The Origins of the Word Darth

Scyrone

31-07-2006 23:06:08

Star Wars Insider has recently put a magazine on there shelves. Your thinking, “So? There a magazine, they do that all the time.” Well my mom recently went to Chicago and went to a local magazine store. They had one issue left . . . the issue totally devoted to the Sith. She got it for me as a gift (which I treat like a treasure) and I read it for quite awhile. In a section they have titled “Heritage of the Sith” it explains everything they have about the Sith. Like Darth Ruin was actually one of the Lost Twenty, and they have a picture of Xendor. They also have some great ways of saying why the Sith hate the Jedi and the point of our existence. The most interesting thing I found out is the way they came up with the word Darth:

(quoted directly from SW Insider July/August Issue)

“Many Dark Lords of the Sith chose to add “Darth” to their name. The very word has become synonymous with the wondrous power of the dark side. However, the origins of the word are unclear. While many see “Darth” as nothing more than a contraction to Dark Lord of the Sith, there is some evidence for a deeper interpretation of the term. Dark Revan and Darth Malak are generally believed to be the first Dark Lords to use the title. Given that much of there power was derived from the Star Forge, a creation of the extinct Rakata species, some historians see “Darth” as a corruption of Daritha, the Rakatan word for “emperor”. Similarily, other note that the word for “triumph” or “conquest” in Rakatan is darr, and the word for “death” is tah. This has led to theories that “Darth” is derived from darr tah and means “triumph over death” or “immortal”. A compelling theory asserts that the true meaning of darr tah is “conquest through death” . . . of one’s enemies. Numerous other cultures or species can-and do-make similar claims to etymology of the Darth title. But great are the mysteries of the dark side, and in the end there is no definitive answer.”

WHOA! Ive never copied that much from a mag before, lol.

Aabsdu

31-07-2006 23:20:09

Cool, yeah I wanted to buy that issue of the mag, but my local book store sold out and won't order more. I hate them -_-

Shirai

01-08-2006 00:08:32

ha...I'm not old enough to do that stuff such as buying books, cause my dad hates SW.

Arcadian

01-08-2006 12:03:56

Thats...interesting :P

Arcadian

01-08-2006 12:03:57

Thats...interesting :P

Kaine Mandaala

01-08-2006 12:42:57

ha...I'm not old enough to do that stuff such as buying books, cause my dad hates SW.



There's an age requirement on buying books?

Shirai

01-08-2006 13:23:22

no, but when it comes to money...I'm flat broke. Meaning I have to ask my dad for some. Then he'll ask why and blah blah blah.

Maol Nor Lexu

01-08-2006 15:04:02

lucky for u. U still can buy it if u save some money. But here in my place there no such book slae in the local store..

Kaine Mandaala

01-08-2006 16:01:31

http://www.starwars.com/community/fanclub/...ws20060518.html

Scyrone

01-08-2006 19:35:46

I have the Maul one.

Baron Zarco

02-08-2006 01:04:02

And here I thought that "Darth" was just a made up word that sounded like "dark" much like "Sidious" is like "insidious" and "Tyranus" is like "Tyrant" and "Vader" is like "invader"and so on, some not even being veiled at all, e.g. Maul, Grievous, Bane.

Sometimes these "explanations" offered by Lucas, et al seem a bit overwrought and contrived. Why can't they just be words that conjure up concepts in our heads? Why does everything have to be so elaborately made up when I and many others suspect that anyway. What is this need to reverse-engineer a good idea?

Star Wars is "magic" not "science." That is what distinguishes it from genre such as "Star Trek." Personally, I dislike replacing the ambiguous "magic" feel with pseudo science and/or sociology, linguistics or whatever.

This reminds me of the revelation that the Force we had all come to love for two decades or so was suddenly "midichlorians" instead of a religion or magic or ..... fill in the blank.

I could go further with this but I trust everyone sees my point even if they disagree.

Wes Biriuk

02-08-2006 03:07:50

Vader is actually just the dutch word for father. No more, no less. Lucas was smart :P

Rannik

02-08-2006 16:05:28

thats pretty cool, Scyrone. and that is interesting also, Baron...

I always thought 'Darth' was just a word that ment mysterious and stuff like that...

