Etymology and the Problem of African History

By
Sampson Iroabuchi Onwuka

Etymology is study of the meaning of words and its origin. A study of words is sometimes based on the history of the spoken word in its comparative performance to other words in a different language. In terms of current history of the world, especially Europe, there is a great emphasis on the meaning of words in relation to a familiar language. Much has been done to compare one language to other, and the aspect of comparative linguistic that deals with human errors associated languages, human errors that deals with one’s attempt to correlate a meaning to a noted sign, can be referred to Iconicity and PSM. Iconicity arrives in languages when one group of speaker community discovers linguistic connection between their language and a different language, and now they attend to the comparative relationship in such a way as to compel a given language to emulate the structure and sound of another, in order to achieve a particular connection. There is no point attempting to dramatize the fact that in comparative linguistic so to speak, some of the attempts at such a purpose animate on a more secondary sound, to the degree that one language and another usually attempt to correlate a more popular language to the local language. In essence, when comparing one local language to another – usually a more popular one, the comparison is done with a preconceived notion of the sound, and the process unconscionably lead to emendation of words and sounds of words in one original language in terms of another. Such shift or “Sound camouflage” is PSM; Phono Semantic Matching, it is a special case in terms of very observable connection between languages. Although the comparative “camouflage” of sounds of words is not always the case in linguistic comparison, PSM easily appear at very defining moments of language comparison of the world. There are serious cases of what is especially right when we proceed through unknown territories of the languages and from there, we have a kind of subjective view of the whole, where the contractors of the idea and the detractors to the idea quarrel over what is right and wrong about specific carriers of sound.

Linguistics all over the world have always made it clear that comparing one language to another involves several degree of error, some of which are expected to result from the attempt to fit words into a particular context and so on. For instance, we can say about old Icelandic Saga, that we have the word, Rouda, which is taking today as red. It is now nearly impossible to see that the title Erik the Rouda may not exactly be Erik the Red, but may mean something else entirely. Since these words sound alike, the comparative linguistic may presume they are such and such connection at the absence of the given data. In the sense that loan words may actually be taken at a very critical level to be part of the more a secondary language, we are concerned that words that make a lot of difference in a more secondary languages may in the course of time, may influence the said language in such as we now assume the languages to be original to the primary language. In domestic Igbo for instance we have the word blu, which was clearly borrowed from English word, blue. This example is a typical PSM, largely on the account of what is misleading about the Igbo ‘blu’ and the English ‘blue’. Blue color in Igbo is actually iggui /igguli/igwwuli from a fruit (?) which is used in dyeing and one of the colors in Igbo for dye. Perhaps you think of iodine. The well known other is ure which is reddish in color, which can be used to paint the body. But blu is definitely not Igbo language.

For such possibility of loan words and its permanence in any language, etymology involves kind of blossoming which sometimes disappoint. In terms of linguistic comparison and in terms of general grammar, etymology had been reduced to a sub-category by Noam Chomsky, for reasons which include the influence of sounds in a dialect when one attempts to translate a particular piece of work from an original form to another. Yet it may not always be the case, since etymology can help us understand some English words in terms of Igbo language. For instance, the English word cunning is present continues for the word con. Con is the art of cheating, an art so to speak of cunning, but in Igbo, this is what we know as akor. Akor is Igbo for cunning, as if to say (a-kor-ning). The prose gyration is a broken arrow of Igbo in terms of English, by saying the word akor (Igbo) is con (English), we suggest that there is cunning as know it today. The rotation in grammar is understandable to the degree that the comparative glossary is not an accident, for we known in Igbo, that corn which is English, is nothing else than okar. In Greek, Latin, Spanish and so on, we may have seen the word diabolos before, a word that is not that different from Hebrew word, diabolo, not different from the English word, diabolic, - all of which means double dealing or double face which has now come to mean devilry of some sort – essentially evil or devil. In the Nigerian Igbo however, we have the word, ndi-agboro and ndi-agbolo, a word and a saying that CANNOT be any different from the set of examples above.

For one thing, there is the presence of the word ndi-agboro which can occur in very different sense of it in the sentence, for instance, ndi-agboro or ndi-agbolo, can also be noted as di-agboro or di-agbolo, which is easily diaboro/diabolo. The last example is essentially Hebrew without doubt, but more-to-so, the meaning of the word in Igbo is seriously closer to Greek and Hebrew than to what it is in English. Perhaps adding Greek and Latin examples will elucidate on the matter, for instance, Greek and Latin we say arche, arkur, for a point, which in English is acher, but in Igbo it is easier to see the connection of the above word to Greek, as if Greek and Latin is closer to Igbo than English. We see in Igbo a connection to archer in the word arkur, which is bow and arrow, a term that does not hide from the probability of connecting Greek other words such as artus, artu/m, which in English is art, in Igbo it is atu/artu. Impossible you said. But perhaps we can throw in some other words such ‘throw’ as in throw arrow in English, and this word stand up to date, for the translation which in Igbo is tuo aro.

