Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)

Now there are three of you who can killarte me but
not tell me what etymology is.

Killrater: why don't you tell me what etymology is?
I seem not to know, while you must be in the Know.
So why don't you share your knowledge? why don't
you tell me? why can't you tell us?


Magdalenian MUC and CUM

MUC may have been the Magdalenian bull, attacked by
a group of hunters CUM. Ancient Greek mykaomai means
to low, bellow, boom, crash, crack, creak, bang - you can
hear the melée of a hunting battle. Myktaes means nostril
- you can imagine the attacked bull snorting. French mugir
means to low, bellow. German muhen means to low. The
sound produced by the lowing animal is called Muh, which
testifies to an onomatopoetic origin of MU-, while the ending
-C may indicate a bull's round massive body. Mykenae may
have been a stronghold of the Zeus bull. In our medieval
dialect we have a noun Mocke or Mocka for something round.
The portly opera singer Luciano Pavarotti is an example of
a human Mocka - luckily for him chased only by fans ...
Deriding high-muck-a-muck may also be a CUM word.
In our dialect we have the verb mucken, to move suddenly.
We use it as a noun, Mucks, in the negative sense: not
doing a single Mucks, not moving at all, keeping perfectly
still and silent, "bockstill" - quiet as a buck sensing the
potentially fatal human presence. A schoolboy who neglected
his homework will make no Mucks in class, forasmuch as
not to attract the preying eyes of his teacher ... We have
a cheap and rather big round lollipop called Föiver Mocka
(costed five cents when I was a boy). Also a breeding pig
is called a Mocka, while her freshlings may be called by
the diminutive Moeckli. MUC from MUC. German Muck also
means wet clay, fertile ground, earth. The pig was an emblem
of the mother and earth goddess. Greek mykaes means
mushroom, knob of a sword, black end of a wick - something
round and singled out. Sanskrit muktaa means pearl, from
muc, to free, liberate, which aspect may come from giving
birth, as in the case of our breeding pig Mocka and her
young ones, Moeckli. Another MUC words means bud,
again something round.

Inverse CUM may have been the word for a group of hunters.
Ancient Greek kyma was a sea wave - you may imagine
a swarm of Magdalenian hunters attacking a bull, their huge
animal of prey, like a surging wave. An old CUM word means
heap, heap of stones - picture a group of grim stony-faced
hunters. Old English for to come was cum - imagine a hunter
calling for his colleagues: Cum, cum, join me, let us go
hunting, let us form a CUM ! Latin cum means 'with' - one
with the other ones, all together, in the formation of a CUM.
German Kumpan was a buddy among soldiers. The modern
usage of Kumpan is for a business partner (informal and rare).
German Kumpel means a buddy among miners. English
company may be another survivor of hypothetical Magdalenian
CUM, and I guess that the organization of a modern company,
mutatis mutandis, can't be so very different from the one of
a Magdalenian tribe.

Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch


Okay

LOG with a clicking L means profane language,
GOL with a clicking L means the cavity of the mouth,
GLO with a clicking L means the utterances of a shaman
in a trance, and OLG with a clicking L means holy. One
might indicate the L click with an exclamation mark !L :
!LOG - GO!L - G!LO - O!LG. There is a short way from
the latter to Old English haleg and holeg, and German
heilig for holy.

The profane language !LOG belongs to the earthly realm
of AC, the holy language G!LO belongs to the heavenly
realm of CA.

AC as the world we live in is the concern of OC, eye,
verb see. CA as the beyond is the concern of CO, mind,
verb think.

CO survives in Latin con / com, for example in Latin
computare, think together, present in our computer,
a device that compiles and combines information.

OC was the eye in general, the right eye in particular.
The left eye was AY or EY. My two hypothetical
Magdalenian words OC and AY / EY became Sanskrit
*oq- and o. They survive in French ocular and oeil,
in English ocular and eye. Earlier English forms were
eghen and eien, egghnen and eiine.

