#mando’a extended dictionary

[ranahan]

Planet Mandalore, after being glassed by thermonuclear weapons. Here’s a closeup:

So that’s similar to real-life Trinitite (glass formed by the heat and pressure of atomic bombs), like this:

Image by Shaddack

That’s from the Great Purge of Mandalore, but Mandalore has been devastated by or orbital bombardment before in the Dral’Han and I think we can assume it looked similar, if less complete.

The fandom-assigned color meaning is light green for lust for peace. The peace movement on Mandalore rose in response to the Dral’Han. What’s the chance they picked that color to symbolise the devastation that war had brought to Mandalore?

Maybe I’m slow and this is obvious, but I just blew my mind by realising it. Not sure if teal for healing is related or not.

Mando’a word for light green wouldn’t be something like “spring green” or “jade green” but something like “desolation green.” Ahan’vorpan, maybe.

[ranahan]

Kar’taylir tor bal nu davaabir bic, dushne ehut.

Lit. “To know justice and to not carry it out, [is] the worst cowardice.”

Tbh the word ehut here carries both the senses of cowardice and despicability. It’s literally “Hutt-ness,” i.e. letting others suffer for your benefit and fight your battles and bear the risk, therefore cowardly and despicable. Mandalorians despise Hutts because they let others fight their (real and metaphorical) battles for them.

“To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.”

— Confucius, Analects

[crispyjenkins]

hi! i am just very confused about one of ur posts with the mandalorians and cultural genocide and was wondering if maybe you can explain more? i thought mandalorian culture was about like family and arts with the colors and stuff? is it really just about war? i know a lot of people headcanon that the clones are mandalorian but now i feel uncomfy about putting a warrior culture on characters played by a maori actor, whose people still struggle with martial race stereotypes today :(

hello!! i am absolutely not an authority on this topic, so i’ve compiled a bunch of posts that explain it better than me, but short answer is: mandalorian culture is not all about war. there is a ton of intention put into mandalorians (specifcially not death watch, who literally fought in the civil war because the true mandalorians were like “maybe stop pillaging and killing people for no reason” and they didn’t want to stop; or the new mandalorians who threw out every god and myth important to the true mandalorians, as well as its language, cultural importance/sacredness of armor, religious customs, etc, because Satine interpreted true mandalorian culture as nothing but war, but that is extremely extremely not the point of the resol’nare or the codex) and how they draw on Māori culture and customs, because temuera morrison played jango fett in the prequels.

your concern is so so valid and absolutely something to keep in mind when interpreting “canon” and “legends canon”, but satine’s take on true mandalorians is inherently false.

links under the cut with a lil explanation for each! (edit: this is long as fuck, i’m so sorry 🥲)

we’ll start with this one which is from star wars insider issue 86, because it covers a lot of the basics of how eu and legends wrote mandalorians. HOWEVER, also keep in mind this groundwork was all laid by karen traviss who is a racist, sexist, classist, homophobic dirtbag, like i don’t even know where to begin with her, but her early work for jango fett in the republic commando novels is still important to understanding mandalorian culture in current continuities. (i also believe this issue was from before clone wars began airing)

this one goes more in depth than the post i recently reblogged which i think you’re referring to, about the imperialism of the new mandalorians and their cultural genocide of true mandalorians more or less based on satine kryze’s experience with death watch, a splinter cult off of the true mandalorians (i’m using cult intentionally here, btw) who literally just didn’t want their murdering and stealing to be regulated.

this post is about mental illness in true mandalorian society, which is intrinsically tied to the root of true mandalorian and early mandalorian religion and daily culture, and the concept of fighting stagnation and destruction/war against the things that are choking you and stopping self growth, it’s not about conquering people or planets, it’s about bettering oneself constantly, based on the mandalorian creation myth ( @izzyovercoffee goes more in depth with this in the post). death watch, and many fans, interpret this ideology as the right to violence and the destruction for destruction’s sake, which isn’t what it’s about at all.

alright this one is directly related to the concepts of the last one, and surmises a lot of the points, and is maybe the easiest post in my list for a quick understanding of mandalorian philosophy?

here’s a shorter post that gives a little more insight/reiterates new vs true mandalorian ideology, because lord knows my autism brain likes more than one way of explaining something.

