Etymology of meanings. Brief etymological dictionary of planetary toponyms. At the origins of civilization

Water is a life!
Protoroots in the ancient names of water bodies

If my first significant discovery was the mystery of the origin and main meaning of the sound “l’”, then the next key realization was the idea that language is natural, physiological and firmly woven into the environment. Ancient sounds and ancient toponyms\place names are directly related, so the names of localities are a map written in the primordial language of mankind. These are landmarks of ancient people. Names of the environment appeared long before writing and long before the formation of the languages and peoples known to us. In fact, toponyms\place names are a huge legacy of ancient times, which we own now – and not always consciously.

What have always people needed? The most basic needs are air, water, and food. A person can live without air for several minutes, without water – for several days, and not much longer without food. Therefore, all the oldest names are somehow connected with the sources of life.

However, “to know the taste of water, you need to start drinking”, draw in a handful of spring water and hear the sound “ms”—an ancient root that is easy to find in the names of water bodies. I didn’t even have to go far for examples. In the Chelyabinsk region, there are many hydrological toponyms\place names that go back to this root. First of all, the Miass River. And there is a Lake Misyash (Mises). There is also a swampy place called Mysy (Capes). A little further is Lake Karmyskaly. We found Karamys, Muslyumovo, Lake Machacul, Lake Mysty, Utemis, Lake Mushaykul and derived from this protoroot: the Meseda River, the Lemeza River, and even the Kamyshinka River. The meaning of the word “kamysh” (reed) is understood very simply: “ga” is a way, “ms” is water. So it is “the way to water”. Where does the reeds grow? Such place names scattered across the country: Kamyshly, the city of Kamyshlov, Kamysl, the city of Kamyshin and others. Who “named” the southern Urals? There is a hypothesis that the ancient Aryans migrated to India and the middle East from the Northern territories of modern Russia, and these paths lay through the South Ural lands, which still preserve the “toponymic memory” of the migration of peoples. But I think that the names were given much earlier, when this land was inhabited by very ancient tribes.

Interested to read in the map of Russia: the Mius River, the Meza River, the city of Mezen’, the Mzymsha River, the Mshaga River, the Msta River, Muzga, the Mosha River, the Moshka River, the city of Mozhga, the Masa River. And the city of Moscow, our great capital, which grew up on the banks of the river of the same name, is a toponym\place name that goes back to the protoroot “ms” and once sounded like “Moskov” or “Moskova”. One thing led to another. Several times I rested on the Black Sea coast in the city of Anapa and the city of Gelendzhik, and there, too, I saw some rivers which names are formed by this protoroot. The largest river flows in Novorossiysk – the Tsemes River. In Gelendzhik the main river is the Mezub́ River. There is a river with a funny name near Anapa – the Mozhepsin River. The river is small, so you can understand the meaning of our ancestors laid in the name. It is easy to guess how the name of the Shumay River appeared – literally: “water from the mountains”. And flowing far away from the village Raevskaya the Maskaga River is already a classic of “world” title. The same classic is the name of the Myskhako River, which flows on the Black Sea coast.

Outside of our country, toponyms\place names with the protoroot “ms” are multiplying: in Europe we have the famous Meuse River, the Moselle River flows in the same place, and in England the Thames River flows too. In the Middle East, Lake Mosul is located in the course of the famous Tigris River. The same name is given to the downstream of the city of Mosul. Note that the names the Moselle and the Mosul (Musil’) have the same protoroot: “ms” is “water”, and the soft sound “el’” means “good”, “beloved”, “divine”.

I don’t believe in the coincidences—“divine water” doesn’t just appear. In Libya, there is an ancient city of Al Khoms (Hums). In Syria, there is a large Lake Khoms, on the Bank of which there is the city of the same name is located. And to the South – the Khoms desert, with drying rivers that flowed into the famous Palmyra. How can we explain the origin of these names? All of them have one common meaning—“the way to water”. If you and I wanted to offer the ancient people to go to the water body, how would we say it? There are protoroot “ga”, which designates the way, the movement; also we have our life-giving protoroot “ms”, indicating the water. We would say “ga-ms”, “kho-ms” or “ms-ga”—the way to a place where you can get drunk.

