Al'Naito (soundtrack)

A sure foundation
A steward
That is her station

Not a laborer
Not a lover
That is her station

All attend, she comes!
The keeper of the seals
The glorious daughter of the river
The enduring flame of Tar Valon

nupandi
sothaikh
obiyar isain shai
sorinde
mashinde
obiyar isain shai

aes sah'lyat sar ca'lyet
al ik'wapyen tyakunen'ye
la'aldrelle kiseri
al Tar Valon, cierto naito

Nupandi
A sure foundation.

nupar = base, as in bottom or support
Andi = a suffix that denotes a "stone-like" quality

I love the translation on Wotwikia of this as “sure foundation.” Or perhaps something like “steadfast foundation.”


Sothaikh
This appears to be a new word—I’m not sure where “steward” is coming from, as I’ve tried to parse the word sothaikh every which way I can.


Obiyar isain shai
The position is the woman/The woman is the position

Obiyar = position
Isain = present form of the verb to be (is)
Shai = woman

I recognize that I've suggested a rather clunky translation, but I do have reasons for preferring a literacy, word for word translation here.

I do like the translation “That is her station.” However, there is a word for “that” in the Old Tongue dictionary which doesn’t appear here, and the literal translation (The position is the woman/the position is the woman; articles like “the” are often dropped in the Old Tongue and there’s no standard for word order) is something that I think is actually incredibly fitting and striking. It conveys the sense that whoever holds the position is the Amyrlin Seat, and that the Amyrlin Seat is her. And precisely because there is no set word order for the Old Tongue—users can arrange words however they like depending on what they want to emphasize—the fact that this can be read as both “the position is the woman” and “the woman is the position” exemplifies this idea so precisely.


Sorinde
Not (a) work

Sor = work or working
Inde = no or not (a general negation)

While I also like the translation “not a worker,” I have chosen to translate this as “not (a) work” because the Old Tongue dictionary provides us with rules for turning a noun or verb into the person who performs that noun (the suffix “nen”)—and we actually see the use of this suffix later in this song on another word. So the exclusion here seems to be deliberate, leading me to believe we are looking at just “work” or “working” here. I’ve chosen “work” over “working” because in the line below it, we have a parallel line, but the dictionary only gives mashi as “love,” not as “love” or “loving.”

For the potential article “a,” articles are often dropped in the Old Tongue.


Mashinde
Not (a) love

Mashi = love
Inde = no or not

Same reasoning as above. Furthermore, I feel like this line and the one above convey the idea, once again, that the woman holding the position is Amyrlin and the Amyrlin is her. It’s not a job. It’s not a love. It just is.


Obiyar isain shai
The woman is the position/The position is the woman

Explained above.


Aes sah’lyat sar ca’lyet
All attend, she does come

Aes = all
Sahlan = attention
Sar = she
Ca’lyet = Do come

Interesting because the language is being built on here, which I love! I’m very much going off of the translation on the wikia here to theorize the breakdown of sah’lyat, so credit to them on that.

My theorization of how sahlan becomes sah’lyat: The Old Tongue often combines multiple words into one word, either through apostrophes like we see here or just smooshing them together. In doing so, parts of words are often dropped or morphed. So we seem to have the “sah” of sahlan (attention), combined with a modification of lyet (come, in the sense of an imperative or order.) Thus we get “attention,” the noun, changed to the verb “attend.”

Ca'lyet is "do come," not "does come," but there are so many ways to pluralize nouns, including by adding nothing at all, that I completely buy that this could also translate to verb tenses. Especially since we have very little info on verb tenses in the Old Tongue.

The only real change I'd make to the translation on the wikia is that "ca'lyet" specifically is "do come," not just "come." The suffix "ca" is specifically used as an intensifier in this way.


al ik'wapyen tyakunen'ye
The Keeper of the Seals!

al = of the
ik’wapyen = seals
tyakunen’ye = keeper

Once again, credit to the translation on the wikia, which I am very much building off of here in my theorization of the breakdown of “ik’wapyen.” It very much, in the context of this verse, makes sense for it to be “seals.” It’s interesting how we get there, though. Ikaat is “wax,” wapro is the verb “cover.” So we’re truncating both of those words, combining them with an apostrophe, adding in a y***, and also adding the suffix “en,” which is one of the many ways to pluralize a noun.

For keeper, meanwhile, it’s much easier: tyaku is the verb “to keep.” “Nen” is a suffix that turns a verb into the person doing it—so “keep” becomes “keeper.” “Ye” is both the pronoun I, but the dictionary also notes that it is “sometimes used as an exclamatory fragment.” It doesn’t really make sense to have “I” in here, since the rest of the lyrics seem to be in third person. So I opted to translate this into an exclamation point.

***The “y” in “ik’wapyen” could potentially be the exclamation “ye” too?? When combining to words, where one ends with the vowel that the next begins with, the Old Tongue often combines them. Thus “ye” and “en” become “yen.” Once again, no set word order means that you could stick the exclamation in wherever you want.


la'aldrelle kiseri
The glorious daughter of the river

La = daughter
Al = of the/for the
Drelle = a suffix meaning river
Kiseri = glory

I like this translation from the wikia. You could also say “Daughter of the glorious river” instead if you want to emphasize the glory of Tar Valon instead of the glory of the Amyrlin. Interestingly, in the dictionary, glory is kiserai, so the a has been dropped.


al Tar Valon, cierto naito
The enduring Flame of Tar Valon.

Al = of the/for the
Cierto = resolute/determined/enduring
Naito = flame

Once again, I like this translation from the wikia. I like “enduring” over the other two possibilities because it shows that the position goes on after the death of one Amylin. The Amyrlin always endures.