this one is an interpretation of canon and new mandalorian imperialism, which is technically headcanon, but boy howdy does canon not disagree with it, and forms the basis of my own interpretation of mandalorians as a whole

here’s a cool post going into the language mando’a and how it cannot be separated from culture, which i think is incredibly important to keep in mind when looking at new mandalorians and how they don’t use mando’a.

more explanation and interpretation of new manadlorians and their portrayal in the clone wars, and why it’s important against all the canon content we got before clone wars aired

this one is from before boba’s return to “canon” material in season two of the mandalorian where he and jango were reconfirmed as mandalorians, but is still super, super, super important in relation to mandalorian diaspora, and the way writers cannot separate mandalorians from their roots in māori culture, when it was created because temuera morrison played jango fett and his clones. also goes into how important “family without blood” is as the basis of mandalorian family and cultural structure, which explains a lot about the show the mandalorian!

this one’s just a cool take on the parallels between mandalorians and jedi, who are also rather disgustingly misinterpreted by fans (interestingly as the opposite, as complacent and too bureaucratic vs the violent and imperialist take most have on mandalorians).

here’s a post going into how din djarin’s tribe/sect in the mandalorian tv isn’t a cult, and how that relates to bo-katan kryze, her position with death watch, and her connection to the new mandalorians because of it.

okie the next few are about how māori customs, things of cultural significance, etc are intentional in the portrayal of (true) mandalorians

this one is about the keldabe kiss or the kov’nyn, forehead-kiss, headbutt 

this one is a video of boba fighting set to te reo māori thrash metal, and a short explanation of the importance of the battle its about, which i think is important in remembering that while the māori people today do suffer from awful marital stereotyping, you cannot divorce them from their own form of warrior culture without erasing that history or importance; there isn’t anything inherently wrong in warrior cultures, just how white people interpreted and appropriated it.

THIS ONE I LOVE and is mr morrison himself bringing the traditional māori dance the haka into boba’s fighting style in the mandalorian tv, as well as the use of māori-style weapons 

which also relates to this post by @catboydindjarin

and sums up my feelings on associating mandalorians and the māori people, how important jango and boba fett have been to people like temuera morrison and daniel logan (who played lil boba in atoc) and bodie taylor (who played the mid-20s clones). as a white person, it’s incredibly important for me to remember the stereotyping and violence still being done to indigenous and first nations people, and to be aware of and respectful of how i use and take pieces of the those cultures in anything, but especially fictional aliens. but to pretend forms of battle, pretend weapons and songs and philosophies that do involve violence were not and are not still culturally important to those peoples is erasure, and is what satine kryze chose to do when faced with a completely different people’s violence.  to separate (true) mandalorians from the māori people is to erase them from the narrative completely.

so!! on a lighter note, here’s a post with bodie taylor and captain typho’s actor jay laga’aia performing haka with mr morrison during an aotc press event

here’s an excerpt from one of the repcom novels about jango being a Dad and how important children are to the true mandalorians 

it won’t let me upload gifs at the moment so here’s a post of several delightful gifs of mr morrison on set for aotc with a rainbow umbrella

here’s one that touches on the importance of armor color as you mentioned in your ask

this wonderfully funny textpost from @letitrainathousandflames that illustrates more of the mandalorian parental instinct (which is shown time and again in extended/legends canon to be more important than “war” or battle)

here’s some highlights from the eu about boba reconnecting with his mandalorian heritage after jango’s death

this one is a short post by @jester-mereel about what jango chooses to be jaster’s legacy, which is vital because jaster mereel the one who created the super commando codex and the true mandalorians, is the one who looked at how people like tor vizsla were using their heritage and thought “we can do and be better than this”

here’s the wookieepedia article on jaster mereel (all wookieepedia stuff should be taken with a grain of salt, of course, especially in regards to the jedi order but that’s another matter)

here’s the wookieepedia article on the supercommandos, which is what earlier material referred to the true mandalorians as, basically the commandos that followed jaster and the supercommando codex

here’s the one on the codex if you want to jump to that specifically

this is an actual copy of the basics of the codex as well as the resol’nare or six tenants, which existed far before jaster, but what jaster used as the ethical basis of the codex (the site is written from the point of view of a supercommando, just a heads up if that’s confusing)

here’s the wookiee article on death watch, i trust you to keep an open mind and don’t take anything said by the vizslas or bo-katan at face value, because, again, they splintered from the supercommandos because they wanted to keep stealing and killing people just because, and used the “savage warrior past” of mandalorians to excuse it

here’s the mando’a dictionary that’s most accessible, also remembering that translations are interpretations (specifically the discourse about “k’atini” comes to mind) and is constantly being revised

and then some of my favorite excerpts from it, in relation to what mandalorians actually find important:

“Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad” | adoption vow - lit. “I know your name as my child.” (meaning adoption is no less important than blood heritage, and in some interpretations is actually more important)

mandokar | the *right stuff*, the epitome of Mando virtue - a blend of aggression, tenacity, loyalty and a lust for life (and aggression does not always mean violence)

“Gar taldin ni jaonyc; gar sa buir, ori'wadaas'la.” | “Nobody cares who your father was, only the father you'll be.” (Lit: Bloodline is not important, but you as a father are the most valuable thing.) Mando saying emphasising the importance of a father's role, and that a man is judged more by that than his lineage. (this dictionary chooses to gender things unnecessarily, when words like “buir” are gender neutral, but you get the gist: parenthood is very important to mandalorians, which is of course the entire basis for the mandalorian tv plot) 

demagolka | someone who commits atrocties, a real-life monster, a war criminal - from the notorious Mandalorian scientist of the Old Republic, Demagol, known for his experiments on children, and a figure of hate and dread in the Mando psyche (again, children being more important than violence)

bajur | education, the raising and nurturing of children - a wider meaning than just school work, includes preparation for life and survival Aliit ori'shya tal'din | Family is more than blood.

shereshoy | lust for life and much more - uniquely Mandalorian word, meaning the enjoyment of each day and the determination to seek and grab every possible experience, as well as surviving to see the next day - hanging onto life and relishing it. An understandable state of mind/ emotion for a warrior people. Closely related to the words for live, hunt and stay safe - and, of course *oya*. All from the same root.

and since you mentioned color, this post is so feckin cool as it talks about white =/= purity, and goes into quite a bit about the “destruction” in mandalorian culture being about the rebirth, not the violence

and then here’s a few links to content in the mandalorian tv

“the poc experience of keeping ur mouth shut bc ur too tired to argue w/ a white person“ about boba downplaying his mandalorian-ness to bo-katan, a known violent xenophobe 

more on din’s sect the children of the watch not being a cult vs death watch

some cool thoughts on the differences in how boba and bo-katan interacted with din during season 2 which i think is important in terms of illustrating the differences between death watch and true mandalorians, again

a cool dialogue on din and removing his helmet in season 2 and his religious/cultural views in relation to being mandalorian

i spent like three hours on this and i definitely only meant to give you like. five links. but uhhh i hope this helps!! feel free to shoot me further questions, but just keeping in mind i am not māori and cannot speak to the māori experience in fandom or in regards to jango fett and the clones.

i hope you’re safe and well!! 🌻

[ranahan]

hukan (n.): cloak, cape, poncho

Roughly equivalent construction to English “coverall”, or “one which can cover all”. So any garment that achieves that effect.

[mandalorianbrainweasel]

So I’m dicking around with a concept of basically the Canon (or my perception of it) Galaxy of GFFA and an AU Galaxy where the divergent point was roughly a thousand years before the Clone Wars get shoved together so basically double planets and the Mandalorian Empire of AU Galaxy and the AU Republic and Jedi Order are allies in a current war with the Sith Empire (am I dicking around with that concept too? yes) and my AU Mand’alor is meeting Jango Fett because Reasons and this exchange happens. Long post so under the cut.

Tagging @izzyovercoffee​ because of Mando’a bullshit I did.

Then, the Mand’alor moves to the Mando’ad in silver and blue and extends their arm. “Mand’alor Te Gotabor.”

The Mando’ad moves to clasp their forearm, only to be interrupted by the feral grins of his compatriots.