In addition to Lake Mosul and Lake Khoms in the Middle East, there is also the legendary city of Damascus. The name of the ancient capital of Syria contains the same protoroots: “ms” and “ka”, “way to water”. But there is an addition – the name includes the ancient preposition of the location “ta-to”: “ta (eto) -ms-ka”—“that is the way to water”. The city of Damascus is located on the Barada River, where it divides into seven branches: water has always been good in Damascus. If you step back a little and listen to the sound of the names of the Maskaga River and Damascus, then you heard the harmony of the ancient language spoken by our ancestors. According to the same logic, the name of the river “Thames” was formed—“to-ms”—literally: “a place where water is.” I assume that our great rivers Om’ and Tom’ in their names used to have the sound “s”, which was lost later.

Many names with the protoroot “ms” are found in Japan. These are the Mitsuysi, the Misava, and the Matsura rivers. In Japanese, the word “water “sounds like “mizi”, and “water body” is “mizimi”. Our protoroot also lives in America in the names of water bodies and great rivers: the Mississippi and the Missouri. On Lake Ontario is the city of Mississoga, which received its name from the native American tribe of the same name. But how did the Indians become “Mississoga’s”? And what is “so-ga”? The answer is clear…

You can remember the names of other tribes: the Mosquitos, the Muiscas, the Mixtecos, the Tsimshians and others. With all the diversity, these tribes were somehow “tied” to water, to water objects. Listen: the most famous Lake Michigan with its glorious city of Chicago sounds like “ms-mch” (water) and “ga” (way). The ancient preposition “na” (on) in this case can be interpreted in different ways: “on top”, “to be”, “presence” of water, or even its “edibility”, that is, its suitability for drinking. In Russia, this name and its origin are consonant with, for example, the Mshega River. From this group of names, you can remember the Muchka River, which flows in the city of Trabzon, and the same river in the Murmansk region. The basis is still the same: “mch-ga”—the way to water, or “the way of water”. There is also an interesting Russian toponym\place name the city of Mozhga, which can be translated as “water on the road” or simply – a puddle.

Of course, the protoroot of “ms” has changed and evolved. Over time, the “m” sound was lost in some languages, but it seemed to transmit its “memory of water” to whistling and hissing consonants, which gave rise to a lot of meanings. This was the case in the Turkic languages, where the sound “s” formed the word “su” with the meaning “water”. Do I have to list water bodies that formed the ancient protoroot “su”? There are thousands of them. They are scattered all over the planet. At least one place name can be remembered. Where does the Nile, the main river of the ancient world, originate? In the country of Sudan, whose name is assembled from the protoroots “su” (water) and “dono” (depth)—an inexhaustible water source…

Between two rivers

Another word that deserves close attention is Mesopotamia. This toponym\place names well shows how complex words appeared from simple roots. Mesopotamia (Μεσοποταμία) is a Greek word, and it is interesting because it has two protoroots “ms” at once.

The first—“meso” (μέσος)—has the meaning “average”, “middle”. The origin of the meaning is understandable: any body of water, and especially a river, always divides something: the left Bank, the right Bank… The river seems to be “mezhdu” (between). From this understanding came the meaning of the word “mezha” (boundary-line). And the chain of related values can be extended to the present: “mezha”, “meso” (meso, mezzo), the case form “midas” (median, medium and others).

But the second part of the word—“potamos” (ποταμός)—is translated both as “place” and as “river”. In addition protoroot “ms” in the word there are also two ancient protoroots (prepositions): “po"and” ta” are sounds of “puffing” and “poking”. These sounds (prepositions) speak about the place, about the location. Mesopotamia is a place between rivers. These prepositions with different vowels you will find in the names of a huge number of toponyms\place names: the Te-mza River (the Thames), the Te-rek River, the Ti-br River, the Ti-gr River, the city of To-t`ma, the To-bol River, the Po River, the Pola River, the Po-lonka River, the city of Po-ltava, the city of Po-lessk, the city of Po-lotsk, the Po-gara River, the city of Po-dolsk, the city of Bo-lonya, the city of Ba-at, the city of Pa-rizh (Paris), the city of Pa-rma, Lake Ba-aikal, the city of Bo-lkhov, the city of Bu-gulma, the city of Bo-dai-bo, and thousands of others. The same sounds form the Greek word “toponym” (τοπωνύμιο), where “topos”(τόπος) is “place”, and “onoma” (ὄνομα) is “name”. The name of the place! And Russian word “place”– “ms-to”—should be read as a place near water (spring, stream, river, lake). If we add the ancient preposition “po”—“around, along”, we get the word “pomest`e” (estate, possession).

