Ancient protoroots that formed modern languages
Before proceeding to the story about toponyms, we need to try to understand what were the first sounds that a person heard and reproduced, what meanings he/she endowed them with. Without knowing the alphabet, it is impossible to learn to read. Without understanding the meaning of the spoken words, it is impossible to comprehend the truth. This is how the name of the science “etymology” is translated from Greek as the doctrine of truth. Unfortunately, modern science considers etymology only as a branch of linguistics that studies the origin of words, which is fundamentally wrong. Nevertheless, we will not avoid in debates, we will recall the injunction attributed to Socrates: “I know that I know nothing” — and in search of the truth, we will take a trip to the very origins of human civilization.
Probably, our young ancient ancestor began his life in some underground shelter, in the arms of his/her mother. What could he/she hear? How did he/she breathe and how did his mother breathe? How did his/her lips smack when mom fed him/her? How did a light breeze make a noise when mom blew dust particles off and touched him/her with warm lips? Well, if he/she had to move to another place, he/she could hear the slapping of bare feet, the rustling of leaves, the crunch of broken branches and the rumble of thunder. When a stream or river suddenly met on the way, he/she heard the murmur of water. He/she heard how his/her mother greedily sucked in water with her lips, quenching her thirst, and giving him/her plenty to drink. If was suddenly a menacing growl heard from the bushes and everyone was terrified? Many different sounds surrounded our ancestor, but we will start with one kind amazing, pleasant and most beloved sound that accompanies us throughout our lives.
1. The sound “l’”
Once, in 1971, I had returned from the army and got a job at Chelyabinsk television. I had met a TV journalist, Samuel Gershuni. We had gone to the city of Zlatoust to shoot a video about the local watch factory. We had lived in a hotel and spent long evenings talking about various topics. Samuel Matveyevichhad been a sociable man who had liked to talk about his front life.
One day the conversation had turned to the popular variety ensemble “Ariel’” (“Ariel”), where we had had mutual friends of musicians, and Samuel Matveyevichhad said that “Ariel’” is a Hebrew word, and the soft sound “el’” means “god” like in other Jewish names: Samuel’, Michael’, Gabriel’, Israel’ and others. Then Ihad immediately remembered the name of the Spanish artist El’ Greco and the proud statements of my Greek grandmother: “We are Hellenes!” From the Hellenes, we had moved on to the solar deity Helios, to other words, and this soft “l’” had interested me so much that after that conversation I constantly thought about it, looked through textbooks, immerse in encyclopedias, but could not find anything, until one day I accidentally saw a little girl eating a chocolate bar.The chocolate was melting in her mouth, dripping on her bib, and she was laughing, trying to say something, and I distinctly heard that soft sound “el’”. I tried to collect my own saliva, but I could not make the “el’” sound. Then I realized that it is not important the amount of saliva for this sound, but its release is. I filled my mouth with chocolate and waited for my mouth to drool, but it did not work either. Then the next day I ate nothing, drank only water, and, being hungry, put the chocolate back in my mouth and the sound “el’ " took place!
This small discovery led me to believe that the first sounds that a person began to utter were related to his physiology. The state of pleasure, in which saliva is released and the sound “el’” appears, is remembered, fixed in memory or at the genetic level, and in the future, people transmitted the pleasure of life with this sound. The soft sound “el’” is a natural sound that was formed involuntarily, meaningless and thoughtless, expressing pleasant moments of eating. So it was remembered once and the soft sound “el’” became stronger, “matured” and sounded like our usual “l”, although the meaning of pleasure, enjoyment remained for it. On its prehistoric “base” appeared a huge number of words, the meaning of which can somehow be reduced to the “common denominator” — joy, pleasure, delight, euphoria. What words could form this sound, this protoroot? Probably, the word “lubov” (love) comes to mind immediately— and quite justifiably! Laska (caress), ulybka (smile), lest’ (flattery), l`zya (to allow), legko (easily), lizat’ (to lick), l`nut’ (to cling)—all go back to pleasure and delight. Including when the image of the highest bliss discloses a person. Hence the concept of divinity in different languages: this is Helios, and the Bible, and Israel, and Arabic word Allah, where the sound “l’” has not lost its softness.
It became clear to me that the soft sound “el’” is an involuntary sound, which was born in the depths of human feelings. The usual “l” is the sound is already meaningful, introduced into the ancient communication system. This meaningful sound formed the proto-root, which combined with other sounds to create words. Knowing the semantic source, it is easy to understand how later meanings appeared.
The soft sound of “l’”, of course, was not the only one that participated in the multi-faceted “meaning-making”. However, after that, it was easier for me to understand how other meaningful sounds developed. It was a matter of logic.
2. The growling sound of aggression “r”
If there is a sound of something extraordinarily pleasant, there must be an opposite sound – unpleasant and frightening. The opposite of the soft “l’” sound is the aggressive, growling “r” sound. It is no coincidence that children begin to pronounce it after their teeth grow. Growling, as a rule, was accompanied by a demonstration of teeth, and the sound warned that the enemy will stratch. Hence the whole galaxy of “rvanyh” (torn) words: “rychat’” (to growl), “ristat’” (to run), “rvat’” (to tear), “rubit’” (to hack), “rezat’” (to carve), “rana” (injury).
3. “Ra” is the sun, “ar” is the earth
Even the most ancient protoroots “ra” and “ar” are associated with the aggression of the mercilessly scorching sun, charring the skin and burning all living things, from which it was possible to hide only in the ground. In this way the ancient meanings appeared: “ra” with the meaning “the sun” and “ar” with the meaning “the earth”.
