There is a beautiful example to understand how words appeared in ancient times this is the English word ice, consisting of two roots: ay and s. The first signified upward movement, the second is water. Where above could there be water? Only in the mountains, on icy snow-capped peaks. Therefore, the word iceeven without translation means frozen on the tops of mountain water. Protoroot ay gave the name of the white color. Where could the ancient people see the white color? Only on the snow-capped peaks of high mountains.
Sorting out such combinations is an exciting, useful, and even unpredictable activity, as we will see more than once. The main thing is to understand that all words have their origin in deep and common antiquity, growing out of meaningful sounds that our forefathers exchanged.
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 msan ancient root that is easy to find in the names of water bodies. I didnt 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 dont believe in the coincidencesdivine water doesnt 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 meaningthe 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-gathe 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-kathat 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 formedto-msliterally: 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 Mississogas? 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-gathe 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 firstmeso (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 wordpotamos (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 (νομα) is name. The name of the place! And Russian word place ms-toshould be read as a place near water (spring, stream, river, lake). If we add the ancient preposition poaround, 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 dont know what impression the native American name Potomac made on the first Spaniards, but I think Columbuss 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. Im sure thats 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 Putamishpo-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 cant 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.