Meta talk:Use of Appropriated Words in BIONICLE

From BIONICLEsector01

Possible examples

Here are a few possible examples of additional words/names I have found:

  • Kumu (from Kumu Islets)
behind(noun) -> Māori
teacher -> Hawaiian
  • kauae (from old names of Lake Kanae and the Kanae Bay) - chin (noun); jaw -> Māori
  • fau (from Fau Swamp) - build or building -> Several Polynesian languages(not in dictionaries, but recognized by google translate)
  • paia (from Lake Paia) - wall -> Samoan
  • tiro (from Tiro Canyon)
number; amount; mass; quantity -> Somali
look/see - Polynesian languages (recognized by translate, may not be actual word in these languages)
  • leva (from Leva bay) - long (in the phrase translating to "So long no see") -> Samoan
  • kini - Guinea -> Hawaiian

While some of these are not necessarily the origins and may be coincidences, there are definitely some, like Kauae, that definitely seem to be actual origins. Should any of these be added? Firespitter Lhii (talk) 19:00, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, the page should be named "Use of Polynesian words in Bionicle", because constricting it to just Maori is kind of short-sided. Many names were inspired by more than just one language.

Kumu Islets:

  • kūmū (Māori) - promontory, headland [which is literaly what Kumu islets are - a promontory]
  • kumkumu (Rotuman) - beard chin

Hura-Mafa River:

  • hura (Rotuman) - to shed tears
  • hura (Māori) - uncover, begin to flow
  • mafa (Rotuman) - eyes

Naho Bay [to which Hura-Mafa River is connected]:

  • naho (Hawaiian) - eye sockets

Fau swamp:

  • fau (Rotuman) - cheek (side of face)

Motara desert:

  • motara (Rotuman) - forehead

There are many more.--ToaKebaka (talk) 19:47, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the pace title, see BIONICLEsector01 talk:Articles for Deletion#Rename "Meta:Use of Māori Words in BIONICLE" to "Meta:Use of Real Words in BIONICLE". ~ Wolk (talk) 20:35, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
With these findings, I'm considering merging the two lists into one long list of appropriated words. I see now that Māori wasn't the only strong influence in BIONICLE's early development. - Toa Jala Converse 05:34, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
I think rather than just merging the lists, it would make sense to do pre-lawsuit, mostly Polynesian names (maybe also MNOG II names -- although many of those were European they still got wrapped up in it) and then the post-lawsuit names, generally from more Latin or European influence.
Here are resources put together by members of the community with some more leads though. I also heard somewhere that Jala may translate as "red," but I'm not sure where that originated.
I also think it would make sense to include modified English words for inclusion on this page, but while some are pretty straight-forward, others are more speculative. So far here are the ones I think would make sense, but I'm curious what y'all think.
--Gonel (talk) 04:23, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

While many of these are fairly obvious, as you said, there's room for speculation with some others. For example, I always thought that Carapar's name came from "carapace." Unfortunately we don't know for certain which one is correct. I seem to remember Greg saying that he got Mutran's name from "mutate"+"transform", although I would need a source for that. I suggest we rename the Maori section "List of Polynesian Words used in BIONICLE Canon and add a third category for English words. - Toa Jala Converse 18:45, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

