The homo erectus population knew that certain stones were more suitable for chipping which were not available everywhere. They had to carry their stone tools in hand most of the time, all their lives, for many generations until bags and pockets were invented.
Beside certain animal bones, the stone tools were their most valuable possessions which in time became venerated, and later worshipped (Recall the erected stones in pre historical Europe). Some people still carve their gods in stone.
Therefore, it is not surprising that our words for sacred and sanctity come from the words for stone in the languages of two ancient peoples: Iran (Aryan) and Arab (Semitic).
The Arabic word for stone is sakra from which we get our word sacra and sacred. Sakra is a composite word, being sac-ra meaning stone-god. Sac was the common name for stone during the last ice-age. Ra or re was the sungod among the ice-age proto-Aryans of the western Asia as was later seen in Mithra (Mittani god).
The Sumerian name for god was illu which was adopted by the Semites and the other Mediterraneans as il, el, al, la, etc. After the ice-age, the sungod Ra was taken to Egypt by the round-headed people where it became the Egyptian sungod.
After the last ice-age, the word sac turned into sang in western Asia where sang (stone) was used as the altar to sacrifice (sac-ra-fice) persons and later the animals. Thus, the word sang gave rise to the Latin word sanctus (to render sacred). Sang was also the altar upon which the blood of the victim was drawn. Thus, the origin of the Latin word sanguis (blood) and the Spanish word sangria (bloody).
B. The Origin of the Word Mother.
The idea of the mother goddess was invented in early ice-age, some 25,000-30,000 years ago. She and her life-giving breasts were called omma from which we have the words akin to maternal, matter, and mother.
By the late ice-age the Semites had shortened omma to om. The Dravidians of India are Semites who migrated to India after the ice-age. They still call mother goddess "Omm". Om is also the present day Arabic word for female and mother.
Omma became ma among the Iranians, meaning the female breast. From ma we have the Iranian maman (mother) and Latin mamma (breast breast, mother).
Also, we have the Iranian ma-dar (earlier ma-tar) meaning breast-haver which became mater in Latin, modor in Old English, madre in modern Italian, and mother in modern English. Demeter meant godmother or goddess earth since earth (matter) and mother (mater) were the same.
C. The Origin of the Word Father.
The ancient Iranians in central Asia invented pants some time after the ice-age. Before that, all Aryan women wore long skirts, and all Aryan men wore short skirts as did the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the later Scots.
Consider these: pa is an Iranian word meaning foot or leg. It became paw (carnivore's foot) in English. Leng is another Iranian word that became leg in English. Pa is a more ancient word than leng. At least, it goes back to the hunter-gatherer society of the ice-age.
Coming back from the hunting trip, the most visible part of the father would have been his naked legs pacing ahead, something that the mother could point out to her child, and say pa pa (leg leg) which has remained the child's lingo for the father.
Then came the Iranian word pa-dar (earlier patar) meaning leg-haver which changed to pedar in the modern Iranian language.
The aborigines of England and Germany were akin to the proto-Semites of the western Mediterranean shores. Like the historical Arabs, they lacked the letter `p`, and like them they substituted the letter `p` with the letter `f`.
These aborigines were dominated by several waves of Aryans who had migrated from western Asia to Europe. They imposed their different dialects upon the local Europeans who lived in small villages or roamed in the forests. Thus, pedar (patar) became fater in ancient German, faeder in Old English, and father in modern English. By the way, the aboriginal Germans and English were not Aryans.
Mithraism was a pagan Iranian religion more ancient than Zoroastrian religion. The Mithraics called their religious leaders papa. Later on, the Roman armies adopted Mithraism, and under their influence, the Bishop of Rome came to be called `papa` which became pope in modern English.
DATED: 9 October 2000
NOTE: The article above is from "Thus Speaks Zarathustra", a 4-volume book (presently not available) by Behrooz Bassim, MD. This book is a 21st century sequel to Nietzsche's 19th century masterpiece. Other pages from it on the internet are:
Abortion
Artificial
Color & Flavor
Capitalism
Civility
Darwin
Was Right So Was LaMarck
Democracy
or Isocracy
Etymology
of sacred, etc
God,
Who?
Guns
in USA
Homosexuality
Honesty
Me
Intelligence
Monetary,
A Unique Unit, A unique
Particle
Physics, Grand Spectrum
Plight
of the Mice
Politician,
The American
Race
& Class
Sermon
Sham
Justice
Soul
Is Mind
Unidirectional
Competition
Universal
Army
Universal
Language
Zarathustra
CONTACT: bassim@usadatanet.net