I was nerdsniped this evening by a desire to trace the etymology of Vaalbara — the hypothetical world's first continent, which formed about 3.6 billion years ago.
Well, to begin with, the name “Vaalbara” turns out to be a portmanteau of the two surviving cratons — Kaapvaal in South Africa and Pilbara in Australia — whose age & other geological similarities justify the hypothesis that Vaalbara ever existed in the first place.
So. "Kaapvaal," first. This is another portmanteau! As far as I can tell, the Kaapvaal Craton was given that name by a geologist named D.A. Pretorius in 1964. At the time, South Africa had four provinces (along with a variety of apartheid "homelands" which didn't always get named on maps, offered government services, or extended human rights) … and the craton spanned two of these provinces: Kaap de Goede Hoop and Transvaal. Pretorius smashed them together.
All right then. Two more names to research.
Well, "Kaap de Goede Hoop" just means "Cape of Good Hope" in Dutch. It's a specific cape on the southern coast of South Africa, which was named Cabo da Boa Esperança by King John II of Portugal because he felt a lot of good hope about making Portugal rich if he could control a sea route to India. Every other European empire agreed, and translated the name into their own languages. Eventually the Dutch named a colony after the cape; the colony became a founding province of the Union of South Africa; and the province survived into the Republic of South Africa for long enough that Pretorius used its name.
"Transvaal," meanwhile, comes from mashing Trans — that Latin prefix we all know and love — against the Vaalrivier, or Vaal River. I'm sure I don't need to remind any of you that "trans" means "on the other side of," as contrasted with "cis," meaning "on the same side of," and the Roman Empire used both prefixes all the time when describing rivers and mountain ranges. Well, back when this province was named, it was the Dutch colony on the other side of the Vaal River.
So where did the "Vaalrivier" get its name? It translates from the Dutch as "drab river," and it turns out that's correct: the name is a Dutch translation of the Khoekhoe ǀHai!garib, precisely meaning "drab" (ǀHai) "river" (!garib). Apparently the colour of the water is very boring and silty.
So that's the "Vaal" half of Vaalbara. Start with the Khoekhoe word for "drab," append the Khoekhoe word for "river," then translate to Dutch, drop the "river" again but prepend the Latin prefix for "on the other side," then drop the prefix again but prepend the Dutch translation of the Portuguese for "cape of good hope," except without the "of good hope," and finally drop the "cape" in preparation for mashing up with another word entirely. You end up with the Dutch word for "drab."
ǀHai = vaal = drab
!garib = rivier = river
ǀHai + !garib => ǀHai!garib => Vaalrivier = drab river
Trans = on the other side of
Trans + Vaalrivier – rivier => Transvaal = on the other side of drab
Cabo = Kaap = cape
da Boa Esperança = de Goede Hoop = of good hope
Cabo + de Boa Esperança => Cabo da Boa Esperança => Kaap de Goede Hoop = cape of good hope
Kaap de Goede Hoop – de Goede Hoop + Transvaal – Trans => Kaapvaal => cape drab
Kaapvaal – Kaap => Vaal = drab
Pilbara time! This is a much shorter journey: "Pilbara" is an ancient word for its region, used since time immemorial across many Aboriginal languages. And that's about it.
I would love to know whether this meaning breaks down into morphemes in any local language, because I'd love to know what is being borrowed into "Vaalbara" by the "bara" half of the word … but I'm not sure that's how it works.
Wikipedia claims that "Pilbara" comes from the word for "dry" in several Ngayarda languages, and even claims to know what this word is — but I've been unable to confirm its assertion from any of the cited sources, or from any independent googling. What I have been able to confirm is that these languages exhibit significant variation in who's allowed to say what when they're speaking to whom, and it seems to me that the set of words I should be using is probably {"Pilbara"} and that's about it.
Which means that "bara" is just an unfinished idea — a holographically fuzzy version of "Pilbara" — which might or might not carry a fuzzy sense of dryness, but if so, only in the way a half-heard "keys" might bring a fuzzy sense that sometimes mountains can be rocky. I don't think this is an etymology anymore. I think we're adrift in the semiotics. Or the see-myself-out-ics. Or just the sea. A good time to look for land.
Fortunately there is land, because it's been about a billion years since that planetary collision mishap with Theia, and the Earth is just forming its first continent. An incomplete fuzzy sense of a mountain range in northwestern Australia, with a Dutch prefix meaning "drab." Welcome to Vaalbara.
The Paleoarchean era lasted from 3.6 to 3.2 billion years ago. As the sea levels rose and the crust continued to cool, the Earth's first major landmass would form. Today we call it Vaalbara. We don't know what this landmass would have looked like but we do know it was at least made up of southern Africa and western Australia.
Though life may have begun a few million years earlier, from this period we have the earliest evidence of life in the form of stromatolites. Fossilized mats of microbial organisms forming bizarre rock-like structures that can be found today near the remnants of Vaalbara.
Las historias con temáticas de fantasía medieval siempre han sido mis mayores ilusiones, y siempre quise desarrollar un mundo que, aunque no se mantenía totalmente en lo medieval, ciertamente continuaba la línea general de lo que tanto me inspiró. La primera versión no fue tan sólida como hubiera querido, pero con Vaalbara, me he tomado las cosas con calma para poder ir puliendo los detalles con tranquilidad.
Si bien la base para este mundo es Saint Seiya, debo admitir que he limitado las referencias directas al mundo de Kurumada (nombres incluidos), y obligarme a investigar más a fondo para lograr algo más personal. La verdad me da un poco de pereza escribirlo en español, porque es un mundo que concebí en inglés (dado que en ese idioma es que he leído más la literatura de fantasía, y los términos me son más familiares así). Sin embargo, sí tengo ya partes hechas para quien tenga interés en ahogarse en este hellhole conmigo, lol. (shoutout a @trio-infierno por haber sido la primera jaja)
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Black Kingdom [ General / Culture ]
Hjarn
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Winter Gifts
The Dragon’s Eye
Las imágenes que acompañan este post son parte de un proyecto personal que llamo el Infradeck, donde quisiera crear 12 ilustraciones de Espectros en el mundo de Vaalbara, en un formato similar al de las cartas de juego, pero con los palos del Minor Arcana del tarot (Pentacles, Swords, Wands y Cups). Como tal vez algunos saben, soy fan de los decks ilustrados y tengo una colección tanto de tarots, como de cartas de poker. Debido a cosas del trabajo, no he podido seguir con este proyecto a la velocidad que quisiera, pero no lo voy a dejar botado. ¡Gracias por leer!
when the government catches u psychologically torturing a murderer with literal demons before killing him and instead of arresting you they make you work for them
