Guy from Yuggoth

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Nisa nisa

 

In Hindi nisa means "night" and nisa nisa means "unending night"

I think Nisa Nisa is the Stranger, the god of death, Yuggoth, which is the Second Moon that causes a planet-wide eclipse during the Long Night.  And Azor first weds her, then impales her with his Red Comet

[ I listened to Jules Vernes From the Earth to the Moon and its sequel recently, and several times he refers to the moon as "the Queen of the Night" the second moon is the Night's Queen.]

 

In Arabic

niza / nazi  means "stranger, Satan, foreigner" and "taking away, destroying" and "agony" and "death-struggle" (pg 1092, 1112, 1113, 1115)

[and the Stranger is a Wanderer from far places with a black face and stars for eyes, and the Others are blue-eyed army of ice demons who can only come out and invade under the Black Sun, which is Nazi imagery]

nasr means "to raise the dead"  (pg 1119-1120)

nuzur / nizar means "spectre, phantom"

nazuh means "distant, far" (pg 1115)

nasa means "to hover overhead" (pg 1120)

niza means "covering" (pg 1112)

nazah means "to cause to disappear" "to efface" (pg 1116)

nuzul means "arrival, cold, befalling of calamities" (pg 1115)

nizah / nazah means "to be retired from the world, to be far from home, depart and disappear" (pg 1113)

nasnas / nassas means "devoid of vegetation" (pg 1121) [like Yuggoth the black planet]

nisnisa / nasnas means "to boil, bubble" and "to drive away, chase away" [Yuggoth is described as a cauldron a hollow vessel, gwth / goth / otho means "goat, and to impel, to push"]

nisa  means "woman" (pg 1115)

nasas  means "to pierce" (pg 1120)

naza means "to cover the female" that is, to have sex with a female, so "give her the sword" (pg 1115)

 

 

 

Bonus, several words that sound like Nazi also mean high tower, reclusive, and projecting, and that is where the plot for Phillip K. Dick's the Man in the High Castle came from. 

 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

gafr / gafar  means "goat" in Welsh and Gaelic

gauaf  means "winter" in Welsh

jaf means "hollow" in Arabic

jafa  means "tyranny, cruelty,  oppresssion" in Arabic

And the Black Goat is a hollow planet that causes an unending winter on Earth during the Year of the Black Goat when it eclipses the sun.

In Arabic atyas means "goat" and atyah means "wandering" and the Black Goat is a Wandering black planet.

 

Beelzebub means "Lord of the Flies" in Arabic, baal means "lord" and zubab means "flies, bees" and this is where the plots for the Colour out of Space and The Whisperer in Darkness partially come from.  And for Lovecraft Beelzebub is the Black Goat.

zabb / zabab is directly above zabub and it means "to lose color, to become dry, emaciated" and "to repel" [and goth / gwth / goat means "to impel, to repel"]

zabub also means "purple" and the Colour out of Space is a strange color of purple that is an invisible vampire that arrives in a meteor and sucks the life out of everything it comes in contact with and makes them turn grey and emaciated.

zabzab means "to sacrifice"

zabh means "slaughtering" and "mushroom" and zibha means "hoarseness in the throat" and zibl means "shell"

In the Whisperer in Darkness, the crabs are mushrooms that came from Yuggoth, the fungi from Yuggoth, and the Whisperer himself is Nyarlathotep wearing Akeley's human skin suit pretending to be Akeley.

 

zabb means "shaggy, hairy" and the Black Goat is a shaggy black goat

and zabani means "satellite, guardian of hell" and "pincers"  and the Fungi from Yuggoth come from a satellite, and they have pincers.

zabab means "messenger" and "blind" and "mole" and the Fungi from Yuggoth live in tunnels underground, and cannot tolerate light, and Nyarlathotep is called Mighty Messenger.

 

 

 

In Lovecraft's The Other Gods, Yuggoth passes so close to Earth that its gravitational pull lifts the sage Barzai the Wise off of a mountain top, and it causes a "strange eclipse" of the moon,

barzah means "abyss, tomb" in Arabic and the name Yuggoth comes from the Gaelic uaigh / eug  "tomb, death", and barziyy means "venerable, intelligent" and barza means "mountain summit"

Edited January 22 by Fun Guy from Yuggoth

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Also not related to Arabic, but I found out were the name Weirwood came from.  I recently read the 4th book of Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, Rhialto the Marvelous, and on the first page he mentions the wizard Rhialto lives next to the Were Wood forest.  Which is a haunted forest where a powerful time-traveling witch has taken up residence.

And the plot of the first part of the book involves a time-traveling bird-man who has come to Rhialto's time to fight the witch.  And much of the later book involves time-travel as well.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

On the subject of using comets as weapons, I recently read an obscure book called Chamiel, which is an alternate version of Lucifer's rebellion against god and being cast out of heaven.  Lucifer uses comets as weapons, that he shoots at the angels and the army of god.  And in the story heaven is a 2D plane that orbits the Earth, and when Lucifer is defeated the angels push him over the edge and he falls to Earth as a comet.

