Читать книгу Etymology of meanings. Brief etymological dictionary of planetary toponyms. At the origins of civilization - Alexander Tokiy - Страница 9

Wisdom teaches that if you are confused and can’t find the right way, go back and start all over again. This “technique” is acceptable even for functional parts of speech: prepositions, conjunctions, particles and interjections. Modern science does not give an unambiguous understanding of how these words occurred and where to look for their “primitive” meanings. My heart tells me that they were born together with the protoroots and have a similar nature.

Let’s start with the simplest – the ancient preposition “k”—in English “to”. If the sounds “kh”, “g “and"k” came from the human breath, then the ancient preposition “k” belongs to this group. Its meaning is close to the meaning of “way”, “direction”—where to go, what we will come to.

The preposition “o”—in English “about”—got its meaning not so much from the pronounced sound, but from the shape of the lips in which it is formed – around, about or about something.

The ancient preposition “u”—in English “near”—, being the sound of breathing, had a special connotation – it attracted the attention of a tribesman to some circumstance, phenomenon, object. It is the sound of moaning, the sound of crying. This is an “invitation” to come closer, to share others in your pain. Its later values are “near” or “around” or otherwise marked “accessory”, the closeness, the belonging to someone, a sense of ownership.

The sound “a”—in English [a] —was always the sound of an open mouth. It can have a variety of meanings. In combination with the sounds of feeding, it forms a combination of “ma” or “na”, indicating the desire to eat, the readiness to take food. A child will never ask to be fed with a combination of “m” and “o” sounds. The same applies to the combination of “na”, which we pronounce when we offer food to the child. By the way, I have repeatedly seen that a child, when holding out his hands to food, also utters a cherished and kind “na”, as opposed to a restrictive “no” (but).

Oddly enough, the ancient preposition “po”—in English “at”—is also formed from the sounds of breathing. “P “is the sound of “puffing”, the sound of “locking” the lips and then releasing the air with a little effort. It’s either puffing or farting. Over time, this sound has grown more complex meanings, has passed through centuries of evolution and now it denotes what surrounds us. The later meaning “along” appeared during numerous human journeys. But at the time when the first sounds and meanings were put into speech, people lived in burrows, and the preposition “po” had a very modest scale.

The preposition “s”—in English “with”—originally went back to the sounds of drinking and the protoroot “ms”. In some languages, the meaning of the words “drink”, “water” has retained the sound “m”, in others—“s”. The Japanese have preserved the root completely. In Hebrew, both the word “sea” and the word “water” retained the “m” sound. In Turkic languages “su” means water, in English—“sea”. However, the question remains, how was the preposition “s” formed with the meaning “together”? Most likely, its origin was connected with the rules of hunting, or some rules of visiting a water hole, or with the ancient instinct of emptying the bladder together.

In general, the combination the sounds of “puffing” and “water” in ancient times formed the root “ps”. It is found in many languages around the world – as well as protoroot “pkh”. Protoroot “pr” is also the sound of “puffing”, but not simple, but aggressive, when something is pierced or flatulence is released too deliberately.

Finally, derived from the breath sounds include protoroot “ku”. If taken literally, it meant “at the head”, “near the head”, something intelligent. Over time, it received several values. For example, the meaning of “ruka” (hand) is “separate from the head” but “with understanding”. From this root came such words as “kulak” (fist), “kul`tya” (stump\an amputated arm), “kul`tura” (culture). And the name Akulina since ancient times had the meaning “inept”, “crooked”, and this is inherent in the name, where the sound “a” is a certain opposite. The protoroot “ru” also has its origins. If “u” is “near”, then the aggressive “r” was intended to separate from this “near”, to become “separate”.

There are a number of prepositions, phonemes, and protoroots those are associated with the action of a person, with his\her contact with the environment, penetration into it. In this regard, the preposition “v”—in English “in\into\inside”—is interesting, it means effort, tension, desire to get inside something. It is directly related to the extraction of insects or small animals from hidden places: whether it is the stem of a plant, or the trunk of a tree, or a mink in the ground. Ancient man needed not only to search for food, but also to be able to extract it by looking inside. This explains why both the Russian word “zhivot” (belly) and the Latin word “vita” have the main sound “v”.

You can make out one of the forms of the preposition “v”—the basic word “vnutri” (inside). The sound “n” indicates the taste of food, protoroots “tr-dr” goes back to “aggressive poking”, or, simply, holed something or pierced. Protoroot “dr” is a “hole where delicious food is hidden” and you need to get to it. The ancient preposition “v” is also echoed by the sound “b”, which is related to it. In many cases, it expresses a kind of “passionate satisfaction”—both from the food taken, and from other pleasures, including sexual ones.

