Road to Tar Valon Naomi Todd Interview
In 2023, the YouTube channel Road to Tar Valon, known for its deep and insightful coverage and commentary on the Wheel of Time franchise and other fantasy and science fiction storytelling, interviewed dialect coach and language coordinator to the Wheel of Time TV show, Naomi Joy Todd. This interview spanned a number of topics about Joy Todd's work on the series, and her professional background, and also covered some highly pertinent linguistic worldbuilding of the Old Tongue. The full transcript is reproduced with permission here, the specific sections related to the Old Tongue and analysis of that discussion can be found on Naomi Joy Todd Etymology.
Transcript
Amber: Rafe hinted recently that the Seanchan will have influences something similar to the American Southern accent. And do you think the world is ready for Southern American influence in a fantasy show? In a fantasy language?
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Naomi: My name is Naomi. I am a dialect coach, and I work in film and TV. And what a dialect coach does is basically you teach accents to actors, in a simple term. It's an interesting job because your job is to be ignored mostly. You want the accents to be not the focus of anyone at any point. If an accent is the focus, it's doing the wrong thing. Uh, because the accent is there to help tell the story. Just like pretty much every element of a film, you know, the props and the lighting, and it's all there to help tell the story. And if they're the focus point of anything, they're doing the wrong thing. So basically I am, I'm there to help it so that actors don't have to be thinking about their accent when they're acting. They can just be acting. So I'm there on set thinking about the accent and thinking about how it's, how it's reading, and if it's too big or if it's too small, or if it's giving the sense of — if it's accurate, quote unquote — if it's the wrong accent when it should be something else. I'm doing all that so the actor doesn't have to think about it, worry about it, and they can just do the job of the acting. And when I'm working with the actors, it's all about getting the accent to be part of their body and something that they don't have to feel is something that they need to think about in order to do. I come from a, a background in dance among other things. So I think it's really important to be physical about it and feel it in the body. It's, it's very similar to — I always describe it as it's kind of like dancing. So when you learn a dance step, even if it's like a simple, like simple dance step, when you first learn it, you have to think about it in order to execute it. You have to, like, I move my arm here and then I do this, and I turn and I look down. But if you do it enough times, you can do it without thinking about it. And you can be more expressive. You can be happy while you do it instead of, you know, just thinking arm head look. And it's the same thing. Basically you, you, you do the thing that you need to do with your voice. You know, I do the different thing that I need to do when I'm American, and then I do it enough times that I can do it. And actually, instead of thinking about what my mouth is doing, I can think about how I'm feeling. You don't want it to be the focus. You don't want, you don't want on set everyone to — everything to stop because you're trying to do something. And you also don't want people in the audience to be sitting there going, "Hmm, listen to that accent. It sounds really weird." And, and maybe they do it for a moment, but then they get wrapped up in the story and they stop thinking about it. Yeah. The, the, the thing you don't want is them just the whole time to be distracted by some accent for whatever reason. Because it's bad. Because it's really good, because it's — there's a lot of reasons you can be distracted by accents and sometimes it is because they're really, really good or because they're really, really, really accurate. So it's all about helping to create a world and really connecting with the other people that create the world, you know, the costumes and the, and the, and the lighting. And the everything. Like, I, I mean, I don't connect that much with the lighting 'cause it's very visual but I —
Traci: It's —
Naomi: To all of that and making sure it all works together as opposed to being like, it's all about this — Which it is for me but it's not for the story.
Amber: A bit like an orchestra, you know, all of these parts — Going together at the same time. I think what's really cool is with being a dialect coach, like there's, there's obviously with language such a real world need and application for these types of things, but — In your shoes, it's also maybe a little bit more creative where with The Wheel of Time you get to kind of flex that like creative muscle and think about — I, I think I read you worked on The Last of Us and I think I had read about you thinking about the future, like what would things sound like in the future? And that was just something kind of in the back of your head. And with The Wheel of Time, it's also similar because the world has broken apart and been put back together. And you, there's this kind of unanswered question about what time are we in? Is this the past, is this the future? How should things feel and sound? And it's really interesting. I mean, all of these questions just, maybe they're floating out there, I don't know.
Naomi: Yeah. It is a fun way to look at it. I, I, that's one of the things I really enjoy about this, this particular show is how much I get to be creative and also how busy I am. Very busy.
Traci: I love that feeling of being busy. Yes. Uh, should we jump in with the first question? 'Cause honestly, it's, it's the one that I want to be asking anyway. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Uh, so our first question is, was there a moment in your life that made you realize you wanted to work with languages? How did it progress to working in the film and TV industry?