1) I think Carapar - carapace is obvious? Unless there is a Carapar genus of crabs I don't know about (doubt it)? Also certain names can have more than one inspiration OR multiple nested inspirations: kūmū and kumkumu for Kumu Islets is one such example where clearly both Maori and Rotuman meanings are significant. Photok, Radiak and Solek can be said to be inspired by english words stated above, but also by the latin/greek roots those english words are derived from themselves.
2) I vividly remember Mutran's name being a portmanteau as well, there should be a citation somewhere.
3) I second this suggestion, it would make everything much clearer and readers wouldn't have to jump between sections to find out the full meanings of names drawn from multiple polynesian languages (like the Kumu Islets or Hura-Mafa River).--ToaKebaka (talk) 19:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
Carapace makes much more sense. My list is just a starting list compiled off the top of my head, and wide open to revision. Of course, like Mutran, multiple words may have been in mind when forming these words - crab as well as carapace - It would be fascinating to have an interview with someone on the naming team. At any rate, Kebaka is right -- many of these may be redundant if we look at the Greek/Latin roots.
By the way, I talked to Chuckschwa who did the first link above, and he pointed me to this updated list. The entire BZP topic is fascinating though, and has a lot of interesting leads. He also mentioned Peri/Emily's glossary which has an extensive index of words. --Gonel (talk) 19:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
All of this warrants further action and discussion. I have to say that although I was against changing the page at first, I think this was a good decision. It's more informative now, with much more potential for expansion.
We'll need to make the following change; Fohrok may be needed again:
Meta:Use of Appropriated Words in BIONICLE#List of Māori Words used in BIONICLE Canon --> Meta:Use of Appropriated Words in BIONICLE#List of Polynesian Words used in BIONICLE Canon
- Toa Jala Converse 19:51, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
Done.
Also, unfortunately most of the Latin words listed on the article are incorrect. Some terms, such as Kaxium, Thornatus, and Surel, are not Latin words (they appear to have come from Google Translate, which is pretty inaccurate for Latin). Some of the others might be inspired by Latin or Romance roots, and some of those happen to match inflected forms of Latin words, but I suspect that for words like Solis, the process was less "the story team used a Latin word" and more "the story team stuck some relevant sounds together, and that particular combo just happens to be a Latin word." I'll go through the list of Latin words in the next few days. -- Morris the Mata Nui Cow (talk) 06:40, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't say inflected word necessarily indicates a lack of inspiration from said word. Solis specifically is quite clearly derived from latin solis, a genitive of sol (sun). It makes sense some of the latin or greek words would be modified or taken in their inflected form if they thought it sounded better. I also plan to comb through these as I own a Latin dictionary. But yeah, google translate tends to do weird things sometimes.--ToaKebaka (talk) 14:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
Ah. Okay, noted. I'll help comb through the Latin as well.
Thanks again for Fohrok. Sorry to make you do that twice.- Toa Jala Converse 13:59, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Toa Jala: All good! Thanks for fleshing out the list.
ToaKebaka: That's fair. To your point, Telluris (which doesn't have an obvious origin outside Latin) shows that the team was willing to use inflected nouns for names.
Here is my pass through the Latin words. I included some other 2009 words at the bottom.
confirmed or reasonably assumed (in my opinion):
  • agori -> agrī "of a field," an inflection of ager "field"[1]
  • aqua "water"
  • certavus -> certātus "having been fought over," an inflection of certāre "fight, compete"
  • gelū "frost, cold"
  • glatorian -> gladiātor "swordfighter" (which of course is an English word too)
  • herēmus "desert (adjective)"
  • magna "big, great"[2]
  • perditus "having been ruined," an inflection of perdēre "waste, destroy"
  • malum "bad, evil"
  • metus "fear"
  • solis "of the sun," an inflection of sol "sun"
  • tellūris "of the earth," an inflection of tellūs "earth"
  • umbra "shadow, ghost"
  • vāstus "unoccupied, desolate"
  • vulcānus "(name of a god)"
  • annōna "(name of a goddess), the yearly produce, price of grain, military provisions" (Greg wasn't sure whether or not the term came from Latin: [3])
 stretches:
  • vorox -> vorāx "voracious"
  • tesara -> tessera "die, ticket" (mostly because that word appears in military and competitive contexts)
  • tajun -> Trajan or Trojan?
 other 2009 words:
  • bara -> barren
  • bota -> botany
  • fero -> Pharaoh
  • scarabax -> scarab
  • skirmix -> skirmish (because other 2009 words relate to competitions)
  1. ↑ "Farshtey Feed, 2008-12-12". BZPower Blogs. (archived on greg.thegreatarchives.com)
  2. ↑ "Official Greg Dialogue", post 6554. BZPower Forums. (archived on greg.thegreatarchives.com)
  3. ↑ "Chat with Greg Farshtey", post 8142898. LEGO Message Boards. (archived on greg.thegreatarchives.com)
-- Morris the Mata Nui Cow (talk) 19:56, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
That looks good! Great job.--ToaKebaka (talk) 20:19, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Inclusion of English Words

My next question is whether English words should be included here. Since BIONICLE was written for a primarily English-speaking audience, I wonder if it's accurate to say that words names like Axonn or Photok or even Mutran were truly "appropriated." - Toa Jala Converse 13:59, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

