Old Solar

**Old Solar**, also known as the **Great Tongue** or **Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi**, is the classical Language of the Field of Arbol. While the people of Thulcandra or Earth do not know the language, it is a *lingua franca* on Malacandra and known on Perelandra.

Elwin Ransom is taught Old Solar on Malacandra by Hnohra and as a philologist, he picks it up quicker than Edward Rolles Weston or Richard Devine and even translates their speech at the end of *Out of the Silent Planet*.

According to the Space Trilogy's cosmology, the original speech of all the inhabitants of the Fields of Arbol is the Old Solar or *Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi*. Only Earth lost the language, due to The Bent One's influence. Old Solar can be likened to the Elvish languages invented by Lewis's friend, Tolkien.

"*For this was the language spoken before the Fall and beyond the Moon and the meanings were not given to the syllables by chance, or skill, or long tradition, but truly inherent in them as the shape of the great Sun is inherent in the little waterdrop. This was Language herself, as she first sprang at Maleldil's bidding out of the molten quicksilver of the first star called Mercury on Earth, but Viritrilbia in Deep Heaven.*"

## Dialects

There is some evidence that different species on Malacandra have their own language and/or their own variants of Old Solar. Hrossa seem to add an initial h- and the name of the Pfifltriggi has an unusual form suggesting it is a loanword into Old Solar. On Perelandra, Tinidril has some knowledge of Old Solar, but it is limited due to her lack of experience.

There is also evidence that Old Solar was spoken on Earth but grew corrupted. The names of Earth and Mars in Old Solar - Thulcandra and Malacandra appear similar to the Latin names Tellus and Mars for these two worlds, and -candra/-(h)andra appears cognate with the English word "land".

Despite its name, Old Solar does have some apparent neologisms such as "Hmāna".

## Grammar

A few scraps of information can be gleaned about the grammar of Old Solar, but the evidence is scanty and mostly concerns nouns, there are a few examples:

* It shows evidence of a genitive case:
	+ the *Hressa-Hlab* is the speech of the hrossa, and shows an internal vowel change.
	+ Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi is apparently the "tongue of the Field of Arbol", with Arbol (Sun) in the genitive.
	+ Meldilorn - ?Place of Maleldil?
	+ Tor-Oyarsa-Perelindri - this is either Tor, ruler/king of Perelandra or of the Perelandrians.
* Unlike some Earth languages, e.g. Chinese, Old Solar has plurals. The plurals of some words (*hross, eldil*) are simple, only adding a final *-a* or *-i*; others (as for *Oyarsa, sorn, hnakra*), are quite complex broken plurals, adding an internal *-é-*, and adding or altering a final vowel (usually to *-i* or *-u*), and may also include internal metathesis (*Oyéresu, séroni, hnéraki*).

* Old Solar shows some evidence of elements of aggulination, i.e. the adding of various prefixes and suffixes to words (again mainly in nouns)
	+ The word *handra* meaning "land" or "planet" appears variously in words such as
		- -candra (Thulcandra, Malacandra)
		- -(l)andra (Perelandra, Glundandra)
		- handramit
		- in another form in harandra
		- Possibly in a highly inflected form in honodraskrud (ground weed)
	+ Hnakra gives hnakrapunt
	+ Eldil produces Maleldil and possibly Meldilorn

Lewis' languages tend to be nowhere near as fully developed as J. R. R. Tolkien's although there appears to be mutual influence. Like Tolkien's Elvish tongues, Old Solar tends to aim to be mellifluous.

## Glossary

### Place names

* Ahihra
* Arbol - the Sun
* Eribol-ef-Cordi - hypothetical form for the Field of Arbol
* *Balki* - the pool beneath the Mountain of Water on Malacandra
* *Glundandra* or *Glund*—Jupiter
* Lurga - Saturn
* Malacandra - Mars
* Meldilorn - a location on Mars
* Neruval —hapax legomenon in *Perelandra* and, from context, apparently Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto
* Perelandra - Venus
* Sulva - Earth's Moon
* Tai Harendrimar - meaning the "Hill of Life", the throne atop the Holy Mountain of the Fixed Island.
* Thulcandra - the Earth, meaning "Silent Planet"
* Viritrilbia - Mercury