We are dealing with very ancient sounds. Near the city of Washington, for example, the Potomac River flows, whose name is made up of the same ancient prepositions “po” and “to”. Translated from the Algic languages Potomac is a “place”, later: a trading place. People often enough met and traded by the water. I might add that the city of Washington is also located between the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. It is American Mesopotamia or Entre Rios!

I don’t know what impression the native American name Potomac made on the first Spaniards, but I think Columbus’s contemporaries heard quite familiar sounds. In the English version, the sound of the ending “k” is spelled with the Latin letter “c”. Who first recorded it in this version is a mystery. But if you read the letters, that the Potomac should sound “the Potomas”. I’m sure that’s the name of this river should sound like it! The root basis in toponyms\place names is very stable, so no matter how the vowels change, the consonants carry the main meaning. However, as soon as the root becomes auxiliary, service, becomes an affixed morpheme, it loses this stability. Thus, in the word “potamos” (ποταμός) the root “ms” is preserved, and in the toponym/place name “Mesopotamia” the sound “s” at the end of the word is lost. The same distortions have occurred for thousands of years with the names of the rivers Tom’ and Om’.

Many toponyms\place names of my beloved Crimea have also preserved their ancient roots. For example, in the Crimea there is a river called Putamish—“po-ta-ms”. It originates in the Babugan-yayly mountains, and therefore refers to the movement “on the road down from the mountain”. Into this river flows a smaller river called the Western Putamis, which also retains in its name the ancient sound of drinking. And some rivers got new names. Other peoples who spoke other languages and dialects came and invented or brought with them names that they could understand better. For example, the Ulu-Uzen’ River, flowing near the city of Alushta, was formerly called Megapotamo. Thus, in different parts of the world you can find place names with the same roots: the Potamo, the Megapotamo, the Potomac, the Putamish and the Mesopotamia. In the latter, two “ms” are hidden at once, dating back to the oldest civilizations in the interfluve of the Tigris and the Euphrates.

From the Don to London

Not always hydrological toponyms\place names were formed from the ancient protoroot “ms”, reduced “su” or hissing sounds. Some water bodies were named for other features or geographical features. Then the ancient prepositions came into play – first of all “do” and “no”, which had the meaning of the limit or its absence, as in the case of the word “gluboko” (deep) or the abyss. There are a lot of rivers that cannot be forded, and toponyms\place names that have “no bottom”: the Don River, the Dnieper River, the Dunai River (the Danube), the Dniester River, the Jordan River, Sudan, London, Covadonga, Caledonia, Macedonia, Dongola, Medina, Magadan, Grodno, Andenn, Wiesbaden, Aberdeen, Ardennes and others.

The simplest name, formed by the prepositions “do” and “no”, is our famous Don River, a deep place that cannot be crossed. The Don River flows calmly and steadily, and you can’t reach the bottom. The Dnepr River is another matter. Aggressive protoroot “pr” meant obstacles that water pierces – for example, the Dnieper River rapids, which since ancient times were a distinctive landmark in the area, along the river. Therefore, the Dnieper River should be perceived as an unpredictable river with obstacles.

The main role in the name of the Dniester River is played by the protoroot “str”, which is well-preserved not only in Russian, but also in many languages of the world and is easily perceived in the meaning of “rapid” or “fast”. The Dniester River is a fast river. From protoroot “str” there was a considerable number of words in different languages “stremit`sya” (to strive), “ostrov” (island), “srtuna” (string), “strelyat’” (to shoot), “strezhen’” (rod/centre), a “strata” (strat), “strateg” (strategist), Strasse, street, etc. If you take it literally, it is formed from two roots: “s” is for “water” and “tr” is a “hole”. And it denotes the water that flows rapidly out of the hole. By the way, in the upper reaches of the Dniester River has a narrow deep channel and seems to break through the mountain range.

Moreover, the word “strategiya” (strategy), now so beloved by politicians of various stripes, also goes back to the protoroot “str”. Dictionaries explain the origin of this word from the ancient Greek “στρατηγία” (stratigia) and translate it as “the art of a commander”. But this is a late interpretation. If we parse the word in protoroots, we get a very clear semantic series: “str” is quickly, “ti” is “to do”, “ga” is the way.” That is “rapidly make the way”, move to the victory. I think the Greeks were intuitively and naturally right to give this word a military merit.

Listening to the protoroots of the Dunay (Dunai) river, it is enough to explain the meaning of this hydronym. “Ay” is a mountain, and the Danube originates in the mountains of Germany, is a river running from the mountains.