After the above discussion, I'm hoping that more investigation into their roots will suggest a likely origin in Latin, though if Greg spells out the origin of Mutran as being actual English, it wouldn't work for all of them. Anyway, I think they would make sense to include for a few reasons. 1. These were words drawn from a real-world language and for use as names and terms in-world (although not ones that are actual words like "Swamp Strider" or "Rock Steed" which, I imagine, have the literal words swapped to their equivalents in the region or country). 2. We'd get the most mileage out of this page if it's a catch-all source to find the real-world origins of these names--which otherwise don't have a single page that collects them all. Maximizing this resource is partly why I was originally interested in expanding it beyond a Maori page (although the significance of the Maori language isn't to be understated). 3. I think words with English origin fall under a similar category as the European-based MNOG II Matoran names which should be featured here imo. Hope this makes sense, typing this up in a rush. --Gonel (talk) 16:51, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
I feel like with a lot of words, tying it back to Latin/Greek is sometimes a stretch when it could just as well be from English, which in turn has ties to Latin/Greek. Like, Bota comes from the English botany, and botany comes from botanicus, but that doesn't mean Bota directly comes from botanicus; it's an indirect relation. Additionally, I would agree they're not appropriations anymore than a Pokémon name is. There is a distinction between portmanteaus/word plays/corruptions, and just taking the word wholesale (sometimes changing it for the sake of the English alphabet). MNOG II names should definitely be on here, though. ~ Wolk (talk) 18:10, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
In general, when it comes to these word plays, unless there is an actual direct source from Greg, we shouldn't be as assertive as a lot of them currently are phrased. Even if it seems obvious, we should still use "like" or "may", and if there's multiple possible origins (like fotós or photon for Photok) then we should include both because we can't make those conclusions as a wiki. I'd bring up how Bulbapedia handles this as an example. Squirtle is bluntly a play on Squirt and Turtle, yet they don't say that it "is", but that it "may be". ~ Wolk (talk) 20:03, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Gonel in that the words approtpiated from english should be included here if they are used for Matoran words - they are in such cases real world language appropiated to make words for another (fictional) language - Matoran. So Mutran being a fusion of two english words to make a new Matoran word is worth noting here. On the other hand, stuff like Blade Burrower, as we know, is the closest translation from Matoran to english, and as such would not constitute an eligible mention on this page. One could argue that certain non-english words that are used without change are not eligible under this view, but those are pretty much exclusively given names of characters, places or objects, or have another stated meaning in Matoran, and would thus qualify.
I also agree with Wolk that if there are multiple probable sources of inspiration, all of them should be mentioned, like in case of english words and their greek/latin roots. I also agree that words like "likely" should be present.
On the last note, something Toa Jala mentioned: "Since BIONICLE was written for a primarily English-speaking audience...". I think this statement is not exactly fair to say. LEGO is a Danish company, or rather an international company with Danish roots, that has the international reach and inclusion as one of their prime values. Much of the material was published in different languages with some of them being released in non-english languages only. I know you didn't mean to be exclusive of other audiences, I just wanted to point that out.--ToaKebaka (talk) 13:51, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
ToaKebaka: I certainly didn't mean to sound exclusionary. Since the books were (originally) written in English, I forgot to consider all the other forms of media that weren't. Thanks for fact-checking me on that.
Wolk: I agree. Without solid sources (such as Mutran, although I can't seem to find it), we can only speculate as to the meanings of words and cannot state their inspiration with complete certainty. This is a good middle ground. Thanks for your hard work, we're really bringing out the potential of this page.
- Toa Jala Converse 03:56, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
I think we need to reconsider the validity of Greg's input on some of these... The Krika and Bitil inspiration is just too clear, although I certainly agree that Gorast probably has nothing to do with grasshopper. Greg used that as his dismissal point, the other two were just swept along with it. He tends to do stuff like that often - if one point out of several is dubious, he avoids addressing the bigger concept. And don't forget he said "not to my knowledge", he wouldn't necessarily know about every single name origin.--ToaKebaka (talk) 22:16, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Unknown Words

I'm not sure where Gali and Onua come from, but surely we can find them if we start looking at other languages. Lewa is Hawaiian for sky. ~ Wolk (talk) 22:38, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Put some likely origins for Gali and Onua that others have identified. However, there are a few words from these first three years that either no one has researched or no one has found likely sources on. Some notable ones include "Makoki," "Goko," (as in Goko-Kahu), "Avokhii," "Kraahkan," "Kodan," "Mizuni," and "Kini." Along similar lines, has anyone ever looked into "Valmai"? --Gonel (talk) 05:35, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
I've added Mizuni, Kini and Makoki to the article. I found the latter two in the Handy Hawaiian Dictionary which Alastair Swinnerton confirmed he used in our personal correspondence, so I'm pretty confident in their accuracy. Goko has been on my radar but I haven't found anything convincing. --The Shadow Imperator (talk) 00:39, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Templar Matoran Names

All info that I just posted was sourced from Wolk and Perp's spreadsheet and Emily's site. These in turn have had a number of researchers involved, notably Skye Barnick, chuckshwa, The Shadow Emperor, Planetperson, and the various folks on this topic. --Gonel (talk) 05:51, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Balta

Even though it has nothing to do with fire, the word "balta" translates to "ax" in Hungarian. I don't think it was the inspiration, but I thought at least I should mention it somewhere. Same thing goes for "Visorak," which is pronunced as "Vízorák/Vízórák" in the Hungarian dub, which means "water-meter/water clock/clepsydra." as a trivia. Which again, has nothing to do with spiders or crabs but sounds the same lol. --SurelNuva (Talk) 09:45, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Words Derived from the Original BIONICLE Lexicon

I think many of these are kind of a stretch and I'm not sure we really need the section - it kind of goes beyond the scope of languages appropriated for use in BIONICLE...--ToaKebaka (talk) 17:03, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Dermis

Is there a specific source that says the -dermis ending is from Epidermis and not from Dermis? ~ Wolk (talk) 12:55, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so. It should be dermis for simplicity's sake.--ToaKebaka (talk) 13:15, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
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