Naomi: I, like I say, I, I trained in dance and then I studied linguistics. And I always really liked theater and I did, I did quite a bit of am dram and I stopped dancing more all the time. I did a lot of like, musicals where I was like dancing in the background kind of thing. And, um, I began working as a faculty member at the University of Oregon — In the linguistics department teaching English. So I did applied linguistics, which is basically the linguistics of how people learn languages. And my thing that I was the most interested was how people learn the accent that they're doing when they're doing another language because you have to do an accent, you know? So I developed this sort of like, way of doing it where people were doing a little performance as they were learning, as they were doing pronunciation, they were doing performing — And I kind of was sort of doing research into how that helps your pronunciation when you're doing something else — And trying to pronounce something — As opposed to focusing on, you know, because you'd get these graduate students trying to get better pronunciation so they could teach their like graduate maths class or something like that. And so, um, I was looking at, well, how does it, how does it, you know, improve the ability to learn your, the accent, to change your accent a bit if you're doing something else, like performing, you know, which none of the people that I was working with really were performers, but they were just doing these silly little plays. And I, um, basically I was tired of academia, um, and I, not the biggest fan. I have good things to say about it, but also like anything, it can be tiring. I thought I wanted to be a dialect coach, and I literally sat down on Google and I went — "How do you become a dialect coach?" And it was the first time it happened to me that Google was like, "Girl, I don't know." [laughter] Google was like, I don't. And I was like, "Really? Google? Are you sure?" And it was like, yeah. So, so I, um, so I sent out, I found — I basically instead, I said, "Okay, fine, Google, tell me who is a dialect coach." And I sent out a whole load of emails to dialect coaches, and, and, um, eventually one dialect coach did reply to me and gave me some advice on what I should do. So that was, that was where it went from there.
Traci: That's amazing.
Amber: That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. You took the initiative and just went for it.
Traci: Yeah. I, I love that. And I love that Google was stumped by your question because I mean, really, how often does that happen? Yeah. How, okay. So just, I wanna, I'm just curious about how long did that process take before like, someone responded to you and was like, here, this is how you do it, and now you're here.
Naomi: Took about a year for me to like, sort out like what I needed, what I was going to, like, what, what's happening, what do I need to do? Like, find out how you become a dialect coach. If anyone out there wondering, you go to Central, you go to Central School of Speech and Drama and you study voice, language and voice studies. That is the answer that Google didn't have for me.
Traci: But yeah. Yes. That's perfect.
Amber: For anyone who has aspirations out there now they know.
Traci: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's, it seems like such a, a fun and interesting occupation to have. I, I love this.
Naomi: So do I.
Traci: Good, good. That's even better. Yeah.
Amber: Okay. So with this next question, it was more about the world building and within The Wheel of Time, we have this fictional world, but there's all of these different cultures and nations and everything's spread out. So I wanted to know what your process is like when you're kind of mapping these things out.
Naomi: Mm. It's all a team, team effort. So I'm involved, but I'm, I think of myself probably more as a facilitator. And, and so, so there's, so there's kind of like key elements, the main key element being Rafe. He says how he wants the world to be. And I, I think there's a lot of communication between basically Rafe, myself and the casting department. Um, because a lot of it happens in casting. So, you know, they kind of think about — Rafe and, and, and the other writers think about what do we want this world to feel like? What do we want this country to feel like? What do we want it to look like? And, and they have discussions with the production designer, like, what's it gonna look like? Where are we gonna shoot it? So what does it look like? And they go back to the books and they look at the books, and then they end up casting people. And then they tell me, we want this to feel like this kind of a place, and here are the people we've cast. And then what I do is I look at these, these actors, and I kind of, I kind of think of how it is that we can, we can pull these actors who are cast in roles in this nation into a feeling that feels similar, feels like it's from the same place. Usually the answer for dialect coaching is less is more — the least amount of like, extra stuff that you have to throw in there. The better it is, the more realistic it is, the more, the more natural, the more believable probably. So it's definitely a group thing. And it's, it's, I'm more basically the one sort of — I receive what I receive and then I take it and I make it the best that I can make it and pass it along kind of thing. I don't make it good, but I sort of help them. I'm facilitating, basically I'm facilitating —
Amber: Shaping it a little.
Naomi: He wants to create, and I'm facilitating the actor to, to do something that feels natural and good for them in a way that they can perform and, and do what they do. I'm just there to help everyone be the fantastic people that they are.
Traci: I bet they love working with you. I would want somebody to behave like that if I were in that situation. This is amazing. I love it.
Amber: So follow up on that, with all of these different cultures and nations, is there any one that you particularly like or —
Naomi: Well, I always find these questions difficult. I, for some reason, I, I'm not a very, I'm not a good person with like, favoring things, but anyway, that's boring. I'm boring myself.
Amber: Or find interesting maybe.
Traci: It's okay. I'm the same way. I'm like, I dunno how to decide.
Naomi: It's, isn't it — people always ask me as a dialect coach, people always ask me what my favorite accent is. And, um, it's, it's always, it's, I just, I just find it a very odd question. So like, but I, I, I personally find it not — I don't think it is an odd question.
Amber: Okay. Thanks.
Naomi: Thanks. Perfectly natural. Completely reasonable question. I just, as an individual inside my own individual self, find it an odd question. Totally makes sense. This, this is what's interesting about fantasy and about pretty much the stories that we make. I'm going way deeper than you wanted me to go here, but —
Amber: No, go deep. Not at all. Dig in.