Iconicity is the attempt of translating certain group of words in terms of more popular words, iconicity involves two good languages and structure of words, much of which has little or nothing to do with each until the argument is made for it. In drive by and in respect to Zuckerman, the Hebrew society comparing Hebrew to English, to Latin, Greek and even to Spanish, are easily guilty of Iconicity, if by that we mean that there is not much to be understood about Hebrew saving what was left to their descendants in terms of the written words and so on. If we bring the literature of that accompany such loftily in criticism, we may arrive at the like of Roland Barthes, whose introduction will be questionable by degree of his relationship to the Zuckerman, yet by that degree that the idea of priori of a sentence and a paragraph, would explain the mind construction of translators and commentators of two languages. More-to-so, Barthes, sponsor a form of mass appeal of an idea – the whole notion of mass philosophy and conception, where one thing is reduced to a parody of the other. It is therefore interesting to indicate that a sense of what a word should be like has already existed in 19th century comparative study, to the degree that we can inception on the though patterns of a speaker – hence his or her guiding motivations, such that an attempt to equate these words in the context of a paragraph become a different matter.

There is not much to say about the theme of etymology saving that the Greeks attempted to interpret the origin of words whose time and essence was far spent and beyond. As such the historical process of narrating the origin of a specific word or words in the context of educated speakers of today’s Europe, counters the very nature of words which is one that translates over a given period of time. If modernity of implied linguistic study is the greatest educated guess on a particular work, there is a whole lot to do about the subject adding that the relevance of the rate at which words and therefore language change over time is subject to mechanism within the given language and structure. In very early cases of word comparison and so forth, there were reasons to dwell on how these words are produced against the essence of the word in a given condition. In like manners, no particular form of word comparison and word meaning can account for the steady changes in every life, as such modern comparative linguistic often deride these comparative efforts as caricatures on words, not that these measures adopted by Greeks were of no consequence, these words adopted by Greeks made several changes that cannot be based on anything that useful other than Greek. The languages of the world in the time of Aristotle and Plato were relatively few and as such amounted to dialectal within the Greek society. Why the Greeks and the Latinate are oracles of European views of languages seems in many ways to surprise the rest of us, but we can hope that the notional view of an inclusive Greek language and functionary of its words, does not betray that the conditions of the society at the time of word comparison.

If not for the mastery of both languages, English and Igbo, some of these Igbo connection to Greek, to Latin, to Hebrew, and to English, might seem so easy - so very there, that it would the revealing fact would have been reduced to a classic case of PSM and so on. For sure the connection between Igbo (Africa) and English (European), magic an outcome in their comparison that forces a reaction from just about any group and many may believe or doubt the very language itself. Yet the magic in Igbo, in terms of the name Imaga, which is means wise one, male, also called Wizard, would tell their own story and their own argument in the world already taken by the schools of linguistic. An Oglee in Irish ‘eres’ is a wizard, great doctor, etc, but compare that word to the Igbo, ogwu, which mean medicine, and then you can abbreviate the connection between the two words from much older sources. The English will say wear, the Igbo uwe, English will say world, Igbo uwa, English will say group/grouping, Latin logou meaning units, and in Igbo we have ogugu. The English will say numbers, which in Igbo is onumeri, onu-ogugu, etc. The English will say land, and the Igbo, ala, for instance a la Turca, which is Arabic for ala Turkey in Igbo, which in English is land of Turkey or Turkish. There is ogele in Igbo there is the gong in English. English will say tube and in Igbo, we say otube or otubo, and in Igbo, otube or otubo means the connecting tube between child and the mother. There is the word law in English, in Igbo, we have the word iwuala. Aru is Igbo for English wrong, and to be more precisely, in the 17th and 18th, we find the word wrau in English language.

Then there are problems of history and genetic association in linguistic comparative which make the world already known, or renown. Leonard Bloomfield is his time made the argument that word comparison or etymology should be handled by experts on the languages, at least expert on either of the two languages involved. Edward Sapir also indicated the possibility of people seeking to fit one language into another in such a way as to make it seems that it may be the case, but it is the work of Gha’lid Zuckerman that made PSM very popular. Yet all these care that must be taken in comparative linguistic, may only be due to the fact that the history of the world is now well known and well established, such that alternate versions of world history seem impossible. In the same vein, alternate versions of linguistic comparative besides what is established today, may seem difficult largely because of the struggle in between the schools but above all, it might be accepted as a direct affront to the World of languages. This is the case better African language and presumed relationship with the wider world.

