Brunnen

Au + ring + O- by international ancestors

I didn't plan to write this much about Finnish but this linguistic finding is too fascinating to be left outside topics in this blog.

Aurinko stands in Finnish for the Sun (and other suns, but the primary meaning of course was the Sun - since that was the only one our finno-ugric ancestors were aware of).
Kuu, by the way, stands for the Moon, and is in fact one of the only very short words in the Finnish language.

Unlike maailma, the Finnish word for the world, Aurinko does not mean anything else than just sun. I mean, it does not consist of roots that would be obvious to point out. Maailma, in contrast, consists of maa = land and ilma = air, thus maa + ilma = maailma; land + air = the world (I wonder where finno-ancestors forgot the water!)

Aurinko does not open its secrets in Finnish - it is an international, civilized fossile with roots all the way in Latin, Mesopotamia and in the hypothetical language tree of Proto-Germanic vocabulary.

[Au] stands in chemical terminology for gold [lat. aurum = shining dawn].

rinko could be split apart to form ring and O (k generally changes to g in finnish genetive, eg. auringon = of the Sun/the sun's)

Ring in turn stands for round objectives, often golden ones (ring as a jewel). Its etymology lies possibly in Proto-Germanic word khrengaz --> Old Norse hringr --> German Ring etc.

O, in turn, is not only a letter but also a symbol: round, circle, and orbital. "O" also stands for many articles in various language, e.g. Portuguese o for the masculine definite article (equivalent of Spanish el), for exclamation "oh" as means of expressing surprise, admiration and fear.

These three meanings summed up together result in Aurinko - a golden, eternally shining round object in the sky that travels along a huge ring-formed orbital in our galaxy.

Alas! - maybe our ancestors were not just hunting bears and trading furs in the Ice Age. Perhaps they watched the sky now and then, enjoyed the dawns and sunsets and were as aware of gold and alchemie as their fellows, the pyramid-architects in the South.

posted by Anicko @ 12:45 PM