Naomi: If you think about the worlds, there is sort of a protagonistic world, you know, Andor is kind of your home world, you know, that's where your main characters are from. And that's where like you've got a real high quantity of goodies in. And, or, I mean, you have — you know, there's, there's goodies and baddies in all the worlds, but it, it's the one that's the most fleshed out. It's one you spend the most time in and it's where your protagonists are from. So interestingly, you quite frequently see that reflected in sort of casting and the accent world that's built up is you feel like that's the most like, neutral one. If you listen to an audio book, you also find that like the, the person narrating the audio book will be doing the narration in a more neutral accent. And then everything else will be more like colored. It will be a more like, regional for this character and that character and that, that place, you tend to see that in all kind of fantasy things. If you look at like Lord of the Rings, I guess there's, you know, most of the characters are in one sort of accent place and then there's some other characters in other accent places. So that tends to mean that like some of the worlds feel slightly different. But yeah, I mean, I dunno. No, I don't have any favorite worlds. I think, I think probably whichever one I'm doing the most stuff in is my favorite or the one that's the most interesting to me. It's always the, the, the real answer is always whatever's the most interesting is probably my favorite. So, um, probably one of the worlds that I can't really talk about is probably my favorite.
Amber: Ooh. Because I'm —
Traci: That's exciting. Love that. Again, we're right at a section where I wanna ask you this question, so this is perfect. Were there specific languages you used to help determine how the old tongue would sound? So like, now sliding into the language of The Wheel of Time in some ways.
Naomi: When, when we kind of went through looking at Old Tongue, I basically, I looked at the Old Tongue. I had a nice document prepared by Sarah Nakamura that was like, had a lot of Old Tongue stuff all put together in the same place. And I could read a lot of the old — so I had a look at it, had a read, I had a feel for like, what it felt like for me. And then I basically, and this is kind of how it always works with, with the dialect stuff that I do and with Rafe, is I basically have a look, have a feel, think of what sort of like, strikes me, what feels kind of like good ideas to me — And then I send those ideas along to Rafe. So I basically sent him recordings of a variety of different languages. I probably can't remember all the different languages I sent him recordings of, but I, I took snippets of what felt to me like the, I had in my head. Um, so not just like, here's a language name, look it up. I, I went through and found recordings of them and found the snippets of what felt like —
Traci: Oh that's so smart —
Naomi: Old Tongue to me. And I created like probably a two minute file so that he could just sit, listen to it, and then tell me which bits of it felt like elements of Old Tongue to him. And so then he came back and I think we sort of landed on a little bit of Celtic, some Arabic, some sort of a Spanish, and I think, I think Hebrew is actually the other one.
Traci: Um, oh, interesting. How interesting.
Naomi: It sort of should feel like, oh, it sort of tickles a little remembrances in me. Like, oh, are they speaking Arabic —
Amber: Mm-hmm. I've, that's definitely — when reading the books, have came across certain lines in the Old Tongue and I was like, oh, that's German. It's like, oh, I can recognize that. I can recognize that.
Naomi: That's interesting. It's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Amber: When we were emailing previously, we were talking about "your welcome warms me," and you had said that you had a good story about this line in the Old Tongue. I hope you remember.
Naomi: So many stories. The Old Tongue, like so —
Amber: So many — I'll take any of them.
Naomi: Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that I do, the other like role that I have on, on The Wheel of Time is that I'm the language consultant, which means that I do all the translating for the Old Tongue that we have in both the songs and in the scenes. And then I teach the actors how to say them. And I'm again, doing the same kind of dialect coachy thing on set, but I'm also there for like, post-production to make sure that the subtitles are actually subtitling what's being said. Because, you know, they'll, it'll get cut and then they'll put subtitles in and, and they'll accidentally have cut a bit where it's not actually saying what it's — so that, that kind of languagey stuff where you're kind of just making sure that everything tracks and, and translates and that kind of thing. So one of the things that that means is that I am building out the language. As Robert Jordan had it, it's very much a dead language. I sort of liken it to Latin in, in what it seems like it, how it lives in the world of The Wheel of Time, because there's like some, some fancy people that speak it, but really — You know, and, um, it's not really a communication language for any particular culture in the, in the now time. It was the language that everyone used in the before, before the breaking. Then the idea was that it, the language itself got kind of broken. So that's a really interesting, fascinating thing for me because basically I, I look at what Robert Jordan has and it's very disjointed and it's very, doesn't make any sense — In a lot of ways. There's no grammar there for you. There's almost nothing to like cling onto, but there is a lot of words, there's a lot of vocabulary. So one of the things that I did for season one was build out this language so that there was a way to make it make sense for the bits of season one, where we are set in before the breaking. So it had communication language. And that is so much fun, that is where I get the nerdiest I could possibly get. And it's where actually my understanding and knowledge of the world of The Wheel of Time is the most important. Because basically I'm combining linguistics and understanding of language and how it works and how it, how it functions. Um, I'm combining that with sort of artistry because the first thing I did was create the sound of the old tongue. We had lines already and we had to create a sound for it. I had a feel for the language because I'd read all the stuff that he'd written in the language. And then I had a feel for how it sounded, because we'd already created the sound of these particular lines that we started with. And then it combines basically like imagination and, and an understanding of the culture because a language is a reflection of your culture. So — That's what was so fascinating to me, was looking at the culture of the people before the breaking and looking at the culture of the people after the breaking and asking myself, how might the language reflect the differences in those cultures? And also asking myself to explain things that you had from the books — That didn't make sense. Explain them backwards to make them make sense. Let's, let's all be clear here and say that language never makes sense because it is an expression of humanity. And when has —
Traci: Any sense —
Naomi: So real languages don't make any sense.