The usual suspect of a particular language trying to adapt itself to a major language such as English or French has always been an African language, for instance the Nigerian Igbo. Only few languages in the world border to connect itself to others let alone to a major language. Circumstances however exist for such thing to take place, and in such circumstance, an African language seems ahead on itself in given the signals that English and its local verity confounds to Africa. It is possible that African languages can make a connection to other languages based on sounds, but in terms of using such sounds to establish or re-establish a relationship between an African language such as Igbo and a more popular European language of the world such as English, the objection is quite common, and as such attention to PSM must be very evident. The problem of this objection so to speak, is that people do think that African languages such as Igbo could not possibly have any relationship with say Hebrew, a Semitic language, and say English language which is supposed to be that different from Igbo of Africa. In my view, there is more connection between Igbo and English, than between English and many European languages. There is more connection between Igbo and French, or Igbo and Spanish that only European languages of very recent memory can do more. What then can we say about the comparative relationship between Igbo and Greek, Igbo and Latin, Igbo and German, Igbo and Sanskrit, Igbo and Arabic, and Igbo her parent language, Hebrew? There are degrees of connection between these languages considered Indo-European and Igbo, such that people’s studies of Igbo language in comparative performance with the above, would only yield to the inevitability of Igbo as part of that linguistic family as much as it is considered not to be.

If for instance the much of Igbo language can help to demonstrate the relationship between German and Hebrew, perhaps indicating that Hebrew and their Jews may have some strange ancestral connection to Germans and their Nazi, perhaps, etymology would have done its full job, and most perhaps, millions of Jews wouldn’t have been killed by their Germany and Adolf Hitler. For instance, the people we might regard as Nazi, which literary means chief and the rulers. The opposite of which was the clumsy, the ignazi. But the word in terms of modern German is literarily unknown, largely because of the Runes that the Germans were able to crack in the 19th century. Nazi is part of the saying Kassa or the Kassaite meaning chief, but the word Nasi is rooted in Hebrew as rulers, and Ashkenazi is an accent of East European from Hebrew roots of Syrian Peshita Kenitsha or Kenisha, refers to the house of Israel, or rulers of the house of Israel. Even today, the people who are regarded as Nasi in Hebrew, at least in Hebrew, are the Princes and the Royalty. If the word Nazi, Nasi, Kassai, is brought into the context of world history and of the Nigerian Igbo, we notice a breakthrough. Nasi is Hebrew as much Naachi or Naashi is Igbo for rulers, a present continues and part of adjective, ndi naachi, meaning for instance, the rulers, the ruling party and so on, in Igbo. Kassai in English may refer to chiefs, like the Kaisers and so on of the Dutch. Kassai also appear in Medieval Hebrew, in their Great Trek from Spain into parts of East Europe in the 9th-11th century AD.

Kassai is not to be missed in Nigerian Igbo as Akaeze, literarily right of the kings and royalty. Between these words, Kasai/Akaeze, Nazi/Nasi/Naachi/ and Kenisha/akeaze are pivotal departures in the relationship between Igbo and Hebrew. The fact of Igbo being close in comparative performance to Hebrew, and claiming Igbo in terms of say Egyptian Merinid, does not mean that we, or I for one, support the general thesis of Professor Catherine Acholonu on the origin of Igbo and Africa. But no doubt exist that Egyptian history of the Merinid provides us with serious views of the very infected diatribe, especially the Hebrews. We are not giving credence or relative pronoun to the work of Professor Uche Ikpeanyibe on the etymology of the Hebrew Igbo. None of these two authors, adding others, indicated equivocally that Igbo is Hebrew language, a claim that is the author’s to prove. But Igbo is starring up again and in this case, we compare Igbo to some other European language. We shall say that besides Igbo, there are African languages that can help our understanding of actual world history, and it will be based on the connection between the languages which has been misdiagnosed for over 200 years. Etymology forces to draw aside, the very elevated view of Hebrew as more-to-so similar to Igbo, to the more disputable degree that Igbo is one the least understudy of the languages of the world, especially Nigeria, and one of the languages that can help provide the necessary revisions of world history. In a sense, current linguistic tree of the world is clearly wrong and some of the faux with European languages and its family are clearly misleading.

That is not a defense against any attack that Nigerians and their Igbos for instance, are merely trying to establish a relationship between their language and Europe, in order to inculcate that claim that the Igbo society is part of the larger world history. So the issue of Iconicity becomes part of the discourses about the linguistic structure of African language, in context of world history is treated as particular tree with possibility of connection and then isoglosses of the neighboring tribes. The two-part of the whole school of comparative linguistic, the school of Autonomy of language and the school Homogeneity of language may have been the magic behind Joseph Greenberg’s work on African languages. First he went out of his way to gather materials from a mass of speaker community (autonomous) in Africa – Nigeria to mention where spent many years, and then he compared the languages by structure and by sounds, in an attempt to find uniform relationship (homogeneity) and then he draws his conclusion based on the available information. The second attempt can only be possible because of the first effort, and if the first effort is in default from the beginning, the second can only be that right.