The Iordan (Jordan) River is more difficult. The name also consists of two roots. “ior” is a distorted “ar” is “the earth”. In this case, “ar” stands for “land in water”. In other words, it is a dirty, muddy river, a river with dirty water. By the way, a slightly distorted protoroot “ar” is also present in the name of the Missouri River—“ms-ur”. How did the American Indians translate this name? That’s right—“dirty river”. Later, the Greeks, and after them the Romans, began to associate dirty water with urine, so the word “urina” appeared. Even later, there were “urns”– vessels for collecting sewage. Enterprising slaves serving urns in the Colosseum offered to charge the Emperor Vespasian for using them – so the catch phrase “money has no smell” appeared.

However, let’s go back to our-not our Don River, deep bottom and river bosom. Once I received an angry comment in my email. A young lady wrote that the name of the city of London comes from the Latin “Londinium”, so there is no need to compose any nonsense and mislead students. At first I wanted to respond to her and even recorded my response on video. But there was no dialogue or feedback.

Indeed, there was a period when London was called “Londinium” according to Latin grammar. But this place was named before the Romans – the Celts called it “Londin”, in turn inheriting this toponym\place name, as the encyclopedias say, from the local inhabitants. Who these natives were? History is silent. But when they named this area, they proceeded from the semantic morphemes of the ancient protolanguage. Those who replaced them did not know this language any more and inherited only the form of the toponym\place name, without understanding its meaning.

In general, almost all toponyms\place names in the UK, as well as the word “Britain”, become clear when the ancient roots and the Russian language come to the rescue. All names have a deep meaning, reflecting the features of the landscape. I will not say that these words are Russian toponyms\place names, although this suggests itself. But one thing is certain: those who gave the names of the area, were good friends with the ancient and possibly Russian language. If you listen to that Professor Anatoly Klesov tells you, Europe used to be inhabited by tribes that were later displaced to its Eastern part. These tribes gave the names of the locality, which are so easily corresponded with the Russian language. With all the changes, the toponym\place name “London” clearly retained its “native” root, and I would say “russian” basis. The consonantal sounds, “l-n-d-n” are the keepers of meaning, and they have been clearly heard in the London’s fog for centuries.

But the secret of the name of London will help us understand… the German city of Kel`n (Cologne). Its name comes from the Latin word “colony”, and Kel`n was once part of the Roman Empire. Later, the peoples who inhabited it changed, the name was pronounced in a new way, with distortions, but the root basis remained the same: “K-l-n”. This word also goes back to the ancient prepositions “k” and “o”, which are well understood in Russian. The combination of these prepositions has the meaning “to round” or “round”. A “colony” is a “bosom around”, a wasteland, an open area without dense vegetation – taken, mastered, satisfied, fertilized. Once people of the same kind – tribe, settling around, developed new and better areas of land, often capturing them from other tribes and establishing their own beginning. Such words as “koloniya” (colony), “pokolenie” (generation), “koleno”—“degree” (including Israel’s) knee, “klan” (clan), and others originate from the ancient prepositions “k” and “o”.

If in the word “koloniya” (colony) instead of protoroot “ko” (round, around) include another protoroot, the ancient preposition “po”, we get a different meaning of the word “lono” (bosom) —it will stretch “along”, capturing all new territories. This combination of protoroots formed many words: Poland, “polyana” (meadow), “polyy” (open\empty), “poleno” (log), “palenyy” (scorched), “polyn`ya” (thawed patch), “plen” (captivity), etc. But at the heart of everything is the “lono”. What does it mean? “No” is a negation, an objection, “l” is something pleasant, loved, giving pleasure. In relation to the area and its geographical features, the sound “l” also denoted vegetation, forest. Therefore, the “lono” is a plot without vegetation, land without forest, a place of rest from a dense stand of trees, a sunny meadow. By the way, the word “leto” (summer) is also a combination of protoroots: “l” is for vegetation and “to” is for place, presence. This is the time when everything blooms and grows.

Finally, the word “lono” has another meaning, which is related to fertility and serves as a feminine principle. For thousands of years, people have been reclaiming land plots from the forest, plowing and throwing grain into them, hoping that they will sprout and give a rich harvest. So the womb (“lono”) of a woman served for the seed laid in it to give offspring. Not to tell you about another meaning of the combination of these protoroots. This is the word “nol’” (zero). A word with its roots rearranged in a different order, but with the same meaning. Zero is empty, null space, nothingness!

However, returning to the foggy Albion, we can look at London itself differently—“lono” and “dono”—an open, beautiful, fertile place by a deep river…