Traci: That's so true.
Naomi: But they needed more of a system than what Robert Jordan gave us because what he gave us was a lot of disjointed rubble, essentially. 'Cause that was the idea he was trying to create. So we needed to create some kind of structure out of it. It didn't need to be a highly sense-making structure, but it is — to his structure of some kind. So one of the things that I did to that note was I did a lot of basically going even further back than Old Tongue. So you've got Old Tongue as it exists in — as dead, you've got dead Old Tongue, which is what I, I'm showing now is over here for some reason. So this is like dead — And you've got like Age of Legends alive, Old Tongue — And what I did was then I created a proto Old Tongue. So every language comes from another language. Until you get time before people have language, but every language comes from another language. So English comes from Germanic, Germanic comes from Indo-European, and Germanic is a cousin of Latin. So you can look at Germanic languages and Latin and many other languages that are Indo-European, and you can go, oh, Germanic and Latin have the same word, but it's just slightly different. So like father and the word pater is the Latin. So you have like padre in Spanish. Spanish is again — A child of Latin. So you've got like, um, the "puh" changed to a "fuh." So the fun that I get to have with that, I get to sort of create stories basically. So I'll give you an example in English so you can kind of understand what I'm talking about. This is a, well actually maybe that's not an appropriate example because it's a little bit, well actually I'll do it anyway.
Traci: So — please do that.
Naomi: It gives us, gives us a real story. So the word, um, this is just inside English, so it's not all the way from older languages, but the, the word fag, which is now a pejorative term for a gay man, usually comes from — and in England you hear the word fag for a cigarette. It's also a word for a, um, a fag or a faggot is a word for a log that you put in the fire. And it's also a word for a kind of like food that's like a little sticky sort of food. So the similarity, you may have noticed, is all stick, like, uh, like a little stick. A log is like a stick. The little food thing, I think it's, it's about the shape. I can't even really, what is a faggot to eat?
Traci: Yeah. I, I knew about the other ones. I did not know about the food one.
Naomi: They're meatballs.
Amber: Okay. Okay.
Traci: There's so many contexts where that would just be — Bizarre, depending on how you're using it.
Naomi: Anyway, the point is, the, the word faggot used to mean stick back in Old English and it, it was a word that was used for sticks. And so you would put the faggot in the fire, a collection of sticks was a broom. And, um, they would sometimes call that a faggot, the broom. 'Cause it was just a bunch of sticks. And there is a thing in English where you refer to a person by the tool that they use. So, um, you might hear — as fantasy nerds, you might, you might have a familiarity with the idea of saying, "I have 100 spears under my control." And you're not referring to like 100 spears that you're gonna throw — You're talking about a hundred people who hold spears and do things with them. So you're actually referring to a man by the tool that he uses. So in the same light, people in the old English times would refer to housewives as the tool that they used, which was the broom, which is made of sticks, which were called faggots. So they would call the housewife a faggot. Then the, the move from housewife to gay man is a little bit more obvious. Um, because you, uh, because of patriarchy basically. Being a woman, bad. Being a man, like woman, bad, bad. So, so, so, so, so that's just, that's an interesting story because you go, okay, right. This tells us many things about the culture of the people who spoke this language. This tells us that they probably were in a wooded environment, not in a desert, because they made brooms out of sticks. It could maybe tell us something about what kind of life they lived. And it tells you that, that it was a patriarchal society — Because the, the move from a woman as a housewife, um, referred to as a broom, and then the move from there to becoming a pejorative. Um, only works if women are considered less than men.
Traci: Less than, yes. Mm-hmm.
Naomi: Only works if they are a patriarchal society. It tells you just that — the history of one word, fag, tells you so much about the society that spoke and then birthed the society that now speaks that one specific word. Yeah. So I did a lot of that kind of stuff with Old Tongue, which was really fun and helped me basically when I needed words for a, um, particular scene or a particular lyric in one of the songs, um, for the soundtrack. So I would sit there and it'd be like, okay, I don't have, there's no word for, um, there's no word for whatever it is. And the story would be, I'd get, I'd have need some word like, oh, I need a word for, um, mallet. I don't have a word for mallet. Um, so, okay, let me go back and, and look at, and so then I go, and I spent about two hours just going on this like journey from like, you know, how could, how could the word mallet have evolved? Where did they live? What kind of things would they be using to create, to create mallets? How can I mess up the word to go down the line from wherever it began to wherever it is now. And I would have but I would also end up with about 12 other words because I'd done this whole journey. So there's all kinds of stuff that I've added to, to, to, like, basically the, the, the etymology of Old Tongue. But like, for example, Manetheren is an interesting one. So —
Amber: Mountain home.
Naomi: Mm-hmm. Yes. So the Manetheren is a mountain home. So then, uh, the word for shield is aethan. So you have like the, one of the Aiel warrior societies, the Aethan Dor, the red shields. One of the things that I did was I'm, I'm looking at Manetheren and I'm looking at other Old Tongue words. So I'm looking at man, for example, and you've got Manetheren but you've also got things like manshima which means sword, and there's other things. So what I do is basically I organize all the Old Tongue words together in, in alphabetically for Old Tongue. And I, if I'm looking for something, I look at what other words have that little bit of word in them, and how could those things have all gotten connected to one another. So we have things with man in it — for looking at Manetheren and other things with man are sword, manshima, manu, which means to think, manive which means to drive, you know, mandarb is a blade — name of Lan's, Lan's horse. So I thought about that and sort of thought, okay, so, so actually let's say that man is the proto Old Tongue word that means point. Something like, oh, okay. Something pointy. So there's a lot of like, connection in a lot of languages between the idea of pointedness and the idea.
