5. The sounds of food: “m” and “n”
All the basic sounds and protoroots associated with human physiology and its primary needs. You donot have to go far – just remember your basic needs. What is the most important thing for a person? He/she needs air to breathe, food to keep from starving, and water. In addition, he\she needs to continue the family line, needs security, a roof overhead, and other needs that reflected in the language. Therefore, it is objective that besides the sounds of breathing, the first roles in the meaning-making had the “sounds of food”.
Man is a mammalian creature, breastfed. This is why, from infancy, from unconscious memory, we reproduce this deep key sound of the compressed lips —“m” and the following sound of the opening lips—“ma”. In almost all languages, the word “mama” (mother) includes this ancient, imbibed with mother’s milk, protoroot.
In the words “mammoth” and “Mammoth” that came from antiquity, the sound “m” also speaks of food – prey, which our ancient ancestors fed on until quiet recently. The habitation of “mammoths” also reflected in ancient place names: Magadan, Macedonia, Kema, Kama and others.
But with feeding, the child uses not only the lips, but also the tongue. The tongue presses the nipple of the breast to the palate, and the milk under pressure falls on the taste buds of the child’s tongue. What sound formed when the tongue pressed to the roof of the mouth? It is a sound “n”. In some languages, this sound forms the word “nana” with the meaning “mother”. In the Ukrainian language there is a word "nenka".Nurses are traditionally called “nyanyas” (wet-nurses). The famous “nyam-nyam” (yum-yum) is just a fusion of two feeding sounds “n” and “m”. By the way, when it is especially delicious, children like to click their tongue and pronounce the famous children’s word “naka”, which means “nice” (here in English this word sounds a little different). Among the Greeks, this word has undergone multiple remelting and sounds more complicated – “nostimo” (vόστιμο), although it has similar protoroots and the same meaning of “nice”.
6. The sound of food “n” as a negative sound
However, the sound of eating “n” has another meaning – the meaning of negation. When a child or even an adult did not want to eat, he/she pressed tongue to the roof of the mouth, closing the passage for food, and shook his/her head to turn away from the nipple of breast or food brought to his/her mouth. Therefore, the “n” sound and the shaking of the head acquired the meaning of negation. In the modern Russian language, the sound “n” in combination with different vowels has generated a whole palette of meanings: “na” is an offer to accept (food), “no” (but) is objection or denial, “ne” (not) is evasion, “nu” (well) is coercion, etc. The sound “n” has the meaning of negation in many languages, including the Maya language deciphered by Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov.
7. The sounds of water: “s” and others
The currently accepted “voicing” of water by the famous “bul’-bul’” was not popular in ancient times. Our ancestors were closer to household sounds, the murmur of a brook, flowing rivers and even the sounds of defecation. The “whistling” sounds “s”, “ts”, “z” and the sound “zh” speak about water more often. Sometimes “hissing” sounds – “sh”, “ch”, “shch” – do the same.
8. The sounds of contact, knocking
and “poking”: “t” and “d”
Another palette of sounds is the sounds formed by contact with obstacles. The simplest and most common is the sound of “poking” or knocking. The “t” sound is clearly heard at the base of the knock, and with a harder contact, we hear the ringing “d"sound. The sound “t” acquired the meaning of an obstacle that could meet anywhere. It was possible to stumble over a stone, run into branches or tree trunks, or fall, hitting the ground.
In combination with various vowels, the sounds of “poking at obstacles”, like other protoroots, acquired different meanings. If the simplest sound of “poking” is heard with the simplest “t”, “tuk”, then with the vowel “o” it is an obstacle with some boundaries. In the modern language, protoroots “to” [tɔ] and “do” [dɔ] are attributed to the ancient prepositions, although this classification is rather conditional. If the voiceless “to” is the indication of a certain place where an obstacle is, then the voiced “do” is already a more serious obstacle, restriction, “Pillars of Hercules”, beyond which movement is impossible. The meaning of these prepositions has survived to the present day, although during the evolution it has expanded and received different shades, but the original meaning – “obstacle, restriction and poking” – has been preserved in it. Other vowels create different meanings, where the meaning of a certain place remains the main one. Many different derivative combinations have appeared from the original forms of these ancient prepositions. The language was filled with various “to” (that), “ta” (that), “te” (those), “tam” (there), “do” (before), “da” (before). The last “da” is especially interesting. The sound of poking and the obstacle “d”, touching the open vowel “a”, completely changes – like Cinderella after the wave of a magic wand. The vowel sound “a” indicates that the insurmountable obstacle, as it seemed at first, is no longer an obstacle, and dirty rags have been replaced with a ball gown.
“Da” is consent, the abolition of borders, the abolition of obstacles. You can not, but you can! This root was of great importance and was very common in the everyday life of our ancestors, having the meaning of “consent” in sexual relationships. “Da” is a permission for sexual contact. Already in those ancient times, the meaning of “consent” began to be associated with the possibility of coition, that is, access to a woman’s genitals, and later with the female genitals themselves. For the ancient man, “da” was more significant than for our contemporaries, also because not everyone managed to survive in those distant times, and procreation was the main goal, the main meaning of life. The meaning of “possibility”, “consent” and the name of the female genital organ formed many words that have survived to our time, but which modern ethics tries not to mention. If we resort to a metaphor, then “da” is the process of defloration, deprivation of virginity and the possibility of procreation.
The semantic paradigm of “procreation” is also reflected in female names: from Russian Lada to Nayada (Naiad), Esmeralda, Svanilda, Nemezida (Nemesis), Andromeda, Jagveda (Iohaveda) and hundreds of others. The root of “da” formed a witty word “erunda” (nonsense), and even the surname Hakamada, where “da” is a rice field flooded with water and designed to give birth to a new crop.
9. The sounds of drinking: “ms”
Another palette of protoroots formed the sounds of drinking. In ancient times, there were no glasses and mugs, so our ancestors either drank from the reservoirs, or get running water into the palm of their hand; they drew it in, as sometimes, children or tourists do. What kind of sound is produced by such