Re: Laz in Poland?


BIR and the etymology of English bear  (part 1)

BIR means fur, especially the fur on which a newborn
was laid. This particular meaning suggests an ancient
custom, and really, one Porphyrios described a custom
of laying a newborn on a bear fur in the third century AD.
The same custom survived in eastern Slavic regions
until the twentieth century: here it was the grandmother
who laid a newborn on bear fur. A Vinca figurine shows
the divine mother wearing a bear mask and holding her
baby - also wearing a bear mask - in her arms, another
Vinca figurine shows the divine mother or nurse wearing
a bear mask and on her back a pouch for the baby.
(Information on the ancient customs and the Vinca
figurines by Marija Gimbutas. You may also consider
Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, Act 3 Scene 3,
where a bearing-cloth is mentioned. A bearing cloth
was a rich cloth in which a child was carried to be
christened. )

English bear German Bär Dutch beer are explained as
the Brown One. Relying on my Magdalenian approach
to early language I propose a new etymology: bear
means the Furry One, provider of the best fur, thick,
longhaired, soft and warm. The Ostyak in Siberia call
the bear Fur Man. In Lapp the animal is called Wooly
One. German Zottelbär means 'shaggy bear'. Another
German name or nickname is petz female petze, in
fables Meister Petz. Grimm, in his Wörterbuch, quotes
one Hagedorn:  "da sträubet sich der petz" meaning:
here the petz bristles up, stands on end. Petz can only
mean pelt, German Pelz. All these words - petz petze
Pelz pelt - may be derivatives of Magdalenian PIS
meaning water in motion (lateral association to PAD
and PAS), also bodies moving in water, wherefrom
pisces fish (and bears like fish). Leonardo da Vinci
observed that hair resembles water. Ice Age hunters
could have made the same observation, and the
connection to water is preserved in the verb to pelt
used for heavy raining.

BIR and the etymology of English bear  (part 2)

BIR means fur, especially the fur on which a newborn
was laid. One can then also bear the baby in a pouch
made of fur, and obtains the verb to bear. By analogy
one gets a word for a pregnant woman: she bears
a child, she gives birth, the child is born, a newborn,
a bairn - the latter word occurs in many variants
including bir meaning son. Parents are the happy
people who can lay a newborn on fur, preferably
a bear fur. She-bears are devoted mothers, which
would have been another reason for the choice of
bear fur: may it make a human mother care as well
for her children as a bear mother for her cubs!
Bears sleep through winter, and then emerge again
in spring, thus they were regarded as symbols of
regeneration. Already Neanderthals buried some
of their deads wrapped in bear fur, which custom
is regarded as evidence for a belief in regeneration
and a life in the beyond. Evidence for the same belief
among Homo sapiens sapiens are words such as
bury, burial, bier German Bahre, and the barrows
in southern England.

Having good fur was essential during the Ice Age.
The best fur was provided by the bear. Judging by
its name, also the boar Latin aper German Eber
provided a good fur. The names of two other furry
animals may go back to a doubling of BIR, PIE
*werwer 'squirrel', and beaver. Ancient Greek
byrsa 'fur, skin' is an obvious derivative of BIR,
borealis 'north wind' a less obvious one meaning
much as: wind from the northern countries where
people wear furs to protect themselves from the
cold. (If you travel to the north country fair /
Where the winds hit heavy on the boarder line
- Bob Dylan, quoted from memory).

BIR and the etymology of English bear  (part 3)

Bears had to die so that humans could live.
A painting in the cave Les Trois Frères shows
a bear covered with dots, blood spurting out
of the mouth and the body. The dots are wounds
applied with lances and spears, but as ideograms
they also represent Magdalenian SAI for life,
existence - life for the hunters of the Ice Age who
utterly depended on fur. In autumn, a bear eats
up to 150,000 berries German Beeren. Dutch
brombeer 'growling bear' is practically the same
as German Brombeere 'brambler or black berry'.
So there are three possibilities: a) bears like
berries and berries were called for the bear,
or b) settlements were protected by brambles
and other thornbushes against bears and other
wild animals, or c) alleys between brambles or
black berry thornbushes were used for trapping
bears. Pear Latin pire is not yet explained, so
I propose the shape of a bear's head as origin,
round with a long snout. Beard German Bart is
an obvious derivative of BIR. Bare could once
have meant a skinned animal, deprived of its fur.
The Norse berserks were clad in bear skins
impregnated with oil and herbs that made them
go wild. English beorn means warrior. Also war
(stifle) could have its origin in bear hunting.
Then fear, furious, ferocious, wary, ward, pursue.
Peaceful derivatives of BIR could be fair in the
sense of blond, also warm, ware, purchase. Burly
is the shape of a man clad in bear skin. German
Bürste bürsten 'brush' is sort of an artificial fur.
We say brrr when it is very cold and we need
a warm coat, during the Ice Age it would have
been a fur coat. Felines purr. A bear ending
quasi hibernation lets go a tremendous fart
German Furz. A bear going to quasi hibernation
digs a hollow, and this may have given raise
to the words fork (originally a bear's claw),
furrow, farm farmer.