“Really?” he asks them, looking exhausted by them as they continue to grin. “Fine.” He turns back to the Mand’alor and grasps their forearm. “Mand’alor Te Haat’la, ruyot’ad Te Vercopaca.”

Basically, I’m further dicking around with language and titles. Titles, in this case, is me going “hey what if like the Moghul Empire the ruler takes a name symbolizing their goal as a ruler when they come to power” and making that their political name most of the time, like Naboo and Queen Amidala (yes there is dicking around about Naboo too. TWO characters have doubles in the AU Galaxy, one of them is Palpatine and one of them is Yoda and both have wildly different backgrounds tho Palps is still a Sith).

BUT LANGUAGE

I had an idea of what I wanted AU Mand’alor’s name to be. Translated to English/Basic, it’s “The Builder” but I felt “The Engineer” as a direct translation probably fits considering Te Gotabor is known for building fantastical fortress cities and the largest army in the galaxy (either one tbh). 

So I turned to Jango and went “what would his have been?”

I actually decided to do Jaster Mereel’s first! Because Jango came after “The Reformer” so that would probably have some effects on him and his government.

I chose to do “Te Vercopaca” which is (again) me dicking around. I took Vercopa, which is “wish; dream” and squished in the “kar” of “mandokar” which refers to a person who is Mando, who has the Right Stuff (mandokarla is the adjective form). Basically, this was me trying to make a good “The Reformer” title. I’m still not *happy* with it but yk.

[By the by, when Jango says “ruyot’ad” he’s referring to being in a lineage of Mandalor’e. Very formal way of saying he’s Mand’alor and the son of the previous/a previous Mand’alor. Exact translation is “past child” tho.]

So, what would Jango have done?

I also based both his and Te Gotabor’s titles off of their personal perceptions of themselves. Te Gotabor was raised by gorane, smiths. Jango is from a family of farmers. I thought about giving Jango a title related to that but there wasn’t a lot of great words already available. So, considering my idea of him tending to Jaster’s ideals but not making any big changes himself I decided that English/Basic translation is “The Steady.”

Best synonym we’ve got in the dictionary? The True. So, I decided to get “steady” or “traditional (kind of)” I’d go “Haat’la”. Why make it an adjective instead of a class of sentient like Te Gotabor and Jaster? Because he’s not “truth” he’s “true”. 

And thus, Mand’alor Te Haat’la.

Really, this is mainly me just dicking around. But I wanted to show people my thought process!!

[systlin]

I've never been a huge Star Wars fan, but all your recent posting about Mandolorian(?) Stuff and extended EU *stuff* has gotten me really interested. Do you have any recommendations for beginner reading for the EU, focusing on the Mando'a(?) ((Also you're one of my favorite blogs and helped the resurgence of my SCA habits, and now I have an etsy store for jewelry and am in the process of patterning out and hand sewing Landsknecht garb...)

@mandowords is a blog full of mando words and a few videos teaching the language

http://mandoa.org/ has a mando’a/english dictionary

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWI5exrT3rg_HfuGS3OXNkQ videos going over mando’a pronunciation and words

For beginner reading in the EU, I’d personally start at Shadows of the Empire, set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Then Truce at Bakura, which takes place immediately after Return of the Jedi. Then go for the Thrawn trilogy, the Rogue Squadron books, and whatever else looks interesting. 

[ranahan]

Hi! I skimmed your blog, but couldn't find anything on Mando'a for tattoos and related topics. Are there any words/roots in fanon or extrapolations from canon that you'd use for tattoos and such?

I don’t think I have written anything about tattoos, no! And I didn’t have anything in my dictionary either.

The English word for tattoo is a loan from Samoan tatau, which comes from ‘to tap, to strike,’ from the traditional method of tattooing.

And well, this delves pretty far into speculation and headcanons, but there’s one root in Mando’a that could mean the same thing: *dad. I’ve backformed it from dadita, the mando tapping code. The end -ita seems to be a couple of suffixes smashed together (compare kelita, shokita, akaata, etc), leaving the root *dad-. I first thought it might mean something like ‘tap,’ but then I was delving into dialectal English (mostly Tyneside/Geordie and military and naval slang) to figure out some etymologies, and it appears *dad just might come from Geordie dad, ‘blow.’ In my dialect, I’ve used it as a root meaning “rap, knock, tap.”