The inverse of AY / EY is YA / YE, surviving in German
Ja and English yeah. From this I conclude (note the con-)
that in Magdalenian times a firm look into someone's eyes
was a way of saying yes, perhaps accompanied by a nod.
Interestingly, some early forms of English eyes were yes
ies yees ayes. In southern France the word for yes is oc
(langue d'oc), the same as my Magdalenian OC. The yes
in northern France is oui (langue d'oui) that comes close
to oeil for eye.

I look out of my eyes, I am present in my look, so the
word for eye can serve as pronoun I. AY - English I.
OC - Latin oculum and ego. Italian occhio for eye, might
combine OC and io. French yeux for eyes, and je for I.

OC AY may have been a double affirmation. It might
have survived in Scottish och, aye - alas, it is so;
and in Choctaw okeh - it is so. OC and AY would then
have traveled both ways from the Magdalenian homeland
to the New World, northern America (10,000 years ago
eastward, and in the 19th century AD westward) where
they met again and survived in okay -- a famous word
understood and used all over the world.

Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch


LOG GOL GLO OLG (each with a clicking L)

Typical for Magdalenian are words of three letters,
their inverses and permuations, with related meanings.

Magdalenian LOG with a clicking L means language
and reason in a wordly sense. The physiologically
pleasing word claimed a place in English language.
Lang- of language is close to LOG. Pronounce LOG
LOG LOG LOG LOG ... LANG LANG LANG LANG
LANG ... with clicking L and you will note how close
they are physiologically. - Imagine an experiment.
Boycott French, remove langu(e) from language
and replace it with the English tongue. Say tonguage
from now on. Rename sci.lang into sci.tong. Make it
Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the
English Tonguage. Burn the grammar books and print
new ones in the English tonguage. Spread tonguage
everywhere, in the newspapers, journals and books,
on telly, radio, web and Usenet ... Would never work.
Even the most fervent froggie-haters love their French
tongue language.

The inverse of log is GOL, Magdalenian for the cavity
of the mouth. Pronounce GOL GOL GOL GOL GOL ...
with a clicking L and you can't but arrive at COLA.
Coca Cola is the most famous lemonade, and its
LOGO a beauty. The Italians have gola for mouth,
the French inferior geule, while the Americans filled a
vacant physiological place with their brand Coca Cola.

LOG LOGLOGLOGLOGLOGLO GLO

Magdalenian GLO with a clicking L has the meaning of
speaking in tongues, used for a shaman conveying the
voices of the beyond. The word lost its spiritual sense in
ancient Greek glossa (Attic glotta) for tongue and speech,
apart from one aspect of glossolalia that means religious
utterings. GLO survived in Latin globus for round, English
globe, denoting the skull as ancient emblem of the sky,
wherefrom the shaman got his or her voices and made
them hear speaking in tongues. Consider the medieval
"deus est sphaera" - God is present in the perfect
geometrical body of the sphere. Furthermore, GLO
survived in Latin gloria, English glory: God in all his glory
speaking to the chosen one from amidst a fiery aureole,
in the case of Masesaya / Amun-Masesa / Moses from
a burning bush - a natural phenomenon occurring in the
Sinai, where a certain shrub grows very hard seeds only
fire can crack, so when the time for a new generation
has come the leafs of the shrub release an inflammable
gas that is kindled by the spark of the next stone that
comes a-rolling and pounding ... The papal "urbi et orbi"
is meant for Rome, center of Christendom, and for the
whole world, the entire globe. Michelangelo designed
a splendid cupola for the dome of the Vatican, gold
blazing everywhere, flaming along the spiraling Bernini
columns, glory over glory ...

The inverse of glo is OLG, Magdalenian for holy,
surviving via Scandinavian in the given name Olga.

By the way: biological evolution follows the principle of
neoteny. Young forms are evolved, not the fully developed
adult ones. Consider this when studying the evolution of
language. Pondering each and every special case of a
fully developed language is not always helpful. Have my
chutzpa. Throw the books away. (Not really, of course;
I love books, and consult them over and over again.)

.

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