That ask about SWT place names got me wondering, is there any etymology for Agna Q’ela?
I believe so!
What's in a Name: Agna Qel'a
Agna is a root morpheme for "adult female" in many dialects of Inupiat (the Inuit language spoken in Northern Alaska). This is just a fancy way of saying that many Inupiat words related to women have the sound "agna" in them. For example:
Agnak - Woman
Agnaga - Wife
Agnakatiga - Cousin born to your mother's sister
Agnasalluk - Female animal
Also, for anyone wondering, the morpheme for "adult woman" in other Inuit & Yupik languages is "arna".
Qela is a Proto-Eskimo* root morpheme that is now pronounced as Kila/Qila in modern Inuit and Yupik languages. I've seen all three renderings used in relation to the same concept: Conjuring spirits. The morpheme qela/kila/qila appear in words related to summoning the supernatural, such as a shaman's drum (qilaut/kilaun) or their word for the Christian heaven (qilak/kilak).
In other words, Agna Qel'a could roughly mean something like "Woman Who Summons Spirits" or even "Female Conjured Spirit".
From a meta perspective, this is obviously a reference to Yue's ultimate fate. However, this has apparently been the capital's name since at least Kyoshi's era. The "Qel'a" part of the name further emphasizes the ancient nature of the capital. This makes me wonder...
Could it be a long-standing tradition for Tui and La to give away portions of their life essence to babies in the Northern Water Tribe?
Obviously, the Moon Spirit and Ocean Spirit are aware of how fragile their koi bodies are, hence why they're kept hidden in the Spirit Oasis. Maybe another of their precautions is to create "backups" through lending their life essence to sickly babies? In a world before modern medicine, there's certainly no shortage of infants facing mortality. Perhaps Yue's situation wasn't so unique.
And, if that is the case, maybe Tui and La prefer to give their life essence to baby girls, since women don't participate in battles in the Northern Water Tribe. And perhaps that's why the male-dominated NWT calls its capital Agna Qel'a ("Woman Who Summons Spirits") rather than Angu Qel'a ("Man Who Summons Spirits) or Inuk Qel'a ("Human Who Summons Spirits").
*While the word eskimo is a derogatory term in Canada, it is still used in Alaska and linguistics as an umbrella term for "Indigenous Tundra peoples of North America".
Sources:
Project MUSE - Deciphering the Underlying Meanings of Inuit Words (2022)
Iñupiat Eskimo Dictionary (1970)
North Slope Iñupiaq Online Dictionary (2012)
Greenlandic-English Dictionary (2018)
Proto-Eskimo Reconstructions - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (1994)
