The Wild Motherword
For me, every word is a speaking living creature, telling their story, as soon as I get to know them.
〰 Gottlob A. Krause 〰
The Backstory of Knowledgetrees
Among all sacred trees of the world, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil has a unique reputation. She turned out to be perhaps the most prolific cultivar. Despite the fact that she produces the forbidden fruit, she’s managed to sow her seeds far and wide 〰 or did the taboo-factor give a boost to scattering those banned pips?
When the suckers of the Tree of Knowledge reached the Northwest of the Old World 〰 along with the shoots of her companion plant, the Tree of Life 〰 they usurped Yggdrasil and Irminsul and many other indigenous Mothertrees, held in high regard by the native Pagans.
The two specimen from the Garden of Eden invaded the ancient soils north of the Mediterranean, displacing the Cosmic Tree of the Norse, the Life Tree of the Saxons, the Guardian Trees of the Celts and many others.
(The Wisdom Trees of the World are a fascinating topic, maybe for another blog post. Find a list on our Papyri page. And if you know of a Wisdom Tree which is not on that scroll, please let us know in the comments)
Today I’ve been thinking about the flora of the understory 〰 the small shoots of knowledge who cover the ground at the feet of those majestic Mothertrees.
Given the fame and celebrity status all Trees of Life, ~ Knowledge, and ~ Wisdom have enjoyed for millennia, it is surprising that the minor relations of this gnostic plant family have been flying under the radar for so long.
What I’m talking about is words. The words we use every day 〰 humble cognitive elements of our spoken and written language, phonomorphic carriers of our knowledge, our experience, and understanding of life.
The Understory of Sacred Trees
In the goneby era of Yggdrasil and Irminsul, words were sacred beings too. The German linguist Gottlob A. Krause described them as ‘living creatures’. Some colleagues have suggested to introduce a fourth kingdom 〰 animal~, plant~, mineral~, and language kingdom.
A great idea in principle, however, as we are transitioning from the Anthropocene into the Symbiocene, it would be more appropriate to call all of them kinships. Or kindoms 〰 animal~, plant~, mineral~, and language kindom.
Words are living beings. Many are ancient, or have a long and impressive ancestral lineage. Every word has a story. Most have lived in many different parts of the world, adapted to different cultures, developed different voices and looks.
Words are born to travel. First from one person to another, and from there all over the world. Words are nomads 〰 cosmopolitans 〰 polyglots. They travel with us because they are our symbionts! We couldn’t live without them, and without us they wouldn’t exist.
The word I’ve been thinking about today is a very special one. We could call her the Queen of Wordlings in the English Wildwordwoods. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Reminiscent of the old folk and fairytales.
However, I’m not sure she’d like to be associated with them anymore. At least not for this journey into the Symbiocene. The woods of wild words have always been governed by the principles of symbiogenesis, syntropy and biodiversity. They don’t have a hierarchical structure, and the title ‘Queen’ might sound offensive to the ears of the wild wordlandfolk.
[The word queen comes from the older version quean (= woman, hussy, prostitute), an offspring of the Old English cwene (= woman etc.), descendant of the Germanic kween (= barren cow). Therefore the Q-word feels like an inappropriate, if not insulting, title.]
For this reason let’s call her Wild Motherword. This name suits her a lot better.
To define her as the ‘mother of all words’ might not be accurate historically, in the sense of being the first phonomorph ever uttered by a human. (Although many parents claim that ‘Mama’ — or equivalent — was the first word spoken by their child).
But the historic records of the Anthropocene no longer need to bother us. They are full of mothholes anyway. The title Motherword is not a definition, it’s a description of the principle of motherhood.
The mundane name of Wild Motherword is simply ‘word’ 〰 w • o • r • d 〰
Like most mothers, she is a symbiont rarely given a second thought. Used all the time. Often talked about behind her back. Her presence always taken for granted. Quietly in the background. Supportive of all the other verbionts 〰 who can be considered her offspring.