Traci: Yeah, yeah. You know —
Amber: A mountain top would be like the, yeah —
Traci: Mm-hmm. A blade —
Naomi: Mountain top would be, would be pointed like a blade, like thinking — like, um, Aethan meaning shield. So basically I created the idea that actually Manetheren from the old, old, old, old tongue would be something that was sort of like, you know, that's where the term for mountain — why, so why does Manetheren sound like a blade? Is because they both come from this other word that meant pointy. And that's where the mountain word comes from. That's where, that's where a sword word comes from. They're separate words. It's not that Manetheren actually means sword shield. It, it does mean mountain home or shield, but it's, um, you know, that's where it came from. So I spend a lot of time just getting really nerdy and it sort of has, doesn't have a direct like practical relation to much of anything apart from helping me feel the world of the language is really real. And that really helps me to create something that feels filled out when we get into scenes that are done in Old Tongue.
Amber: Um, that's really great because I don't think that a lot of people would put that together on their own. Unless they were in this field.
Naomi: Yeah. Another one I have that's a, a pretty intense one, is, um, the word Shai'tan. So this is a really interesting one because I'm looking at the language and other examples of shai. Shai also means woman. Hmm. Um, Shai'tan — Dark One, shaidar — dark, Shaiel — the woman who is dedicated, that's Tigraine's Aiel name. But then shain also means peace. So that's your sort of list of Old Tongue words that have shai in them. And I sort of see that, and I think we need more story here. We need something — That creates this. And of course what I'm doing is I'm not, I'm not going through and saying these words don't mean this. What I'm doing is I'm saying, where did these words come from to end up very similar — And of course, a lot of the time words can end up really similar for some completely unrelated reason. And that happens all the time and that's fine. But other times there's a reason to it. And I think there's something to be found in that kind of thing. So I look at shai coming from more from the word dedication. So you have a sense of that with like Tigraine's name, you know, the, the dedicated woman. So I'm thinking, okay, dedication. What's the old, old, old idea of that? And so this one I, I sort of took from a little bit — that for tan, I took something that's a little bit close to an old English situation where basically the word for king had a lot to do with being related because that was culturally what was happening in Anglo-Saxon times. So actually the kin and king are related words. Someone related to you in your tribe would be the next person who would be the ruler. Kind comes from the word for king and the word for kin and kind is basically how you treat people you are related to — Right. As opposed to people outside of your tribe. So I look at tan and I think, okay, maybe tan comes from the proto Old Tongue ton, which means to give and receive in the sense that basically to be a regent or a king. So you give to the people and you receive things from your people. So tan is, is actually the Old Tongue word for sovereign. And, okay. Tana means to get, so this is sort of the words that I'm collecting together and creating a story for basically. So now I'm looking at Shai'tan and I'm thinking, okay, so we've got this idea of dedication and this idea of like regency, which makes sense. If we look at the name Shai'tan actually what it is, is it's the king of the dedicated. And I continued with this because I was looking at the word shaidar when I was looking at shai. And you've got [Valdar], which is, which is God. Dar means forward. It also means sister. Um, and dareis you know, Far Dareis Mai. Maiden's of the Spear. Darshi, is to see. Anyway, so I'm looking at all of these and I'm not necessarily saying I — they all have to connect to one another, but I'm sort of looking at them for sort of an inspiration and idea. So dar I say comes from forward and in case that's gonna come from an old word that means far away. So it could, it could have been used to mean far in the past or far in the future, came to mean propel forward or move forward, which is how it presumably came to be in shaidar. And that's basically dedicated to forwardness. People who were dedicated to breaking the world, wanted the world — the forward to mean forward and not forward to mean returning and cycling in a wheel. They wanted to go —
Amber: Changing it. Yeah.
Naomi: Forward. So it's interesting because you think, what is the philosophy behind? And I think that's what's interesting about The Wheel of Time, um, series, is that there really are like kind of going into, well, what is the philosophy behind being a dark friend? Why — Why doing it, what's the point?
Traci: Um —
Naomi: Mm-hmm. That, that's convincing them.
Amber: That was one of my favorite parts about season one that I think that they've built upon — From the books, because in the books it's a little bit, it's like they're bad because — right. They're evil 'cause they're bad, and then like, just go with it. And they've really expanded upon that in the show, which I really appreciate because I can say, okay, this makes sense to me. Like, I can understand why someone would have this opinion or motivation and it kind of clicks and you're like, yeah. Like I, I get it.
Traci: Mm-hmm. It's great. Yeah.
