Etymology of meanings. Brief etymological dictionary of planetary toponyms. At the origins of civilization
changed, subordinating the structure of knowledge: they improved. Science appeared, knowledge was multiplied and systematized. Once, about forty years ago, I heard the phrase “unnecessary knowledge” from a young aspiring scientist-teacher. The accumulated knowledge began to be sifted through the sieve of demand. As a result, all this resulted in a kind of standard cultural transmission, which both teachers and parents are still experimenting with. And since language is the main tool for knowledge transfer, any change in language related to its development also affected the continuity of knowledge transfer.
I give an example. Many of us studied from the famous textbook of the Russian language “Phonetics and morphology” by the authors Barkhudarov and Kryuchkov. Phonetics studies phonemes – speech sounds, morphology studies the structure of words – morphemes, roots and affixes. And the word “morfema” (morpheme) comes from the Greek word “morfa” (morph). Despite the fact that the Greek word “morph” has already changed significantly relative to the known protoroot “mr” or proto-Indo-European “mr-ti”—mertviy, umirat’ (dead, to die), it retains the root basis. That is, “morfa” (morth) is something dead, frozen and motionless.
Another thing is the Latin word “forma” (form) borrowed from the Greek. Although it retained the main phonemes and consonance with the word “morfa” (morph), but the root “mr” was changed, lost. Therefore, the word “forma” has become an abstract set of sounds with the same shade of dead and frozen, but the root basis has been lost. There was an interruption of continuity. It is similar to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”: “The time is out of joint…”
Recently, on the website of the famous economist Mikhail Khazin, I read an article by Professor Vladimir Arnold, where he shared his experience of teaching mathematics in France. In the article, he complained about the growing number of students who simply remember information without understanding its essence. This is akin to our rote learning. We also had virtuosos at school who could memorize entire paragraphs – and not just memorize them, but even compile stories from them. Usually these virtuosos were admitted to the Humanities, where the lack of understanding can be compensated by memorizing. But this was about mathematics and eloquence can’t buy it. That’s why the Professor sounded the alarm.
There has always been a problem in the transmission of content and its perception. When I was a student at a Soviet school, at a Soviet Institute, the teachers constantly told us: “Try to understand the meaning, the content, do not get carried away with the form.” There was even a literary saying that the form is only a slave designed to serve the content.
We often underestimate what they are trying to convey to us. For example, etymology is considered to be a kind of entertainment, an educational quiz, although it is one of those sciences that can teach people to think by returning to the protolanguage and discovering “old new meanings”.
Russian language plays a special role. There are scientists who suggest that all the languages of the planet are descended from the Russian language. It is possible that the Russian language has been preserved better than other languages relative to the primordial language of mankind. But to say that all languages came from Russian is, of course, an ironic exaggeration. All languages have ancient roots. If, as geneticists believe, humanity comes from a single family, then we can assume that the origins of all languages are also hidden in the language of this ancient ancestral community. A well-known linguist Alexander Dragunkin, who is a professional English language learner, believes that for a better understanding of the language, you need to know Russian, which is a kind of key to the meanings of English words. I absolutely agree with it. And I believe that the same applies to the Greek language and to other language groups. Our language has preserved its attachment to its natural origin as much as possible, and its phonetic series has remained largely faithful to the oldest protoroots. We just need to get back to them.
Get to the truth
Any work requires a reliable tool – even if we decide to make a mental journey to the language’s origins. The science of etymology seems to have been created in order to restore broken connections in the meanings of words. It is designed to look inside the form, “in-form” about the origin and meaning of the word, to tell about its metamorphoses – what happened to this word once and what is happening to it now.
The word “etymology” (ττυμολογία) is a Greek word. It consists of two words: “etymon” (ττυμον) is the “truth” and “logos” (λόγος)is “to speak”. It was invented by ancient philosophers, who already understood perfectly well that without knowledge of the true meaning of the word, it is impossible to know the truth.
The first sound “e” indicates some kind of affiliation. In the words “ego” and “ekho” (echo), it explains that it is about the person. In the word “eco” is about something what surrounds person, about his\her home, environment. Behind the word “etika” (ethics) lies a reasonable, meaningful human activity. Even the word “efir” (ether) has its own identity – literally, “belonging to a hole” filled with something invisible, but necessarily all-encompassing and all-pervading. The words “Hellenic” and “Hellas” are about places that belong to my favorite Greeks, where “lada” is in the same semantic field as the Russian “lad” (harmony).
In the word “etymon” (the meaning of the word), the protoroot “mon” is the key, which means that truth is unique and “monarchical”, as well as harmony. “Mon” is the only one who brings food, who is the “master of offspring”, and any other “mn” can not be. These are the harsh conditions of existence. This protoroot has generated a lot of words, which emphasize the separateness, uniqueness, exclusivity. It is sound in the words “monakh” (monk) and “monarkh” (monarch), in the names Solomon and Suleyman; it can be found in the word “ataman” (father, senior man) and in the word “mongol” (mon-Ka-le, nomad).
The brilliant Russian conductor Teodor Curentzis once said that harmony is a point. How right he is! Harmony is the point, the unity, of which the first biblical commandment speaks. So “etymon” is a unified understanding of our actions, our existence. This is the truth.
The second part of the word “etymology” goes back to the biblical “logos” (word). Academician Dmitry Likhachev has repeatedly warned that we understand or interpret some ancient texts incorrectly. In his opinion, the translation of the gospel text: “In the beginning was “logos” (word\“slovo”)—incorrectly conveys the meaning of the word “logos”. In the ancient Greek Dictionary of Joseph Dvornitsky, “logos” has 34 different “nests of meanings”. In our reading, this word goes back to three ancient roots: “lo”, “kho” and “s”. The first has the meaning “beloved”, the second is the sound of breathing-means “dusha” (soul), and the third means “sacred water”. What meaning could these sounds have acquired over the centuries? We can agree with academician Likhachev that we are talking about what distinguishes man from the animal world – about the ability to think.
However, Likhachev could be wrong because as the great Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev said: “A spoken thought is a lie.” Fedor Ivanovich knew perfectly well that the ancient Greek word “legu” is translated as “to speak”, but in Russian it is interpreted quite differently. Still, let’s focus on what is close to us. “Etymology” is the desire to get to the truth, to understand the meaning and essence of our being. Jesus Christ, pronouncing the Covenant: “Verily I say unto you,” I sincerely wanted people to get rid of lies, deception and delusions. So we are trying to understand and interpret the deep meaning of our language, our speech, our being.
Ancient prepositions
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