The possibility of penetration and contact brought to life the ancient prepositions “to”—in English “that”—and “do” (in English “this”). The “t” sound was a “poking” sound that indicated obstacles. These obstacles, as in a dense forest, can be around-hitting branches on the cheeks, blocking the way with tree trunks or making you stumble over rocks. Only after looking around and getting used to it, you begin to definitely designate a place with an obstacle—“to” (that) place, “eto” (this) place.

In the preposition “k”, the sonorous sound “d” only strengthens this meaning. “Do” is already a more serious obstacle, restriction, “pillars of Hercules”, beyond which movement is impossible. The meaning of this preposition has been preserved to this day, although it has expanded over the course of evolution, and received different shades, but the original meaning— “limited poking”—has been preserved in it.

Many different derived combinations have appeared from the original forms of these ancient prepositions. Vowel sounds complemented the meanings. The language was filled with various “to”, “ta”, “te”, “tam”, “do”, “da”. The last “da” is particularly interesting. The sound of a poke, an obstacle, coming into contact with an open vowel “a”, completely changes – like Cinderella after the wave of a magic wand. The vowel “a” indicates that the insurmountable obstacle, as it seemed at first, is no longer an obstacle, and the dirty rags have been replaced by a ball gown.

“Da” is consent, the abolition of borders, the abolition of obstacles. You mustn’t, but you can! This protoroot was very common in the everyday life of our forefathers, having the meaning of “consent” in sexual relationships. “Da” is permission for sexual contact. Already in those early days, the meaning of “consent” became associated with the possibility of coitus, that is, access to woman’s sexual organs, and later – with the female sexual organ. This meaning of “consent” to mating and the name of the female sexual organ formed many words that have survived to our time.

Obstacles served as the beginning of the appearance of the “do” and “no” roots, becoming a common mechanism for their appearance. Still, if the “do” meant a restriction, then the protoroot “no”, as opposed to the open “na”, was perceived as an objection or denial.

You can practice word formation using the oldest roots. Let “do” be a limited” poking”, a certain limit, and “no” is an objection, a negation. Combining them, we get the word “dono”– “dno” (bottom) that has been preserved to our time. It turns out that “dno” is the absence of a limit: a person pokes a stick into the water, and the stick does not rest anywhere. There is no stop, no limit. There is no “do”—deep to it. Now this word has the opposite meaning: a certain surface, a stop under water. But in the names of rivers, this combination of ancient prepositions had original meanings. “Dono” is a property of deep rivers that could not be forded. “Dono”—no limit, no bottom, it is deep. This original meaning is preserved in the ancient word “Avaddon” (Abaddon), which basically refers to the “abyss”. There are many toponyms\place names with this “dono” on the planet: the Don (river), Caledonia, Dongola, London, and hundreds of others.

Allowing yourself to experiment, you can “play” with the vowel “a”—the sound of food. If we take the same ancient preposition “do”, and put the protoroot “na” before it, we get the word “nado” (to need\must), which spoils everyone’s mood and forces them to mobilize all their personal resources. What is “nado”? This is a kind of “sweet need”, which is in the way of satisfying the ill-fated “do” is an obstacle. As a result, “nado” became a symbol of overcoming. Given that “na” has the meaning of “something located on top”, we can interpret this word as an action “over the limit”—a very common phenomenon of Russian life, which does not choose long paths, but goes through the mountains…

About the “mountain beginning” say protoroots “ay” [aɪ] and “ya”. They are often found in the names of mountains, ridges or mountain rivers. The combination of the sounds “y” and “a” is formed when we look up. If a person raises his head at the same time when pronouncing any sounds, then the vowels – first of all, the “a” sound come out unhindered. But as soon as the trachea bends, interrupting the air, a “i” sound appears. From this movement of the head two ancient protoroots appeared: “ay” is a movement up, “ya” is a movement down. Or simply: “ay”—at the top, “ya”—from top to the bottom.

There is a beautiful example to understand how words appeared in ancient times – this is the English word “ice”, consisting of two roots: “ay” and “s”. The first signified upward movement, the second is water. Where “above” could there be water? Only in the mountains, on icy snow-capped peaks. Therefore, the word “ice”—even without translation means frozen on the tops of “mountain water”. Protoroot “ay” gave the name of the white color. Where could the ancient people see the white color? Only on the snow-capped peaks of high mountains.

Sorting out such combinations is an exciting, useful, and even unpredictable activity, as we will see more than once. The main thing is to understand that all words have their origin in deep and “common” antiquity, growing out of meaningful sounds that our forefathers exchanged.