### Peoples

* Eldila (singular *Eldil*)—an everlasting, rational, "multidimensional energy being" that is not organic; an angel. Some act in the capacity of "Oyarsa" of a planet.
* Hmāna (singular "Hmān") - A Hrossa corruption of human, possibly a neologism.
* Hnau - an intelligent species
* hressni — a female hrossa
* Hrossa - one of the native peoples of Mars
* Irkstrin (singular, *Irkstri*) Underdwellers on Perelandra although they are not native. They come from Viritrilbia.
* Nau - a hnau (see above)
* Séroni (singular sorn) - one of the native peoples of Mars
* Torlindri - the natives of Venus

### Others

* nisus - urge
* crah — final section of a poem
* Handra - 1) planet, 2) land
* Handramit - deep canyons on Mars.
* Harandra - highlands on Mars
* Hlab — language
* Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi - the language's name for itself
* hluntheline — long for, yearn for, desire (for the future)
* Hnakra (plural *hnéraki*)- a kind of large predatory marine creature on Mars.
* hnakrapunt (pl. hnakrapunti) — hnakra-slayer
* honodraskrud — ground-weed (honodra perhaps being an alteration of handra, + skrud "weed")
* Hressa-Hlab - language of the hrossa (note genitive form)
* Hrū - blood
* Maleldil — son of the Old One, described in *Perelandra* as having been incarnated as Jesus.
* Oyarsa (pl. *Oyéresu* (Title))— 1) Ruler of a planet, a higher-order angel, perhaps an arch-angel, 2) a human ruler as in Tor-Oyarsa-Perelindri
* Surnibur - language of the séroni (note genitive form)
* wondelone — long for, yearn for, miss (from the past)

### Other related terms and calques

* dancers before the threshold is a calque of the Old Solar name for the Asteroid Belt
* *Field of Arbol*—the Solar System, a calque of possibly *Eribol-ef-Cordi* or some related form. Arbol means the Sun
* Great Dance - a calque, see entry for details
* Great Worlds - a calque for the name of the outer gas giants.
* Malacandrian moons - Phobos and Deimos, never given individual names in the text
* Pfifltriggi - one of the native peoples of Mars, this word may be from their own language rather than Old Solar
* Stars' milk - this phrase appears to be a calque of the Old Solar phrase for "silver"
* Sun's blood - this phrase appears to be a calque of the Old Solar phrase for "gold"

## Non-canon terms

The following Old Solar terms do not appear in the works of C.S. Lewis, but have been coined by other people:

* Argusandra - Pluto
* Hrū Eribol/Hrū Arbol - hypothetical native form for Sun's blood (see above)
* Lurgadandra - alternative name for Saturn, derived from the canon term Lurga
* Nevrilbia - Uranus
* Sulvacandra, Sulvadandra - alternative names for Sulva

## Possible etymologies

* Some astronomical names have a resemblance to their Greek and Latin counterparts, notably Tellus/Thulcandra and Sulva/Selene/Luna
* Eldila resemble the *Eldar* from Tolkien's mythos. "El" is also a Semitic word for God.
* The "hn" and "hl" resemble sounds from Celtic languages.
* The name Oyarsa was suggested by Oyarses, the name given in Bernard Silvestris's Cosmographia to the governors of the celestial spheres. Bernard's word was almost certainly a corruption—or a deliberate alteration—of Greek οὐσιάρχης [ousiarches, "lords of being"], used with the same meaning in the Hermetic Asclepius.)
* Some possible influences from English, e.g. Sulva/Silver, Handra/Landra vs Land
* Other influences from Tolkien - the names of the Adam and Eve characters of Venus, Tor and Tinidril, were consciously adapted by Lewis from those of Tuor and Idril, and Torlindri probably comes down by a similar root.

## References

1. ↑ *That Hideous Strength* p281 1945 edition.
2. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
3. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
4. ↑ "No feet have walked, nor shall, on the ice of Glund; no eye looked up from beneath on the Ring of Lurga; and Iron-plain in Neruval is chaste and empty. Yet it is not for nothing that the gods walked ceaselessly around the fields of Arbol" - *Perelandra*, p. 342 of the Pan one-volume edition of "The Cosmic Trilogy"
5. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
6. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
7. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
8. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
9. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
10. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
11. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
12. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
13. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*
14. ↑ Mr. Bultitude's Musings, *Malacandra Word Translations*