A surprising range of words are her direct descendants 〰 in the etymological sense (even if we can’t find them in the etymological dictionaries). But etymology aside — all wordly creatures are ultimately her kin and children in spirit.
𒇯𒁺
Word-Cousins and Other Relations
The English /word/, German /Wort/, Dutch /woord/, Old Norse /orð/, Gothic /waurd/ are first cousins. They all share a so-called Proto-Germanic ancestor called /wurda/.
The lineage of /wurda/ can be traced back to the so-called Proto-Indo-Germanic root /were/ (= to speak, say).
The PIE root /were/ can be linked to the Latin /verbum/ (= word) Sanskrit /vrata/ (= command, vow), and Hittite /weriga/ (= to call, summon).
All of this information you can find in the etymological dictionaries. Hittite is an ancient language, originally from Anatolia (Turkey), now recognised as “the first Indo-Germanic language.”
While all of this is very interesting, there is a missing piece in the puzzle. It’s hard to find references in etymological dictionaries to the reflection of the English /word/ in the Arabic verb /w-r-d — وَردَ/ (= to be mentioned, appear, emerge).
/w-r-d/ is a classic Arabic root. As in all written Arabic words, only the consonants are represented by alphabetical letters. Vowels can be added as little dashes above or below the consonants.
/w-r-d/ originates from the Akkadian verb /waradum — 𒇯𒁺 / (= to descend). Akkadian is the oldest known semitic language. It was spoken in Mesopotamia (the old Babylonia, also called Akkad — today mainly in the territories of Iraq and Syria)
The Akkadians developed their own cuneiform script, which is considered even older than the Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The ‘Indo-germanic’ Hittites from Anatolia ‘borrowed’ their cuneiform writing from the Akkadians.
Now let’s take a look at the morphemes related to the English /word/ — and their meanings. Included in this list are only morphemes with the exact same consonants as in the original Akkadian 𒇯 𒁺 — w r d
(This list is incomplete! If you know of any other words in other languages with the radicals w-r-d, we’d love to add them to the list. Please send us your words, and don’t forget to mention their meanings too!)
word (English noun) — a meaningful element of speech or writing
ward (English noun) — division in a hospital, prison or city; a person under guardianship; walled area in a castle or fortress
ward (English verb) — guard, protect
-ward, -wards (English suffix) — word element referring to the turning towards a specific place or direction
weird (English noun) — a person’s destiny
weird (English adjective) — supernatural, strange, unusual; connected to fate; original meaning having the power to control destiny
wyrd (old English, from Germanic) — fate, chance, fortune; destiny; the Fates, equivalent to the literally “that which comes”
werde, ward, wird, wurde (German) — different forms of the verb ‘werden’ = to become
warada (Arabic verb, written وَرَدَ = w-r-d + vowels written as dashes above the consonants) — come, arrive, appear, emerge, exist, be mentioned (in a book); reach, travel to, end up at, get to; introduce, induce, achieve, attain; receive (money).
wird (Arabic noun, identical writing to the verb) — watering hole, drinking trough; also specific time of day dedicated to private meditation
waradu (Akkadian verb 𒇯𒁺 = w-r-d) — to come, descend, go down; hang down, droop; decrease, drop
warad, wardu (Akkadian noun, identical writing to the verb) — male slave, servant, soldier, follower, subject (of a king), worshipper (of a deity)
Once waradu took off in the Semitic languages and made its way into the Indo-Germanic language territories, the morpheme began to morph, as you can imagine. Having already attracted the whole range of vowels, the radicals w-r-d themselves began to change too.
New words were born all over the place. Although they began to look a little different from the Motherword, they still carried her spirit.
More about them in the next blog post. Till then, enjoy the ride with w-r-d. It will become even wilder.
𒇯𒁺
first published on https://www.symbiopaedia.com/wordcast/1433279_the-wild-motherword
