Wrinkledlion X Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Just thought I would draw attention to this: Also, if "Jala" isn't Maori, I'd love to know why they changed his name to "Jaller." That was always the most bewildering of the name changes that year. 2 Quote [bloog] [brickshelf] [This used to be my library but the link is broken] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aanchir Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 (edited) Also, if "Jala" isn't Maori, I'd love to know why they changed his name to "Jaller." That was always the most bewildering of the name changes that year.Well, the Maori people of New Zealand aren't the only culture that might be sensitive about their traditional language being commercialized. But beyond that, I think the LEGO Group was mainly just seeking to "play it safe" since the movie BIONICLE: Mask of Light was going to be a much bigger venture than their previous media, and one that might get much greater global exposure than some of their previous story platforms. I thought "Gukko" was the most perplexing name change, personally. I figure it's probably derived from the previous term "Goko-Kahu" (an alternate name for the Kewa), but it still seemed slightly out-of-nowhere, and it didn't help that the creature itself bore very little resemblance to the vulture-like Kewa or the hawk-like Kahu, which it was ostensibly supposed to be related to. Edited March 7, 2014 by Aanchir: Rachira of Time 1 Quote Latest MOC: PAIGE (Prototype Artificial Intelligence, Gynoid Expression) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrinkledlion X Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Yeah, but I can't find anything that suggests "Jala" was taken from another language. There are a few towns around the world with that name, and it looks like it's an obscure synonym for "water" in Sanskrit, but that's all I can find for it. But mostly it's the weirdness of the respelling itself that always got to me. Why the silent R? It doesn't sit well with the rest of BIONICLE's spelling conventions at the time. Quote [bloog] [brickshelf] [This used to be my library but the link is broken] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aanchir Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 (edited) Yeah, but I can't find anything that suggests "Jala" was taken from another language. There are a few towns around the world with that name, and it looks like it's an obscure synonym for "water" in Sanskrit, but that's all I can find for it. But mostly it's the weirdness of the respelling itself that always got to me. Why the silent R? It doesn't sit well with the rest of BIONICLE's spelling conventions at the time.As I said here, it means "to burn; set fire to" or "to flare up" in Rotuman. I believe I found that in this book on Google Books (click "preview this book" and search "Jala" in the sidebar). So I think even if that's not the root word, it's very likely to be linguistically related to it, since many Polynesian languages share a common root. Edited March 7, 2014 by Aanchir: Rachira of Time Quote Latest MOC: PAIGE (Prototype Artificial Intelligence, Gynoid Expression) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrinkledlion X Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Ah, I missed that. Well thar we go. Quote [bloog] [brickshelf] [This used to be my library but the link is broken] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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