BIR and the etymology of English bear  (part 4)

Bear comes from PIE *bher- that has many meanings.
All of them can be related to fur and especially bears:
*bher- 'brown' -- most furs are brown // *bher- 'weave
twine' -- the fur of a sheep is longhaired as the one
of a bear // *bher- 'seethe, bubble; roast' -- cooking
the meat of a skinned animal // *bher- 'strike (through),
split, cut' -- one has to kill an animal in order to get
its fur and meat // *bher- 'carry' -- explained above //
*bher- '+- cure with spells and/or herbs' -- curing
a patient using spells, and bear skins impregnated
with fat and medical herbs // *bhére(o) -- 'bear
(a child)' -- explained above // *bherg- 'growl, bark'
-- sounds made by a bear // *bherg- 'keep, protect'
-- explained above, carrying a baby in a pouch
made of fur; consider also that bark protects
a trunk and a branch in the way fur protects an
animal, or a bark barque German Barke protects
the people from the water on which they swim,
the word is also present in embark //*bherg-
'high, hill' - a bear standing up is a tall animal,
reaching high, and the shape of a sleeping bear,
also of a walking bear, could have been seen
in shapes of hills and mountains, wherefrom
German Berg 'mountain'. (PIE roots according
to Mallory and Adams 2006)

BIR and etymology of English bear  (part 5)

Old Indic rksa'bear' may combine ARC and RAG.
The former is present in Greek arktos and Latin
ursus, the latter in words for bear in several Indian
languages. RAG means the line of head and back
of an animal, the first line drawn by cave painters
according to Leroi-Gourhan, strongly evocative
of the whole animal. RAG has many derivatives,
among them Latin rex 'king', German Recht 'law',
ragen 'loom, tower', Rücken 'back', and ancient
Greek rachis 'back, mountain ridge'. The German
word for mountain ridge is Bergrücken, literally
the back of a mountain. The inverse of RAG is
GAR, meaning fissures and crevices in rock,
wherefrom animals emerge and wherein they
disappear, both in European cave art and in
the rock art of southern Africa. Life emerging
from rock seems to have been a very ancient
idea about the origin of life, and it has a modern
scientific equivalent in Vernadsky's (?) dictum
of life being the metamorphosis of rock ...
German Busen means cleavage but has
become a word for the female breasts. In like
manner GAR became Old Church Slavonic
gore 'mountain', Albanian gur 'rock', Avestan
gairi 'mountain', Sanskrit giri 'mountain'.

(end of part 5, to be continued)

BIR and the etymology of English bear (part 6)

LAD for hill and LAS for mountain pose a problem.
These words disappeared. My only evidence for
LAS is AD LAS Atlas Atlantis, hypothetical ancient
name of Eurasia, land along the very long mountain
barrier from the Cantabrian Mountains in northern
Spain to the Himalayas in Asia. (English land
German Land Spanish llano 'plain' may perhaps
come from LAN as lateral association of LAD and
LAS, meaning much as land between and along
hills and mountains.) In Switzerland we have
a magnificient mountain group around the Aletsch,
mountain and glacier, the latter a world heritage
site under the protection of the Unesco. Names
in the region are Lötsch- and Lütsch-, possible
derivatives of LAD and LAS, while Aletsch may
another derivative of AD LAS. The name of the
Valais to the south of the Aletsch means valley,
dale, from DAL, inverse of LAD. In the Valais
we have the villages of Lax and Laden. 'Las' in
the Upper Valais means water flowing down
a mountain slope. If water was granted by the
gods and goddesses residing on hills and
mountains we may have an explanation for
why LAD and LAS became taboos. If the
gods and goddesses granted water, made it
flow down the slopes, or rather let it flow down,
also English let German lassen may go back to
LAD and LAS. The early farmers began clearing
the plains, forests survived on hills and mountains.
'Les' is a Slavic word for forest. Forests are the
home of bears, and bears had been worshipped
as mountain gods ... The compound GO) LAS
or GOL LAS (gol with a clicking l) may account for
glacier, meaning much as edible mountain made
of stone that can be licked, or melted and drunk
or used for cooking. From GOL LAS we get to glass,
a material resembling ice. While the world of Ice
Age hunters was ruled by glaciers, our modern
metropoles are dominated by shining glass
façades. The new opera house in Helsinki, built
of concrete and glass, looks like an aritificial
iceberg.

Back to fur. Most furs are brown, but some have
several colors, wherefrom Latin varius English
various vary varied, and German Farbe 'color'.
Even the brown bear Ursus arctus has more
than one color, the back is silvery gray, and the
paws are often dark, almost black. I insist on
my etymology of bear as the furry one, provider
of the best fur, thick, longhaired, soft and warm.

(end of part 6, end of my etymology of bear)
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