We have explained that prehistoric people grouped their words into categories to determine the pronunciation and meanings of words efficiently. If they knew the meaning of the original bilateral root most people should be able to know the general meanings of its derivatives.
One of the greatest linguistic unit (made of two Stone Age biliteral roots) in Ancient Arabia, is *’R/*R’ (’ is a very short ‘a’). This unit is huge and we have easily identified both and many of their extensions in all major descendants of Ancient Arabian including English. Examples include, air, arse, area, inheritance, Earth, erotic, Eros, etc., and there is little doubt it is a first-generation root which could be up to 70,000 years old but only if archaeologists’’ dating of a major settlement dug in central Arabia is correct.
In this post, we will allow Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) to do the donkey work and list the following entries:
araḫḫu: [Art] (kind of) song
araḫḫu: [Country → Agriculture] granary, storehouse
Araḫsamnu: [Time → Month] Marheshwan, eight month (approximately October-November)
araḫû: [Science → Mathematics] metrological conversion factor
arāḫu: G. to be urgent, hurry, hasten, +vent.: to come quickly D. to speed up, send speedily; hend.: to do sth. quickly Štn. to hurry s.o., sth. very much
erištu (2): [Moral life → Will] 1) to demand, to request, to need 2) to desire (sexually), to feel (sexual) desire for (genitive), to lust [erišti]: in heat, hot (animals, sheep, goats …) 3) to need, to require (ingredients) [erištu eqli /
The last word ‘erištu’, like the above entries, is from the same root, *’R, but the meanings look different. What does ‘sexual desire’ have to do with ‘granary’, or ‘storehouse’ or ‘come quickly’?
’R is a category the oldest meaning of which is ‘sex’ or procreation. Because it is a category, it includes several things connected with sex, i.e.,’+’R →’ ’R → ‘air’ “banned by Beehive moderator but begins with ‘p’” (Ar.); ‘Rš “sexual desire” and ’Rḫ (ḫ = Lochness, German ch) “history” but it means also “bottom”. Ancient Arabic, ’Rḫ, is also “history, chronicle.”
Why is ‘history’ the same word for “bottom”?
Language is the product of essential necessity. It took a very long time for people to need to invent “un-needy” words to express very advanced concepts like ‘present’, ‘past’ or ‘future’. Everything that happened before present times happened ‘behind the bottom’. In today’s Arabic there are, tarikh “history”, t’rikh “to write history”, ‘mu’rikh’ “historian”.
The cluster *’R/*R’ is an absolute shocker. From it ‘Torah’ “bible” but we won’t go into religion for now.
Here is a short list of words derived from this cluster listed by Etymology Online Dictionary but remember all the time please this Akkadian beauty ‘erištu’; Arabic ‘arst/arsht’ “seduction”, and probably Arabic ‘rṣ “pimp”:
*Eros: god of love, late 14c., from Greek (Greek, oh brother!) eros (plural erotes), “god or personification of love,” literally “love,” from eran “to love,” erasthai “to love, desire,” which is of uncertain origin (uncertain, my arse!).
*Erotic: 1650s, from French érotique (16c.), from Greek erotikos “caused by passionate love, referring to love,” from eros (genitive erotos) “sexual love” (see Eros). Earlier form was erotical (1620s).
*Erogenous: “inducing erotic sensation or sexual desire,” 1889, from Greek Eros “sexual love” (see Eros) + -genous “producing.” A slightly earlier variant was erogenic (1887), from French érogénique. Both, as OED laments, are improperly formed. Erogenous zone attested by 1905.
*Ass: Asshole: c.1400, arce-hoole; see arse + hole (n.). In Old English, Latin anus was glossed with earsðerl, literally “arse-thrill.”
*Arse: “buttocks,” Old English ærs “tail, rump,” from Proto-Germanic *arsoz (cognates: Old Saxon, Old High German, Old Norse ars, Middle Dutch ærs, German Arsch “buttock”),
This may please all women who think girls are special and boys are special also but not so special as girls. Etymologically speaking, they are absolutely equal in prehistoric time and here is why:
From the shocker, linguistic unit *’R/*R’ [m+R’] = mr’. It appears ancient people didn’t find it crucial to identify men and women differently so both are called mr’. If they were still walking around naked at the time it would make sense because identification is easy. Probably thousands of years later the letter ‘t/h’ was added at the end of words to determine feminine. “Marah’ in today’s Arabic (and Maltese) is “woman”. Mar’ is “man”. English marry and marriage appear to be from the same triliteral [m+R’].
Image credit: Shwebook Dictionary
Last modified: August 27, 2017
