The Unmade and Glyphs [discuss]

[r0cketm00se]

Rereading Oathbringer and when I got to the letter about the Calligrapher's Guild in Ch. 53, something stood out to me:

Quote

Glyphpairs are slightly more common than single glyphs. Less used are 3 glyphs in a row.

I've always wondered at the structure of the names of the Unmade, many of them being hyphenated. Well, there are 4 one-part names, 4 two-part names, and 1 three-part name (Ba-Ado-Mishram). The structure of the names seem to line up very well with the structure of glyph writing. So perhaps each part of a hyphenated Unmade name corresponds to a glyph.

There is also this quote:

Quote

This supports the claim that Alethi glyphs were adopted from older scripts likely descended from Dawnchant....

So, the letter is suggesting that glyphs were in use by the Dawnsingers. The Unmade are described as "ancient" and were likely named by the Dawnsingers (although it is possible they were "unmade" at a later time). If the names and the specific glyphs in them are that old, they may be related to terms used on other Cosmere worlds. In particular, others have pointed out the similarity between "Ado" and "Adoda", which Dalinar explains means "light". If "Ba-Ado-Mishram" means something about "light", it would fit well with BAM's ability to use Light, for example, granting forms of power using Voidlight.

So what would this mean? It might give us some hints as to the nature of the Unmade, and we might eventually get some glyph-based artwork for the names of the Unmade, similar to the Radiant orders.

 

Edited Wednesday at 03:52 PM by r0cketm00se

[alder24]

22 hours ago, r0cketm00se said:

Rereading Oathbringer and when I got to the letter about the Calligrapher's Guild in Ch. 53, something stood out to me:

I've always wondered at the structure of the names of the Unmade, many of them being hyphenated. Well, there are 4 one-part names, 4 two-part names, and 1 three-part name (Ba-Ado-Mishram). The structure of the names seem to line up very well with the structure of glyph writing. So perhaps each part of a hyphenated Unmade name corresponds to a glyph.

There is also this quote:

So, the letter is suggesting that glyphs were in use by the Dawnsingers. The Unmade are described as "ancient" and were likely named by the Dawnsingers (although it is possible they were "unmade" at a later time). If the names and the specific glyphs in them are that old, they may be related to terms used on other Cosmere worlds. In particular, others have pointed out the similarity between "Ado" and "Adoda", which Dalinar explains means "light". If "Ba-Ado-Mishram" means something about "light", it would fit well with BAM's ability to use Light, for example, granting forms of power using Voidlight.

So what would this mean? It might give us some hints as to the nature of the Unmade, and we might eventually get some glyph-based artwork for the names of the Unmade, similar to the Radiant orders.

 

You're on the right track, the glyphs are the key. But we don't know many glyphs so it's futile to try to decode their names.

Spoiler

LewsTherinTelescope

Does "Ba-Ado-Mishram" mean "child of the light of Cultivation and Honor"?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, but you're doing a pretty good job picking apart the linguistics of that.

General Reddit 2020 (Dec. 22, 2020)

 

[Dragonheir he/him]

I just had a very interesting thought.

Adonalsium 

I think once we learn more about glyphs, it may give us some interesting insights. 
I don’t really have much else to add other than that, though. 

[r0cketm00se]

42 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

I just had a very interesting thought.

Adonalsium

Yep, that's part of what I was thinking. There is also kind of an Elantris connection mentioned in the Elantris annotations [Elantris spoilers]

Spoiler

Now, I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but the city ‘Elantris’ was actually originally named ‘Adonis.’ I’m not sure what I was thinking. Sometimes, when you’re coming up with a lot of fantastical names, you create words that have a certain, unforeseen connotations or connections. In this case, I wasn’t even thinking of the Greek myth. ‘Ado’ was simply the Aon I chose to base the city’s name around, and ‘Adonis’ (Pronounced with a long ‘A’ and a long ‘O’) was the word that came out of that Aon.

 

[Orpheus]

On 6/27/2024 at 9:57 AM, Dragonheir said:

I just had a very interesting thought.

Adonalsium 

It's been right in front of our noses the whole time.

[Spoilers for Adonalsium since I don't think it's actually discussed very much so far in Stormlight]

Spoiler

Adolin will become God.

(good point though)

Edited Friday at 04:15 PM by Orpheus