Places and Concepts
Andelain is a focal region of the Land, where the Earthpower is especially strong. In the Second Chronicles it is the one place immune from the Sunbane, as it is protected by the Forestal Caer Caveral.
Languages: Human inhabitants of the Land (together with Giants, Cavewights, and the human inhabitants of other regions of the Earth) all appear to speak modern English, though their style of speech is usually rather formal and archaic. The strange commonality of language between Covenant and the Land's inhabitants is never addressed in the books. There are, however, other languages extant: for example, in Lord Foul's Bane, Atiaran tells Thomas Covenant that a different language was spoken in the age of the Old Lords. (However, this appears to be contradicted in Fatal Revenant, when Linden Avery and Berek Halfhand converse together in English.) Non-humans also have their own languages, for example the barking speech of ur-viles and Waynhim, the Giants' florid and ornate language, and the native tongue of the Haruchai. In the Second Chronicles it is explained that the Giants received "the gift of tongues" from the Elohim as a reward for the telling of a simple tale, and the Bhrathair, a people who live on the edge of the Great Desert, also speak their own language, which is described only as sounding "brackish".
Worm/Word/Weird. In the cosmology of the Land, the Earth's core consists of a coiled-up serpent called the "Worm of the World's End". When Covenant attempts to sever a branch of the One Tree by using the power of the white gold, he risks rousing the Worm (which is not fully asleep, but merely resting) and thus destroying the Earth. The Waynhim and Ur-viles believe in a principle of ethics or destiny called the "Weird". The Elohim have a concept which appears to do duty for both these beliefs: it is impossible to determine whether the sound used for this is "Worm", "Word" or "Weird", as it comes out in a blurred form sounding something like "Würd".
Read more about this topic: The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant
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