Naomi: Yes. I'll give you one more. So Saishi which is the Old Tongue for the source of the One Power — Saidar and, um, anyways, Saishi, so sai comes from the be verb. Um, and so, and then shi also is the ending that you have in Old Tongue to make a word mean a hundred. So if you've got a number like koye, which is one, uh, 100 would be koye'shi and so you add the shi to make mean a hundred. So I sort of thought about it and I thought, okay, well Saishi back in the — back uh, before the breaking, um, there was a lot more of a concept of things being multiplicitous and having a lot of, having more complications to them and being accepted as opposed to being more black and white. And I think that's the biggest difference you see broken. Everyone gets very dogmatic and very like, has to be this, or it has to be that. And, you know, that's, you know, the Whitecloaks —
Traci: Um, yeah.
Naomi: They're very dogmatic and they're very like, it's this or that. I think I think of that from reading the books as sort of like what happened when the world broke and before the world broke, things were more, people were more okay with things being different. You know, there was two sides of Aes Sedai — there was men and women as opposed to just women. And so, um, the idea was that Saishi comes from a root being manyness. So the idea that being is like where the power comes from, shi is something that denotes manyness. And since the One Power comes from everything, it, it's, it's the being or the power that comes from everywhere. Translated into the vulgar tongue, it loses some of its meaning being called the One Power. Which I think makes more sense in the world because they, they've sort of narrowed their vision, they're trying to survive once the breaking's happened. And then now the vision. So that would reflect itself naturally in the way they speak.
Traci: That's great.
Naomi: And so they call it the One Power. It's like the one thing really, if you literally translate it into the Old Tongue, it would really more be everything's power, the power that comes — everything. So anyway, it's stuff like that that I just spend ages doing and having fun with to, to create a sense that there is a, a culture from which the language comes — street behind, behind as many words as I can do.
Amber: It's, it's incredible. That's amazing. I can't imagine how much work that would be. It makes my, my head hurt thinking about it. I don't have a knack for something like this. I mean, I, I moved somewhere where this is not my mother tongue and that was full of difficulties. And I just think of someone who's like, no, like, this is what I'm going into. This is what I'm going to make, like my life, my work. And I'm just like —
Traci: Wow. Yeah.
Amber: I had a question about one of the characters from the show, and it was about Loial and I think I was just so impressed with the sound of Loial because the Ogier are normally peaceful, but they're also capable of like this incredible ferocity. So you have this like duality and I think Hammed's way of speech just, I mean, really nails it. He's got this kind of like, almost like gentle calming presence to his voice, but then it's also like buzzing and rumbly where I absolutely believe like the size and strength of this creature. And I just wanted to ask if, if you worked with him, was that just like a natural thing? He did it, it was great. Or like did you help him a little bit? It's, I'm so impressed by it. It was so good.
Naomi: With him, I was basically facilitating. So when we were doing prep and we were just beginning before season one, we had sessions where basically we would just playing around, we would, we would spend time just playing in a little space that I had. Um, I had my little dialect office, which was really cool. And, um, and we, we would just, we would just play around. We were playing with, with, um, depth and with strength and power. Um, but we were also playing with slowness and finding the feeling of like power inside of slowness. Um, so, you know, gave — we did all kinds of like, yeah. Yeah. Sort of like all kinds of different things. You know, we, we did like just saying words whilst pushing as hard as you can into the side of a wall and just, and, but trying to say the words slowly and calmly or doing something else. You know, we, we did all kinds of different things and, and again, it's, it's more about me providing some ideas and concepts that might help Hammed to reach a place that feels resonant to him and feels right to him and, and feels like what the character is to him. So yeah, again, it's, it's all, it's all Hammed and, um, basically all I do is just kind of walk around giving weird ideas for things to try.
Amber: I love that.
Naomi: Is like, useful or not. The thing I was gonna say before is, I always say that like dialect coaching, you're trying to get to the top of a mountain, and what I'm doing is, I'm not telling you which path to take, but I'm suggesting paths. And then, then we try walking up one of the paths together and I go, "No, this isn't working for you, is it?" And they're like, "No." And then we go back and we try a different path, and then we go up that path and it's like, "Well, this is kind of working." And we try another one. And basically, there's no right or wrong. Once you get to the top of the mountain, you're at the top of the mountain. Uh, how you get there doesn't matter. And that, the job that I have is to, is to be able to like swap around different paths to different exercises. Different ideas — And make sure that the actor knows that it's, it's not about them being right or being wrong, it's about them just kind of trying different things and see what —
Amber: Feels right. Yeah. That's great.
Traci: Mm-hmm. That's great.
Amber: I need someone like that to help me with my German.
Naomi: Lovely.
Amber: What's that? No German? No.
Traci: Which, do you mind if I ask which languages you do speak?
Naomi: Um, I speak French and Spanish and Portuguese.
Traci: Nice.
Naomi: Because I did have the romance languages in, um, undergraduate.
Traci: Okay, cool. Sorry, just had to ask. I was curious.
Naomi: Brazilian Portuguese. Let's be, let's be clear as well.
Traci: Oh, okay. Okay. That actually is a bit of a difference, isn't it?
Naomi: Yeah. There is a bit of a difference.
Traci: Yeah. Yeah. Regions change things.
Amber: I'm living in it. Right. I'm living in it. I'm in a very notoriously difficult area for dialect in Germany. So I'm in the Swabian region-ish and it's very nice. It's very different and has caused a lot of problems in my learning —
Naomi: Uhhuh —
Amber: Journey.
Naomi: Because you're, you're learning like standard German.
