Re: Magdalenian words and compounds 2006/7

Magdalenian words and compounds 2006-8
Part 99

Magdalenian BIR and English bear (3/6)

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 named 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. Bear 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,
and a bard may once have sung about the
perils bear hunters encountered. Fear fury
ferocious wary ward pursue may be further
derivatives. Peaceful derivatives may be fair
in the sense of blond, warm ware purchase.
Burly is the shape of a man clad in bear skin.
A German Bürste 'brush' is sort of an artificial fur.
We say brrr when it is very cold and we are in
need of a warm coat, and in the Ice Age this
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 furrow farm farmer.

(end of part 3, to be continued)

-

Magdalenian words and compounds 2006-8
Part 98

Magdalenian BIR and English bear  (2/6)

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 'skin, fur' 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 borderline
- Bob Dylan, quoted from memory)

(end of part 2, to be continued)

-

Magdalenian words and compounds 2006-8
Part 97

Magdalenian BIR and English bear  (1/6)

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 custom 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.

(end of part 1, to be continued)

-

Magdalenian words and compounds 2006-8
Part 95

Solomon and Ezekiel // possible origin of Sion  (2/2)

Ezekiel was on exile in Upper Mesopotamia.
In his vision he describes an ideal Jerusalem
based on the idea of the Asherah sanctuary
yet expanded in an almost surrealistic way,
combining measures of length with periods
of time as defined by astronomy:

  30 'measures' correspond to one lunation
  64 'measures' correspond to 63 days

The wall surrounding Jerusalem in Ezekiel's vision
has a length of 4 times 4,500 = 18,000 measures
corresponding to 600 lunations, diameter 191
lunations or 5,640 days or 5,730 measures.

The four gates mark the cardinal directions. Connect
them with a square. Transform the square into a circle
of the same area. How long is the diameter? 4,500
measures.

Inscribe a dodecagon in the large circle of the wall.
How long is the periphery? 30 Venus years (roughly
48 solar years).

A vision involving a large circle, the moon and Venus,
the cardinal directions, and wheels turning within
wheels can only refer to the sky, so we may assume
the ideal Jersualem was located in the heavens.

If Greek Seion (Septuaginta) Hebrew Sijjon Latin
Seon (Vulgata) Old English Seon Modern English
Zion goes back to Magdalenian, the original
compound could have been SEI IAN meaning
life (sai) to mark the place of a new camp (ian),
together something like: Let us mark the place
of a new camp where we can live, where life may
flourish.

(end of part 2)
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Magdalenian experiment (continuation)
    ... Magdalenian BIR and English bear, ... like for example English bear. ... BIR --- fur, ... Die FDP verwandelte ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: proof that most etymologies are only fairy-tales
    ... fur, especially the fur whereupon a newborn ... and bearing-cloth the cloth in which a child ... was provided by the bear, ... 'brown' from BIR. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Greek Psi
    ... BIR means fur, especially the fur on which a newborn was laid ... he will name it a bear ... ... for the PIE explanation of bear as the brown one, which, in my ... I can easily unite the six *bher- homonyms under BIR, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: are El/ohim and Allah related?
    ... Of course I claim that bear and beard are etymologically ... Both come from BIR meaning fur, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Greek Psi
    ... BIR means fur, especially the fur on which a newborn was laid ... he will name it a bear ... ... for the PIE explanation of bear as the brown one, which, in my ... I can easily unite the six *bher- homonyms under BIR, ...
    (sci.lang)
Loading