Читать книгу The Origin of the Planet’s Toponyms - Alexander Tokiy - Страница 15

Not all roads were convenient and beloved for our ancestors. There were also difficult and dangerous areas, which, unlike the soft “l’” sound, were marked with an aggressive “r” sound. Why were such roads inconvenient? For example, sharp stones that cut bare feet and broke bones. These were roads littered with broken trees or fallen boulders. It could be a swamp, mountain peaks or hills. Apparently, the protoroots “gr”, “kr”, “rg” and “rk” appeared in such way.

These protoroots formed many toponyms from Greece, Georgia, Crimea and Gurzuf to the usual words: “kremen’” (flint), granite, “krepost’” (fortress), Riga and even “krov’” (blood). I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in the explanatory dictionary of Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl, along with the modern meaning of the word “riga”, the old one has also preserved, “riga” is an inconvenient, dangerous and bad way. For a long time I could not understand how the name of the city of Paris (Perigee) appeared, but everything turned out to be quite simple.

However, what would happen if forest fires blocked the way? How could our ancestors have designated their aggressive and fiery breath? This is how the aggressive protoroot “pr” appeared. It formed the basis of the word “ogon’” (fire) itself. In ancient Greek, πῦρ means fire. Now few people remember this, but this root has preserved many words. What are these words? Pyrotechnics, Prometheus, pyramid, “pir” (feast) and, of course, our “pirozhok” (pie). The words “rapier”, “shampur” (skewer) and “pirate” also be relevant to fire. Who, when and for how long mastered the fire, we will never know. Archaeologists call different dates of the beginning of the use of fire by ancient man. From a million years to seventy thousand. However, it is one thing to learn how to use the fire forest fires, to learn how to keep it, and it is quite another thing to learn how to extract it yourself and use it in production. It is interesting that Russian word “ogon’” goes back to the fires of the swamp, but the root “pir” (πῦρ) was also used.