Etymology of meanings. Brief etymological dictionary of planetary toponyms. At the origins of civilization

Etymology of meanings. Brief etymological dictionary of planetary toponyms. At the origins of civilization
Alexander Tokiy

The author reveals the amazing secrets of toponyms. The languages of the mankind grew out of an ancient community but now their kinship is barely visible. However, the preserved names that the ancestors gave to the features of the landscape make it easy to realize how the names Rome and Paris, Iowa and Missouri, London and the Thames, the Baikal, the Dardanelles and others appeared. Reading will help to see the world around you in a new way and awaken interest to the truth.

Etymology of meanings. Brief etymological dictionary of planetary toponyms

At the origins of civilization

Alexander Tokiy

Translator Polina Mozzhukhina

© Alexander Tokiy, 2021

© Polina Mozzhukhina, translation, 2021

ISBN 978-5-0053-0497-1

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

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Foreword

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Gentle reader!

We tried to translate this book from Russian into English, so as not to lose the semantic subtleties of the content. The book is written in Russian, but it could also be written in any other language, because all the languages of the planet grew out of one, common language, which is most clearly visible in the naming of the area or in toponyms.

Thousands years ago, distant ancestors marked their places of stay with sounds that accompanied their existence and evoked certain associations.

For example, when they drank from reservoirs, the sound “ms” appeared. In their minds this sound corresponded to the ability to quench the thirst, so the places where it could be done began named with this sound. So there were a large number of names of reservoirs or places close to the water that include this protoroot: the Moscow River, the Miass River, the Mississippi River, the Thames River, Mesopotamia, Lake Michigan, the city of Mosul, the Mezima River and hundreds of others.

Gradually, the sound “m” (the sound of food), which appears when mammals feed, disappeared from some names; only the sound “s” remained, the sound of flowing water, which retains its meaning “water” in different languages and included in the names of many other reservoirs\toponyms: Sudan, the Sura river, lake Issyk-Kul, the Seine river, the Seym river, the Svir river, the Siya river, the Sista river and others.

In some peoples, the sound “s” eventually “hissed”, so the names with hissing sounds appeared: the Chagra river, the Chaya river, lake Michigan, the Shari river, the Shaiga river, the Zhekan river and the ancient sickle became shekel.

Even more obviously protoroots are visible in the names of the mountains. If a person raises his head and pronounces some sounds simultaneously, the vowels – first of all the sound “a” – come out unhindered. But as soon as the trachea is bent, cutting off the air, there is the sound of “y” (“i”). From this movement of the head, two ancient protoroots were formed: “ay” is the movement up and “ya” is the movement down. Or simply: “ay” is at the top, “ya” is from top to bottom. So the sound “ay” entered the names of a large number of mountain peaks: Ay-Petri, Ay-Foka, Ay-Vita, Aykuayvenchorr, Aino, Aizu, Nantai, Ayoava, Sinai, Ohio, Altai and hundreds of others. The water frozen on the mountain tops became known as “ice” and the whiteness of the mountain slopes is “white” colour.

In turn, in the name of mountains that have both ascents and descents, you can find both protoroots at the same time: Sayan, Aya, Yokohama and others. Clearly protoroots can be seen and heard in the Japanese hieroglyph (山), which has the meaning “mountain” but which is pronounced as “Yama”, where we can not only hear, but also see the well – known protoroots “ay” and “ya” – up and down. The familiar words also speak about the downward movement: “yakor” (anchor) “yasno” (clear), “yama” (hole\pit), “Yaga” (a witch in Russian Folklore), “yagnyonok” (lamb), “yabeda” (sneak). In the vast majority of cases, the meaning of protoroots fully corresponds to the features of the landscape and keeps these secrets for many centuries.

I hope that you will be interested in learning the secret of the origin of not only ancient place names: Troy, Dardanelles, Caledonia, Baikal, London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Washington and hundreds of others but also the meaning of the simplest words: ogon’ (fire), otets (father), Russkiy (Russian), pravda (truth), igemon (hegemon), man`yak (maniac) and others.

Enjoy this book.

    Sincerely Yours,
    Alexander Tokiy

To the Descendants of Sisyphus

(instead of a Preface)

My ancestors went back to the ancient Greeks, who left mankind an incredibly rich gallery of symbolic meaning and intimate knowledge of mythological images. They inherited knowledge from the depths of centuries and created a fascinating and confusing world of heroes and gods. One of them was Sisyphus, the founder and king of Corinth, who tried to cheat death, for which he was condemned to the severe punishment by the gods – always lifting a heavy stone up the mountain. As soon as he reached the top, the stone would fall under its weight, and poor Sisyphus would come back for it and roll it up the mountain again and again. It became a symbol of painful but useless meaningless and fruitless labour and in the twentieth century French existentialists was raised to the banner of the absurdity of human existence.

Everything is so obvious, but it is far from true. Only one intuition about the meaninglessness of “Sisyphean labour” goes back to the ancient “semantic” understanding of the myth of Sisyphus. The stone that he rolled up the mountain is actually the stone of knowledge. We reach extreme heights with the age, but everything is reset with our departure. There is only a stone at the foot of the mountain, waiting for the touch of new and young hands. The ancients understood the mechanisms of knowledge transfer well and they knew the main “enemy”—the loss of continuity, the absence of someone who will pick up the baton. No one learns from other people’s mistakes, preferring to make their own, repeatedly multiplying and distorting the original meanings.