Amber: Correct? Correct. Yeah. When I actually went to school for Hochdeutsch, for High German, I had already had like this Swabian influence on how I was speaking, plus the American accent. And my teacher looked at me like, maybe I have a third eye. Like, where did you — how — what? Okay. But they kind of beat it out of you. So —
Naomi: Yeah. Yeah. That's what I hear about, um, High German.
Traci: Um, and so then I think the next one is yours, Amber.
Amber: So this one was just more about like being on set and on your website it says that once like a pronunciation is agreed upon, and that's what it is, you have to sometimes enforce it. So this is just kind of a funny idea of like, were there certain things that people especially struggled with or just funny things that happened along the journey of it all?
Naomi: That's such a good question. Well, I mean, the most, the most annoying thing for me is that, um, you'll spend all this time prepping the actors and the actors will, you know, really work hard and listen to recordings and make sure they know all the pronunciations. And you'll go into the trailer in the morning and be like, okay, do you remember the pronunciations for these words? Like, make sure we get 'em right. And we're all like a team, and we come out this strong force of a team, and then the director and the, the assistant directors, they're like, "Oh, okay. Um, now we need, um, Nynaeve or —" Nia-nahv. "Where's —?"
Traci: Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
Naomi: Okay. Get, get — Nee Navy — you're just like, no, trying keep something here. We — and so it's all that, you know, because they refer to character names. They refer to place names. "Where's Egween? Can we get Egween in here?" And you know, if you have like a, say you have an actor doing a daily and they're just talking to Egwene and it's their first time and you've worked with them to make sure they know how to say Egwene and then everyone's calling her Egween and then the, the actor's just like, "So hello, Egween —" ah. So it's actually a legitimate thing that I have to go around and correct crew members to say the names.
Amber: Right. It's contagious.
Naomi: You'll just get into people's brains and — Get them. Uh, which is, which is really, really funny. One of the tricky ones for some reason is, um, I'm blanking on it now, where's Moiraine from?
Amber: Cairhien. She's from Cairhien. Yeah.
Naomi: Cairhien because, um, Car-Hane, definitely actors who, who will take a while, KEYE-ree-EHN, KEYE-ree-EHN. Um, and I feel like there's another C-named city that I can't think of at the moment as well.
Traci: Caemlyn?
Naomi: That can be sometimes — Caemlyn yeah. Caemlyn can be a tricky one. Yeah. I have, basically, I have a spreadsheet. Let me tell you right now actually how many, how many words I have in this spreadsheet.
Traci: You know what I was — when you were looking things up, I was like, you have got to have some sort of like, database sitting around that has like, all your stuff.
Naomi: So many spreadsheets. Yes. Don't even —
Traci: Okay. Knew that. Knew. Knew. You're gonna say that.
Naomi: I'm, I'm a fan of spreadsheets. 881. There's 881 words on my spreadsheet.
Traci: Nice.
Naomi: So you've gotta know that like, um, I, you know, I, I'll prep in the morning, I'll look at what we're doing and I'll write down all the, you know, I'll, I'll see all the different names, I'll highlight them so I know — Which names I'm making sure people are getting right. And I will, um, just, just write out my little, you know, phonetic reminder because even if it's a, you know, a word like Moiraine that I know, I mean, maybe I wouldn't do it — more, I don't think I need to with that. But most, you know, aside from like the main character names, I will still write them down, not because I don't know how to say them, but because in the moment, you know, you have this quick thing and someone's like, "Is it this or is it that?" And then your brain goes blank. So I, and I always keep the electronic version of the spreadsheet with the 800 some things because it always comes up that you just wanna make sure that in that moment you are actually 100% sure that, that you are right about — That particular name. Um, so yeah, I've got this, I've got a spreadsheet with that. I've got a spreadsheet with, um, with, um — actually they're just, they're just normal documents. But I've got two different documents for the Old Tongue with, um, with the Old Tongue listed alphabetically for English. And then Old Tongue listed alphabetically for Old Tongue, which are helpful when I'm doing translating.
Amber: I just wanna say that that scene in season one, the flashback where they're in the Age of Legends and it's all done in the Old Tongue, turned out so beautiful. That was one of the scenes where Traci and I both, we were like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. But like, it's, it's just such a cool scene and it really like, it really flows. It really flows. And then there's also this kind of astonishing moment for — I think people who haven't read the books where they're like, wait, this is the past, wait a minute, what's, what's happening? And there's so much going on, but it all works together so well. It was really cool.
Naomi: Well, look forward to more in season two. I can just say that.
Amber: That's exciting.
Naomi: I do.
Amber: That's very exciting.
Naomi: I do look forward to that. More Old Tongue to come. I'm very pleased about the Old Tongue. I'm very glad that we were able to do scenes in Old Tongue because I think it, I think it definitely adds something to the, to the world and it's definitely one for me.
Traci: Yeah. This is, it seems like it fits your passion so well. Like, that's just, it's lovely.
Amber: Okay, the next one, I don't know if I can — I, this one might be a little bit too spoilery. So what if I just say this? So — Rafe hinted recently that the Seanchan will have influences something similar to the American Southern accent. And do you think the world is ready for Southern American influence in a fantasy show? In a fantasy language? Did I do okay?