Then later Chamiel looks over the edge of heaven and can see Earth below and he thinks "I saw the Earth spinning and the slow fogs which encircled it.  And from time to time I saw beams of light pierce the fog and reach towards the Kingdom."

Lucifer is on Earth, and he is launching comets from the surface of the Earth to hit Heaven/ the Other World, he is trying to destroy the Otherworld by hitting it with a Lightbringer comet.  Which is exactly what I think George has been planning for ASoIaF.

 

In Welsh chwydawyr ["chwood-awyr"] means "star-shot, star jelly" and "ejected matter" and "vomited" and sgeith "shoggoth" means "vomit, star jelly" in Gaelic.  And Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space is about a meteor that brings a shoggoth to Earth, and it feeds itself and is vomited back into space.  But a part of it remains on Earth which has attached itself to tree roots and grows an inch every year.

dwyre means "dawn" and "bursting to light" and "to rise to view"

awyr means "aerial"

 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I forgot one of the best Nisa Nisa words.

nusuz  means "brutal treatment on the part of the husband, violation of matrimonial duties" (pg 1122) and it is on the same page as nasnas. 

nisa  means "woman" (pg 1115)

nasas  means "to pierce" (pg 1120)

That combined with Asar meaning "to forge a sword" and Azsar meaning "red" and Ashar meaning "dawn"

It has the entire plot of Azor Ahai and Nisa Nisa. 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Finally going to go into some Dune references, spoilers if you haven't read it or seen the movies.

Paul Atreides is a messiah figure, whose birth was prophesied thousands of years in advance.  He is the result of a secret breeding program by the Bene Gesserit witches to produce as space Jesus to compete with the spacing guild which controls all space travel.

Paul is called muad'dib  and mu'addib means "teacher" in Arabic (pg 1082)

but check this out

mau'ud  means "promised, predicted, pre-ordained" (1084)  and ibn means "son"  

 

mau'id ibn  is "the Son that was Promised" or since he is born of a royal family and deposes the Emperor, he is the Prince that Was Promised.  And the Kwitsatz was predicted thousands of years in advance.

In ASoIaF the messiah is called "the Prince that was Promised"

 

Paul Atreides takes control of army of elite soldiers with totally blue eyes, that live in a wasteland, that hide during the day and only come out at night, and they break through a Shield Wall and invade and Paul reclaims his castle and defeats the Emperor. 

Jon Snow takes control of an army of White Walkers with totally blue eyes, that live in a wasteland, that can only come out at night, they break through the Wall and invade and Jon reclaims his castle and defeats  . . . who?

 

ma'ad  means "resurrection, return, Other World" (1021) and muad'dib dies and is resurrected.  Jon dies and will be resurrected when the Other World is in the sky.

mu'adil  means "to restore equilibrium" (1021) [which is probably where George Lucas got his plot from since he ripped off] and the idea of balance between Ice and Fire is closely related.

They call Paul mahdi  and that means "guide" in Arabic.  Elessar is one of Aragorn's names and a word in Gaelic that sounds like Elessar means "guide, one who shows the way"  eolgaiseoir

 

 

arakah  means "deserted" in Hebrew

Bene Gesserit   beneh  means "build" geesher  means "bridge" in Hebrew

And their messiah is the Kwisatz Haderach 

kfeetsat  means "shortcut" and heetarekh  means "to grow longer" in Hebrew, which is almost synonymous with "bridge builder"  (palantir  means the same thing in Hindi "near" + "far") 

Which is fitting if they wanted to breed him to compete with the spacing guild

 

I think the name Atreides is a King Arthur/Aragorn reference also, as Paul is a messianic figure who unites a people.  The Atreides house sigil is a Red Hawk, and Arraig gorn means "flaming hawk" in Gaelic and it is a phoenix reference, as King Arthur was born under a Red Dragon comet in the sky.  King Arthur dies and is reborn.  The Dunedain bloodline was thought extinct but Aragorn revives it.  The Atreides bloodline is thought to be wiped out, but Paul revives it.  Paul Atreides dies and is reborn when he becomes Kwitsatz Haderach when he drinks the worm jice.  Jon Snow is the Paul Atreides of ASoIaF and he dies and will be reborn.

 

In the 1984 Dune movie it is suggested that Paul could turn the desert into an oasis by destroying the second moon of Arrakis.  At one point they are saying there is not enough water on the planet and it quickly cuts to a view of the ice blue moon, with the implication that it is made of mostly water, and if they destroyed the moon it would all rain down on Arrakis.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Weirwoods and Sandworms

Paul gets his third eye opened by drinking a psychedelic juice that is extracted from the sand worm, and he becomes the Kwisatz Haderak that can see into the future and explore all time and space in his mind.  Bran drinks a psychedelic juice extracted from weirwood, and he becomes the Greenseer that can see into the future and explore all time and space through the network.

