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wandren
What in the world is up with that word, "wandren"?
Well, ahem, I made it up. You can do that when you write fiction. That said, it's close enough to the old German word wandern, which means "to wander," that there is connotation there I wanted. But I didn't actually want to use the word wandern since that's an actual word and in the context of the Wandren books that's not what I wanted. When in doubt invent, that's why I call it historical *fiction*.
But let's dig into Wandren a bit more, especially that german association to wandern. According to [Etymonoline](https://www.etymonline.com/word/wander) (the best etymological dictionary on the web) Wandern is a variant form of the root represented in Old High German *wantalon* "to walk, wander", from PIE root *wendh- "to turn, wind, weave". The latter association makes me think of windlass as well, which has a sailing connotation to it. But really I liked the connection to wandering since the family in the *Adventures of Lulu, Birdie, and Henry* are wanderers first and foremost. We may meet them on shore, but it is only one of many shores they frequent. At the same time they're not travelers by any stretch of the imagination, they're migratory people, like all people were prior to, and even somewhat after, the development of agriculture. Think of the tk for example who moved from hunting ground to salmon spawning ground, to camas harvesting ground, to berry harvesting areas and so on. They had a place, but the place was large and they moved around within it. This seems to me the only sane way to organize a group of people. Although it's a bit impractical with populations of the size we have right now.
Old English wandrian "move about aimlessly, wander," from West Germanic *wundrōjanan "to roam about" (source also of Old Frisian wondria, Middle Low German, Middle Dutch wanderen, German wandern "to wander," a variant form of the root represented in Old High German wantalon "to walk, wander"), from PIE root *wendh- "to turn, wind, weave" (see wind (v.1)). In reference to the mind, affections, etc., attested from c. 1400. Related: Wandered; wandering. The Wandering Jew of Christian legend first mentioned 13c. (compare French le juif errant, German der ewige Jude).
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