So back to tattoos! If you wanted to repeat the Polynesian etymology, then tattoo could be something like dadun, dadan, daduk, dadur, etc.

Or alternatively, you could of course derive it from somewhere else or compound it from some other existing roots. For example, Aay’han Community’s dictionary has bev’salan, which is meant to translate to ‘needle-colouring’ I believe. Umei no Mai has pelga’dan, ‘tattooer,’ from pel’gam, ‘skin,’ demar, ‘to carve,’ and -an (same suffix as in e.g. goran). I might have made these something like besal and degam or dengam or demagam instead, but that’s just a different style of compounding.

[ranahan]

*je-, ‘false, un-’

A prefix with a typical (for Mando’a) alternation: je- before a consonant, j- before a vowel.

jekai (n), ‘bait’ < je + kai, ‘food,’ lit. “false food”

jehaat (n), ‘lie, untruth’ < je + haat, ‘truth,’ lit. “untruth”

jahaatir (v), ‘to lie’ < obviously from jehaat, but somehow the first vowel has assimilated, making it look like *ja(t), which would mean ‘good’. As johamur mentioned in the notes, the pronunciation is given as jeh-HAH-teer, so this might be a typo.

jaal (a), ‘numb’ < j(e) + aal, ‘feeling,’ lit. “false feeling” (like pins and needles) or “un-feeling” (not having a feeling)

jenarar (v), ‘to feint’ < je + nar, ‘act,’ lit. “false action”

jehavey’ir (v), ‘to ambush’ < this one is trickier, but possibly from je + haav, meaning something like “to lie falsely in wait.” Though I’ll accept suggestions for alternative etymologies as well; apparently some other groups have made different analyses but as I’m not privy to them, unfortunately I cannot offer comments. Edit: it was pointed out (forget by whom, sorry) the pronunciation is given as jeh-HAHR-vay'eer which would match *jehaarveyir. In other words, Traviss gives the pronunciation of a syllable as “-ahr” if it is spelled as -ar/-aar, but never if there’s no r.

I’ve been tentatively using jen as an adjective/adverb meaning ‘false(ly)’. It’s punchy and the resemblance to ur-Kittât (the old Sith tongue) jen, ‘dark, shadow, hidden’ amuses me.

[ranahan]

More thoughts:

I’ve seen jua’vod (from juaan) suggested as a term for cousin (originally coined by Batsutousai, I believe). But try saying that quickly a couple of times: it would pretty quickly corrupt into ja’vod. Which I rather like—it looks superficially like “good-sibling,” even if the etymology is actually different.

So your cross-clan relatives could be called:

Cousins (regardless of how far removed or the exact relation—think “clan person of same generation”) would be either vod or ja’vod, depending on how familiar you want to be. I’m thinking ja’vod is more like “there’s a clan-relation there but I don’t know them personally” kind of a connotation. (Ja’)vod’ika is of course also an option for younger cousins.

Aunts and uncles (or clansmen a generation older than you) would be ba’ja’vod (I just didn’t like how ja’ba’vod sounded like :P) or ba’vodu, depending on familiarity.

But people of your grandparents generation would typically merit either ba’buir or another honorific. Elders are respected, after all.

Clan and kinship are important in Mandalorian culture. So I think it would be very common to (invite people to) use familiar terms even for distant relations. I’m thinking the more distant terms are very polite (it wouldn’t be rude to use them), but it’s that politeness itself that creates a distance. So they can be more loaded terms than the English equivalents.

Or use just the canon terms. It’s a working system without any additions.

i keep trying to phrase a post as like a helpful tip for people who like worldbuilding but. i have to be honest with myself. it is not a helpful tip because no one asked for it. i just want to rant about kinship terminologies.

[ranahan]

prudii bal rang

Lit. shadow and ash

The meaning is "(not even) (with) the help of gods". From the epic Dha Werda Verda that recounts the battle between the Taung and Battalions of Zhell, where a massive volcanic eruption turned the Taung's last stand into a victory and was consequently seen as a (sign of) help from gods.