4. The sounds of breathing: “kho”, “go”, “kha”, “ga”, “ka”, “aga”, “po” and others. “Ego” and “echo”
Language was born out of feelings and meanings. The sense organs gave a person a multi-colored palette of such creative associations. “Everyone hears how he or she breathes”— it is not surprising that the sounds of breathing became the foundation of a number of protoroots and formed a variety of words. Even in the very word “dykhanie” (breath) this ancient semantic intuition remains. Really, what do we hear when we breathe? The natural, independent of our will, breathing sound is the sound “kh”, combined with various vowel sounds: “kha”, “kho”, “khe”, “khi”, “akh”, “okh” and “ukh”. The sound “kh” has become a language protoroot with common meanings related to breathing.
Since ancient times, the sounds of breathing have become associated with the human soul. Breathing means that you are alive. If he\she does notbreathe, it means that his\her soul has left. For example, when I was a child, my mother would often tell me when she was buttoning the top buttons of my clothes: “You are open-hearted.” I knew that “soul” is my breathed chest and to give up the ghost means to lose the “kho”, the air. You can easily remember the words formed by the simplest sounds of breathing: “dykho” (“trachea”), “tikho” (quiet), “ukho” (ear), “ekho” (echo), “likho” (evil, trouble). Even God—“bhoga”—grants breath. This group includes interjections: “akh”, “okh”, “ukh” and “ekh”. Even the particle “ish” has its physiological origin in the respiratory.
However, everything evolves and in the process of evolution, protoroots found new meanings. There is a simple example. At rest, a person breathes easily, freely: inhale and then exhale. Sounds are simple, ordinary. If a person moves for a long time, and even uphill, and even with the luggage, and even in the “formation” of his fellow tribesmen, who set a certain rhythm — what happens to the breath? There is not enough air. Breathing becomes “heavy”. The sounds of breathing also change — instead of a light sound “kh”, you can already hear a heavy, slightly “hoarse” combination of sounds “kh” and “g”.
Let us complicate the situation. Imagine that our ancient ancestors were walking along the mountains and valleys, and suddenly the path ends — where must they go next? Tired and out of breath, people started looking around and presumably showing each other where to go. What sounds would they use to support their gestures? It is clear — sounds of “heavy” and “open” breathing, with sound “ga” at the base. This sound, mixed with hoarseness and fatigue, formed one of the most significant protoroot “ga”, received the meaning of the way\path, movement and direction.
As a rule, the protoroot “ga” marked ways, paths, roads, trails, passages, that is, those places where people could move. It is included in the names of many rivers, because rivers are natural roads where it was possible to move along the shore and along the water surface. It is enough to recall the names of the rivers: Volga, Riga, Onega, Selenga, Koelga, Angara, Ganges, Pinega, Daugava, Siuga, Galis and hundreds of others. Somewhere, roads and rivers have given names to cities: Gaaga (The Hague), Malaga, Gava, Gannover (Hanover), Gamburg (Hamburg), Kaluga, Praga (Prague), Pariga (modern Paris), Vichuga — and many more places where people have moved for thousands of years.
In colloquial speech, the first words that come to mind are “noga” (leg), “dogora” (road), “telega” (cart), “gat’” (the way through the marshes), “pogano” (lousy) and even “gad” (bastard).
With the vowel “a”, the oldest “aga” (aha) formed. Aga is the way back and forth. Gradually, the meaning of “return” acquired the meaning of “confirmation” and even “consent”.
However, the evolution of breath sounds did not end with the meaning of “way” or “direction”. Gradually, the sound “ga” became associated with those who lead the way, with those who go ahead — and therefore know where to go. The leading becomes the knowing. Next comes a reinterpretation of protoroot — the basis remains the same, but the pronunciation from the sounds “kh” and “g” become closer to the consonant “k”. New diverse meanings of this sound appear “leading”, “knowing”, “main”, “smart”, and “thinking”. Although these meanings may seem varied at first glance, they all indicate the ability to think. What words formed with protoroot “ka” in its various shades? First, they touched the head. For example, “kapusta” (cabbage)—in Russian it means “an empty head”, “kaun” (melon), “kachan” (head of cabbage), “kalgan” (head), “kapa” (kind of hat), “kapyushon” (hood), “kepka” (cap) and others. The words “khalif” (the khalif), “kagan” (a title of imperial rank in the Turkic and Mongolic languages), “kasta” (caste) and the Capitol have the same protoroot. In Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, you can find the same root word “kapata”, which has the meaning “trick”, “deception”, but comes from the same meaning: “the ability to think.” The myth of the sisters Kapata and Opata, where, on the contrary, Kapata was a deceiver, and Opata was deceived herself, preceded the ancient Greek myth of Apata, the goddess of lies and deception. Maloyanisol dialect of my ancestors has a word “gaka”, which means “big brother”. How could such word appear? I think that this is “the first-born”, “going ahead”. Moreover, there are many of such interesting phenomena in the language.
There is another meaning derived from the sounds of breathing — the Greek word “ego” (εγώ), which translates as “I”. In maloyanisol dialect, the word “I” sounds simpler—“go” [gɔ]. Moreover, my grandmother did not pronounce a solid “go”[gɔ], but again mixed sounds “g” and “kh”, closer to “kho”. The “e” sound in the Greek word “ego” is the sound of “belonging”.