Paul's private name among the Fremen is Usul, which means several things in Arabic, it means "wolf" and "just man, of good fame" (660) 

On 693 assal  means "wolf" and is right below "night-watchman, wolf", isl / ussal / asil means "shepherd" and "wolf" (695)

Usul / asil  means "root, origin, be of noble origin" (pg 9) and is directly above a word that means "snow"

asil / usul  means "snake with venomous breath" and "root, snake" "uprooted" (pg 49)  and "be excellent, have a firm character, of noble birth"

 

----so the idea of the worms being tree roots is present in Dune.  And the baby sandworm Sand Plankton are half-animal half-plant.

 

Shai Hulud

śah  ["shai"] means "old man, to grow old" (pg 565) and sandworms are called "Old man of the desert"

śih  means "wormwood"  and Absinthe is made with wormwood and psychedelics are made from Sandworms and weirwoods and wormwoods. 

[Chwerwedd means "wormwood" in Welsh,  Mormonta  means "wormwood" in Gaelic, and Nagadaun  means "wormwood" in Hindi. ]

śaih means "old man, guide, leader"

hulud / hahad / huld means "eternal, everlasting, old man and heart, mind" (pg 335) and "paradise, everlasting happiness"  (pg 339)

 

So the Shai Hulud is an immortal wyrm, that is called Heart, and wormwood, and produces psychedelic fluids.

 

Oh, and the baby Shai Huluds secretes explosive gas, that builds up underground and causes massive explosions.  Which I have been arguing that the weirwoods secrete the fluid that is made into Wildfire. 

 

Edited January 24 by Fun Guy from Yuggoth

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Speaking of opening your third eye.  I just listened to H.G. Wells' The Stolen Body  for the first time the other day, and I think it is the source for a couple of George's ideas.

It is about a man learning how to astral project his consciousness outside of his body (like a greenseer) only to find that when he leaves his body, a bodyless spirit from the Otherworld takes possession of his empty body.  So as a disembodied spirit the man has to recover his body.

And in the process he goes into the brain of a psychic medium and stimulates the man's Pineal Gland which he calls the Third Eye because the gland is shaped like an eye, and indeed the Pineal Gland is called the Pineal Eye.  (and pineal means "shaped like a pine-cone" so the idea of trees and third-eyes are related)

 

So the crow pecking into Bran's skull was pecking down into his Pineal Gland to stimulate it into "opening"

By stimulating the third-eye he could control a persons body through astral projection.

[SaffronLady]

On 1/23/2024 at 3:13 AM, Fun Guy from Yuggoth said:

several words that sound like Nazi also mean high tower

Why thank you for this little tidbit.

[SaffronLady]

On 1/25/2024 at 12:05 AM, Fun Guy from Yuggoth said:

sandworms are called "Old man of the desert"

Possibility that Rhoynar turtles are a sandworm reference noted.

On 1/25/2024 at 12:05 AM, Fun Guy from Yuggoth said:

Mormonta  means "wormwood" in Gaelic

So Jeor Mormont giving a sword to Jon Snow could be the other side of the "roots-worms creating a hero" symbolism?

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I forgot one of the best clues the Weirwood roots are Shai-Huluds.

ṣaḥ  means "crow" (pg 599) [and recall that  śih  means "wormwood"  śah  means "old man, to grow old"  ]

 

So I searched the word "crow" and found that zaqa means "crow" (pg 459) and is above and below the entry for zaqqum the "tree of hell" in Islam that grows in hell, and condemned souls are made to eat the fruit of the tree which torments their bellies. 

 

----------------

I also found that uran means "one-eyed" in Arabic (58, 736)  and uraniyya  means "open sea" (682) and Arabic has a word for when a person has one black eye and one blue eye, which is synonymous with "fear" hauf / ahyaf (346)

 

[also aur means "one-eyed" and in Harry Potter the first Auror we meet is Mad-Eye Moody and he has one eye]

 

and ariyya means "cold wind" (690)

 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I found some words for Haviland Tuf's character from Tuf Voyaging

tuff  means "parings of the nails" (pg 180) and in Norse mythology the Ship of the Dead is Naglfar, that is made out of nail clippings of the dead, and the ship carries monsters to attack middle earth at Ragnarok.

and Ysgwthr  [Yuggoth] means "pairing" in Welsh.

 

The Ark is a version of Lovecraft's Black Planet Yuggoth, the fungi from Yuggoth were expert genetic engineers, and

tafyi'a  means "shadow" (pg 181)

The ship is called the Ark, and tufan  means "deluge" (pg 650)

tafassi  (pg 181) means "spreading of contagious disease" and the Ark is called the Plague Star for spreading contagious diseases.

taf / tauf means "going around, to circle" and the Plague Star was in orbit raining down plague as it passed by each time.

 

taftisiyy  (pg 180) means "investigator, examiner" and Tuf went from planet to planet investigating their problems

 

Tuf's old ship was called the Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices

tafawwun means "abundance, profusion" [synonym of "cornucopia"] and tafayyud means "profit" and tafawwuq / tafawwut means "excellent"

Edited January 27 by Fun Guy from Yuggoth