Prudii bal rang! For heaven's sake! Ti prudii bal rang. Gods willing (lit. with shadow and ash, figuratively “with help from the gods”). With a lot of luck. Ne ti prudii bal rang. Not a snowball's chance in hell (lit. not with shadow and ash, figuratively “not even with the help of the gods”).

[ranahan]

Lise mircir oramud, a nu’lise mircir oram.

You can jail a revolutionary, but you can’t jail a revolution.

—Fred Hampton

[ranahan]

adol b’adol

Lit. “through and through”

1. (wounds) through and through, penetrating all the way through, leaving both an entry and an exit wound 2. clear cut, straightforward, well-defined, unambiguous: Koor ru adol b'adol: naas kyrayce. "The contract had been clear cut: no fatalities." 3. come and gone, entered and exited, of a person or a thing that came and went swiftly: Buurenaar adol b'adol. "The storm passed as quickly as it came."

[ranahan]

Random headcanon:

I see fics where mando characters (like Jango) denigrate the tea of other characters (like Jaster, or Obi-Wan) as “leaf water”. But like… shig is *the* drink in Mandalorian culture. Yeah, people drink caf, but it’s still the secondary option.

Tea is served anywhere and everywhere. Business deal? Negotiation? Getting to know someone? Welcoming guests? Tea.

Coffee may also be served, but it may be an afterthought and of a considerably worse quality than the tea (the equivalent of stale bagged tea next to the coffee service)

Coffee is called ne’tra behot or ne’tra shig. Actually, most non-alcoholic fancy drinks are called something-shig, because it’s just that ubiquitous it’s almost a synonym for a drink.

In Mando’a, it’s a shig’ud, not coffee break, and shig’yaim, not café.

tldr: Calling shig “leaf water” would be the equivalent of calling coffee “bean juice” in English—it makes the character calling it that seem eccentric more than the character drinking it. Or else marks them out as someone who grew outside of the Mandalorian space where caf is more common than shig.

[ranahan]

There’s nothing wrong with the existing Fando’a words for a book. None of them compel me though. Here’s a thought that just came to me:

taylaar, lit. “hold a song” or “song-holder”

Could literally be translated just as “a holder” or “a preserver” too.

Since Mando’a is supposed to be mainly an oral language and histories are encoded in songs. So a “song holder” would be a history book (or a genealogy—one of the first kind of things written down to be preserved), which would eventually come to mean a book of any kind.

[ranahan]

Without much deliberation, noodles have quietly become shiike to me.

No deep thought, just a mashup of shun, briik, and shi, but it stuck anyway. I’m actually not even 100% sure whether I came up with it on my own or whether I might have picked it up somewhere else. Just, you know, they look like shiike don’t they?

[ranahan]

Headcanon accepted! Mixed ancestry makes a lot more sense than essential sensory organs being sexually dimorphic.

However, if you wanted to use the canon explanation, there could be some subtle quirk in foetal development or an incompatibility between Twi’leki and human genomes, that meant that male foetuses with mixed ancestry were more likely to develop ears rather than cones, even if in aggregate both sexes could develop either cones or ears depending on their specific ancestry.

Btw, I’m loaning this into Mando’a in the absence of any native terms. I think terms for alien physiology (features that were not present in the Taung) would be prime candidates for loan words. I have a similar loan-word etymology headcanon for Togruta montrals, but head-tendrils would probably have a native Mando’a word, for example.

I think it would become either chara (pl. charase) or char (pl. chare), depending on whether the -a would be analysed as a (archaic) plural suffix or not—they do become naturally in pairs, after all. It could even become charan (pl. charane), if people usually spoke about them in plural.

Ears Vs Cones

One of the more well-known physiological characteristics of Twi’leks is the presence of their ear cones or tcharan [sing. Tchara] in the place of ears in some members of the species.

According to the official canon, females have cones and males have lobed ears. This makes very little sense to me. Yes, there are sex-linked traits, genetically, that is a thing. But having sensory organs with completely different functions honestly doesn’t seem reasonable to me, partly because of my head-canons on what exactly tcharan do. It’s safe to assume that if the females are in an environment that requires the functions preformed by the tcharan, then so are the males.

Short version of the above, I came up with ideas that I like a lot better than the official “differently shaped ear-things that work exactly the same as human ears.”

So what do tcharan do?

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