Re: Etymology of Houbit and haben


As for the k-form I'd like to propose the following idea:

OC --- right eye, to look, watch, observe
CO --- to think, reason, with an alert mind

LOP --- fortified dwelling

CO OC LOP --- to observe (oc) (the surroundings)
from the city wall (lop) with an alert mind (oc),
guards turning their rounds on or behind the city
walls, watching out, observing the surroundings
with alert minds

wherefrom Cyclops 'one-eyed giant, eye, city walls'
- the cyclops Polyphem symbolized Troy (see my
message from this morning in my etymological thread)
- and kyklos 'wheel, circle, cycle'.

Dwellings protected by hedges were old (Dolni Vestonice
dates back to around 26 000 BP) while the wheel is a
relatively young invention, and so hypothetical CO OC LOP
would account for Cyclops, kyklos, and even wheel:

CO O(C) L(OP) CO-O-L whe-oh-l whe-e-l wheel

If my reasoning holds, CO-O-L predates *kwel- 'turn'
and may even replace it. For a cognate I think of German
kollern 'to roll unevenly', for example a boulder rolling down
a mountain slope. Consider Polyphem throwing boulders
after Odysseus. One-eyed giants throwing boulders at
pirates were also known from the Caucasus above the
shores of the Black Sea, where they had a positive
connotation, other than Polyphem in Homer's Odyssey.


CO-OC 'think look' might perhaps survive in ***
(enforced by onomatopoesis): guard of the hens,
watching out with an alert mind also he. A pilot's
lookout is called cockpit. German gucken means
to peep, look - guards peeping peeking peering
over walls across battlements through embrasures ...

You may also consider goggle, Middle English gogelen
'to look aside'. The verbal morphospace keeps words
in place and allows the forming of new words with
related meanings. Interpreting the name of the company
and Internet search engine Google via CO-OC one may
translate it as follows: to look out (oc) with an active and
engaged mind (co). The name Google may also involve
googol and googolplex, very and immensely big numbers
that can only be perceived (oc) with the help of the mind
(co). The word googol was alledgedly invented by the
nine-year-old nephew of the mathematician Edward
Kasner. If my view holds, the verbal morphospace is
basically outlined at the age of nine years. One may
even go back to baby language. Babies are very actively
exploring the world, and their 'goo' has multiple meanings
around: look out! did you see this? consider that ...,
while inverse 'oog' is a toddler's version for lueg, look,
at least here in Switzerland. Thinking (goo, co) and seeing
(oog, oc) are closely related, in fact reasoning is nothing
else than combining what one sees now and here with
what one saw before and elsewhere (also through the
eyes of other people who tell us about their experience).
No reasoning without seeing, and no seing without
reasoning ...

CO OC NOT --- seing with eye (oc) mind (co) and
knowledge (not), seeing involves not only the eyes
but also the mind and knowledge, "One sees what
one knows" Goethe; Latin cognitio English cognition
cognitive. Ancient Greek gnosis may be a rump form,
(co o)c not, the omitted pair of o's accounting for
the omega (long o, litterally big o) in gnosis, t-form
in the Delphic inscription gnothi seauton 'recognize
yourself'.

As for wheel, there is another group of words
including German Rad 'wheel' and English rotation
for which I see this origin:

TYR --- he who overcomes
RYT --- spear thrower

TYR has many derivates: tyrant (once positive) /
Tir, nordic god of justice and and war (Tiwaz) /
emphatic Sseyr, Middle Helladic name of Zeus
according to Derk Ohlenroth / TYR Sseyr Sseus
Zeus theos deus Dis divinus divine Tiwaz Tir /
SA TYR NOS --- mind (nos) of the one who
overcomes, in the double meaning of rule and
give (tyr) from above (sa), Saturnus, Saturn,
ruler of a golden age / Latin turrus Italian torre
French tour German Turm English tower,
dominating a landscape ... Also inverse RYT
has several derivates: ancient Greek rhytaer
'archer, protector' (the latter testifying to the
once positive meaning of tyrant, protector of
his people) / radius radii - straight lines going out
from a center, as spears thrown from an elevated
place, from the top of a boulder or a rock, arrows
shot from a tower, flying into all directions, from
the same center / the implication of all directions
accounts for Latin rota 'wheel' and for rotare 'to
rotate', as for German Rad 'wheel' and similar
words in many other languages. Latin rotunda is
an architectural version of RYT, as turris 'tower'
is an architectural version of TYR.

A further group of words for wheel includes
ancient Greek trochos 'wheel' but also running
way' as dromos, and German drehen 'to turn'.
This word root has again to do with a fortified
dwelling - the walls around such a dwelling - and
may come from the permutation TRY --- triumph.
Surrounding a polis three times had a magic
reason: breaking the walls of an enemy's town.
In a ghastly episode of the Iliad, Achilles drags
the body of Hector three times around the walls
of Troy (and it was a long wall, surrounding the
acropolis and downtown Troy that provided shelter
for five thousand people), a magic ritual anticipating
the breaking of the cyclopic wall, as Eberhard
Zangger pointed out; finally, the Achaeans sacked
Troy, they triumphed, the magic ritual served its
purpose.

My Magdalenian approach to early language
provided a parallel explanation of people and
folk, now it provides a parallel explanation of
wheel and rotation, furthermore it explains
the seducing formal affinity of poplo- and
*kwekwlo- : all the words mentioned above
and before have to do with fortified dwellings,
so it is no wonder that some of them were
modified and shaped into similar forms.

My Magdalenian approach works. Reason
enough to killrate my message.

More in my much killrated etymological thread

Franz Gnaedinger




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