Since ancient times, people have tried to put knowledge in a variety of forms: in words, fairy tales, legends, metaphors, hoping that these tips will help understanding and knowledge of the world. But the descendants of the ancient perceived “signals” as a fun puzzle, and were often understood literally, without hidden meaning. Abraham Maslow’s famous dictum that civilization is a form of struggle against entropy, the loss of cultural heritage, explains the difficulties that humanity has faced in passing on knowledge to the next generation best of all. This also applied to language – the main means of communication, the most subtle tool for transmitting information, with the slightest error of which meanings could be lost, changed and disappear.

The easiest way of it can be seen in the etymology, and especially in the interpretation of place names. This is an amazing legacy left to us in the names of localities – a legacy visible, audible, easy to understand and always rough to the touch. Thousands and thousands of years ago, our ancestors gave names to the places where they lived. The laws of the language development began with these names, with the primal concepts that I tried to discover during my life in the course of independent searches. I could be wrong in some ways, but I could not resist the temptation to “roll” this “toponymic boulder” on the mountain of knowledge. I hope you will be interested.

The soft sound “l’” or where does a hobby start?

Once in 1971, I returned from the army and got a job at Chelyabinsk television. I met a TV journalist, Samuel Gershuni. We went to the city of Zlatoust to shoot a video about the local watch factory. We lived in a hotel and spent long evenings talking about various topics. Samuel Matveyevich was a sociable man who liked to talk about his front life.

But one day we talked about his jewishness, biblical stories, and the languages which the ancient Jews spoken. It was the moment then I heard his explanation of the soft sound “el’”. We talked about the meaning of the word “Israel”, and Samuel Matveyevich explained that the soft sound “el’” means “God”, and the words “Israel’”, “Samuel’”, “Ariel’” are the names of various jewish tribes. For example, Israel is the God of the “Izra” tribe, and Michael is the God of the “Micah” tribe. Next we found words from other languages: for example, El’ Greco, El`brus, Hel`ius, Ol`ympus. My relatives – first of all my father and cousins – were Crimean Greeks and always emphasized that they were El`liny (Hellenes) And this name also begins with “el’”.

We had neither dictionaries at hand, nor the Internet to look at. So we didn’t get far that night, but the desire to find out what the Hellenes and Israel had in common came just then. I promised Samuel Matveevich that I would go to the library when I returned to Chelyabinsk. He smiled slyly and said that the answer should be found in the ancient jewish books, and in the Soviet Union they will not be found. However, I went to our public library and read all weekend. Thus, my fascination with etymology began.

The first discovery of the secret of the sound “el’” I made accidentally. Once I saw a little girl who was 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 couldn’t 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 didn’t 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. Soft sound “el’” is a natural sound that was formed involuntarily, without meaning, expressing pleasant moments of eating.

So it was remembered once and the soft sound “el’” became “stronger, “matured” in languages 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 (permission), legko (easy), 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. And the usual “l” is the sound is already meaningful, introduced into the ancient communication system. This meaningful sound formed the protoroot, 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”. But after that, it was easier for me to understand how other meaningful sounds developed.

Feelings, sounds and protoroots

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 a number protoroots originated from the breath sounds. 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”, “ukh”. The sound “kh” has become a language protoroot with common meanings related to breathing.

Later, the sounds of breathing became associated with the soul of a person. Breathing means that you are alive. If he\she doesn’t breathe 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.” And 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”, “ekh”. Even the particle “ish” has its physiological origin in the respiratory.

But everything evolves and in the process of evolution protoroots also found new meanings. There is a simple example. At rest, a person breathes easily, freely: inhale and then exhale. Sounds are simple, ordinary. And 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’s not enough air. Breathing becomes “heavy”. And 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’s 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, received the meaning of way\path, movement and direction.

Protoroot “ga” “grows” everywhere with a variety of pronunciation. On the map of our planet you will find hundreds and hundreds of names formed by this protogoot in the meaning of “way”: Gava, Hanover, Hamburg, Kaluga, Prague, Go, Volga, Riga, Malaga and hundreds of others. In Russian, the first thing that comes to mind is the word “doroga” (road). In addition to it, there are a variety of options: “gat’” (swamp road), “gatit’” (build a road through a swamp, a swampy place), “gay” (pave the way through the forest), “poganyy” (nasty\bad (what is lying along the road)) and even “gad” (reptile). The words formed by this protoroot can be found in both English and German: “go”, “gehen” (to go) and others.

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” becomes closer to the consonant “k”. And there are new diverse meanings of this sound: “leading”, “knowing”, “main”, “smart”, “thinking”. Although these meanings may seem varied at first glance, they all indicate the ability to think. So, the name of the Chinese game “Go” combines several meanings of this sound. At first I was surprised at the speculative nature of my conclusions, but than I immersed in this speculation more, that I understood my rightness again and again.

What words were formed with protoroot “ka” in its various shades? First of all, they touched the head, which is not only to wear a hat (by the way, this is also reflected in the words). For example, “kapusta” (cabbage)—in Russian it means “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.” And in the 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”. And there are a lot of such interesting phenomena in the language.