Aabsdu

02-08-2006 20:51:41

Xar, is that what Vader means? HA! That's pretty funny, guess those Dutch figured out the twist before all of the rest of us aye? :P

Kaine Mandaala

02-08-2006 21:43:25

"'Darth' is a variation of dark. And 'Vader' is a variation of father. So it's basically Dark Father. All the names have history, but sometimes I make mistakes -- Luke was originally going to be called Luke Starkiller, but then I realized that wasn't appropriate for the character. It was appropriate for Anakin, but not his son. I said, 'Wait, we can't weigh this down too much -- he's the one that redeems him.'"

- George Lucas, Rolling Stone, June 2005


And there you have it kids - straight from the man himself.

And an interesting note as I looked around:

Japanese is notoriously hard to translate to Western languages, but "Jidai-Geki" is a term used to describe a number of theatrical forms of entertainment and movie genres, but primarily describes what we may more familiarly refer to as Samurai movies. It basically means "costume drama" or "period piece".

We all know what a big influence the films of Akira Kurosawa were on Lucas - "Jedi" clearly has it's roots in the word "Jidai" and Lucas' desire to evoke the Samurai tradition.

Wes Biriuk

02-08-2006 22:34:35

According to JediPurge.com, Darth simply means "Shadow Warrior". It was used by all Dark Jedi to classify them as exactly that. Later Darth Seer insisted that Darth be made teh equivalent of Lord in honour of Darth Bane. From then on it was used in that way, with Dark Jedi being either Dark Jedi, or Sith depending on their teachings.

Kal

02-08-2006 23:43:11

Sorry to rain on your parade, but JediPurge.com is affiliated with Supershadow. I have taken a look at it, and can tell you that I can probably disprove most of it. For example, Ben Skywalker was trained by Jacen Solo. Anakin Solo was dead before Ben Skywalker was born. And I saw no mention whatsoever of the Yuuzhan Vong. Without them, the Legacy Era, deemed Canon, as with all the other stuff I've stated, could not happen. The Sith don't reorganize until the time of Darth Krayt. That's about 100 years from Episode 6. Besides, Lucas won't make Episode 7. The original stars are too old.

Wes Biriuk

03-08-2006 00:32:13

Kal... I went and invetigated. Supershadow.com was a site I had never come across before, and had something I hadn't seen before. I was stupid and took it on without looking into it. After I had posted I then checked it out for sure, and it is a fruad and, unbeknowest to me until just now, there is acutally a petition to get his site(s) banned.

Ignore that stuff I said in my last post...

The stuff about Darth meaning father is indeed true though, as Kaine proved. If you want proof it is dutch, just use babblefish or google translate and you will be satisfied :P

Scyrone

03-08-2006 18:24:17

Supershadow . . . fool (directed at SS). I hate him so much, he makes aas many mistakes as Bush in speech therapy.

Kal

06-08-2006 01:57:33

No, he's a little better than Bush. At least Supershadow can't just nuke anyone who calls him a liar.

Arcadian

06-08-2006 02:41:46

No, he's a little better than Bush. At least Supershadow can't just nuke anyone who calls him a liar.


Lol, so very true that is....

Scyrone

06-08-2006 12:22:56

Yea, I wish there was more info about the Rakatan out there.

Baron Zarco

06-08-2006 20:11:18

There's some information in the Shadow Academy "Pre-Republic History" course.

Aabsdu

06-08-2006 21:38:06

Wookieepedia has a good bit of info on the Rakata, a little more than Kromtal put in the course. Other then that, there's not really anything known about what happened in the real distant past. Sure there's plenty of information, but no books or comics or anything

Scyrone

07-08-2006 00:23:42

I already passed the Pre-republic History course, and I have information on all the past of it (NEC).

Aabsdu

07-08-2006 20:29:06

Yeah, I wrote the outline for the Sith History I course for Kromtal, and from the looks of it it's going to be a very SWEET course. I don't know about the other two, but I'm sure they'll be equally as cool. After all, I think that Star Wars history is amazing. What people have done off of GL's simple idea is just... WOW!

Kal

09-08-2006 00:08:47

Just the fact that all of the stories can fit together so perfectly is amazing.