Naomi: I think that's actually a really good question because I think, um, I think we connect this kind of high fantasy, I guess is what it would be called. You know, fantasy with swords, basically. Swords and horses. Fantasy that is essentially for whatever reason, it's like medieval times, like anytime we get magic, shit goes back to medieval times. That's what's happening.
Traci: Always.
Naomi: Mm-hmm. Magic, medieval. And we have this connection as a culture that we can't shake. And so every time we create these things that quite often just feels very medieval and maybe also it's, it's easier to create rules when it's like, well if I just look at what, what do they do in medieval times? Like you've got a set of rules like realistic and anyway, um, so anytime you get high fantasy, you just don't get American. You get a, a lot of American in sci-fi 'cause it feels new, you know? But fantasy feels old and therefore American is not old. American is new. Um, and it's, I think it's just fascinating how culturally we just have these shared beliefs and, and to tell a story. I think it's all well and good to try and change things because I think, you know, stories do that and art does that, but I think also there is not, it's not bad to also acknowledge these cultural norms that we have and these cultural sort of, because if you're trying to tell a story and you want people to get lost in it, there is some sense of like allowing those cultural things to be there because then you get lost in them. I dunno. Um, so anyway, so that question, that's why that question's valid because you really don't get American in these kinds of fantasy things. And I think, I think what's interesting if you look at the books is that the Seanchan are completely different and completely unknown and the Aiel are quite unknown. They're at least — there's some connection. They know what they look like, they know — How they fight a little bit and they know something about where they are. The Seanchan — there's no knowledge of anything. They're completely non-existent. That part of the world didn't exist until they showed up. So I think there is something that will feel sort of, um, American, there is something that could feel kind of American about that because when the people went to America from England, they didn't think that — There was a piece of land there. They thought they were gonna, the other side of the piece of land that they knew about. Um, and obviously, you know, people were not speaking with American accents when that happened. People were not — People were not American. But, uh, I think that, I think that it's gonna work really, really well. I think it's gonna be really interesting. And I think also that there is something, it being so other — there is gonna be something that's gonna give it a real feel. It's gonna, yeah. It, it's something you can really play with, I think with this fact that it's so outside of the cultural expectation for a fantasy show. And to play with it in order to help tell a story is all what it's about, I think.
Traci: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Amber: It could almost be almost like, give you this feel of unease where it's like, wait, that's —
Traci: The difference. Just like, yeah. Like a little jarring event.
Amber: Right, right. It really helps the Seanchan story.
Traci: Absolutely. Mm-hmm. That's fun. I like that a lot. Okay, so real quick, and it feels like the answer to this is going to be a definite yes, but were there any fun rabbit holes you fell down while researching for the television series? Or was there anything in your research that surprised you about The Wheel of Time?
Naomi: I, well, yes. I mean, I went down lots of rabbit holes. Um, for me, a lot of the research, I mean, obviously I read the books, so that was, that was a, that was a rather lengthier rabbit hole.
Amber: That was a journey!
Traci: That was a task. Yeah. It takes a minute.
Naomi: Just a little bit of time.
Traci: Yeah. Tiny, tiny investment of time.
Naomi: Mm-hmm. Just a little bit. And actually also, um, looking at the, the books more in, in a little bit more depth with, um, Rosamund when she was, um, doing the audio versions. I dunno, have you listened to them?
Traci: Not yet, but I'm gonna —
Amber: Not all the way through, but I've heard certain chapters and I'm really, I'm looking forward to it.
Naomi: So yeah, there was a lot more, um, that, I think that's probably why my, my spreadsheet of names is as long as it is, is because I don't think we've said 800 names on the show yet, but I think definitely combine that with the names. But what's really nice about that is we've connected them so that there will be a sense of oneness between pronunciations throughout both the books and the, and the shows. Someone out there can probably find one, one name that is pronounced differently between different people, but — But yeah, it was, there was a lot of rabbit holes with language. A lot of times I found myself just like, just like spending 35 minutes reading about like Tibetan language, you know — And just being like, well, or you know, the other day I was reading a, an article about, I can't remember what it was now, I think it was a, I think it was a Native American language. I was reading about some academic study about how they created superlatives.
Traci: And so interesting.
Naomi: I spend a lot of time with, um, there's always a, a need for a sense of some kind of like grounding or some kind of something to hang something on. And then you can be creative from there. 'Cause you, you sort of go down this rabbit hole and, and, and I think the more rabbity-wholly you can get, the more realistic the language you create is because then — It's something weird and it's like, where did this, how did this, what, and that's what happens with all languages. You look at English and you're like, where did, where do we get the, all that, those letters in the word through or —
Traci: Right. You know? Yes. Yeah.
Naomi: Why is this like this? And that's like that. And so the more rabbit holes I can go down when creating more words in the, in the Old Tongue, the more realistic I can make it as a real language. I think —
Traci: That's so fun. I mean, I feel as though you are absolutely the perfect person to be doing what you're doing, and that's just lovely.
Amber: Yeah. And I just wanted to say too, I mean like the world building aspect of this show is very large. It has to be such a group effort, like you said, and — Thank you for bringing it to life for the people who get to enjoy it. When the show comes out, everybody's really excited for season two. Very excited. Thank you so much for your time.
Traci: Yeah, thank you.
Naomi: All right. Yeah, I'm very, um, very happy to do it.