What I can say is that Joseph Greenberg may have worked from the European assumption that all African speaker communities were autonomous communities, and they did not change that much in terms of their speaking habits. The change to their primitive ways of life was very sparingly from the days of their first arrival to a particular geographical point in the continent, to the very Age of European discovery. Given their redoubtable intelligence capacity, they may have only talked to each other and in the process injected something of their languages to others or borrowed from them as well. Hence, the isoglosses of some African languages or language tree cannot in the life of modern European linguistic comparison be expected to contrast with other languages of the far away world. But such Reductionist view impales the Methodologist, largely on account of what history forces us to bear about Africa and about the world. If Reduction Theory (Sapir, Trobezsky, Greenberg, Vermeer, Meillet, de Saussure, Grimm, Barthes ) of linguistic study is that appreciably fair about studying unknown languages of the world, so to speak Africans, then it would follow that Methodology (Bloomfield, Greenberg, Strauss, Chomsky, Halle) would then be the only way to study established speaker communities of the world. The gentle reader will notice that I inserted Greenberg in either of the schools and placed two critical and diacritical speech pathologists, Barthes and Strauss, in either of two schools. The reasons are quite few, but on how these two widened our view of Aspect theory and psychology of sentence construction, can only be understood by way of Chomsky and his transitivity.

In Chomsky however, much of the Method School of comparison stand and fall, largely on the count of the impact of his work on syntax which is accepted in much of the known languages of the world. If however take Chomsky’s view as the summary of the Method Men in linguistic comparative, then there is no doubt that these men are part of the homogeneity school of languages, and homogeneity can only apply to established speaker communities such as Europe. In short view, there is no way we can indicate that reductionist view of the likes of Joseph Greenberg and his company offered studies in African languages more challenges in terms of defenses in the world, rather, the possibility that Methodology can also apply in understanding the differences between African languages and the world calls for a complete mastery of world history and African history. What seem to be the right way to study languages of the world or compare languages of the world? The answer is that difficult but it seems in my view to be the Reductionist for a start, then higher reductionist can add to it, and then the corresponding Methodologist. I have mentioned for instance that some examples of the Indian Sanskrit are also found in Igbo, but if we however say that Sanskrit, which is really ‘sound script’ or holy script, or sanctifying recitation, or sacerdotal degrees, of the Vedic, may just be a branch of an older language that embraced much of the Semitic and indeed Africa, there is not a whole to prove about that statement saving for the fact that there are words in Sanskrit which are also the same in Igbo, i.e., loke/Sanskrit, Nwoke, okee/Igbo, bloke/English, all three meaning the man/the male, may indicated a form of affinity. But above all, we can suggest that the very word Vedic is the same word as Veda, which many first class historians and linguistic had demonstrated as part of the word Edda in Europe, by as much history and as the sound would imply.

It is only etymology in context of departures in any language, and its word origin, can the above example and examples work in linguistic comparative and could have been possible, and from such possibility, more fundamental examples are investigated. In spite of it all, connection between Igbo and Greek and perhaps English, would have been overlooked, as other languages that are probable related to European languages of the world are overlooked, were if not for chance encounter between Igbo and Hebrew words, and for the serious education in ancient history of the world by first class scholars. In essence, a Greek and Igbo language comparative would not have been possible given the presumed cultural differences between them, a difference which is not that severe given the more demanding degree of separation between Igbo and English and so on. For this similarity in word form, we say that word function is the very elevated sense of word mean, we can also say, that sound is the second meaning.

Therefore, the second meaning is the trial of the processes involved in linguistic comparison. For instance, we may use the word date in English, which is an example we are likely to encounter in the cause of the discourses, and it refers to the stated period of time and date in domestic affairs. In Greek and in Latin, we find words like datum referring to a set of data. But data is English, closure to the very same words as datum, but we notice that the process we are considering is very close to the subject, such the words data and datum have degree of separation which we calculate by the significant departures in the letters of the words. Such degree of separation allows us to calculate the significance of the given word so to speak in either of these languages. In Igbo, we cannot exactly find the English word date in spite of a careful syntactic correlation to similar words. We correspond to the word date in Igbo in terms of something much less, in terms of words such as idetu or idatu in Igbo for writing down. So from Latin, Greek, English, and now Igbo, these words are relatively corresponding, and make a whole sense in terms of the structure of the language available.

The Greek will say ideaia, (ideia), or p-ideaia, which means ‘to write’, and in English we have this same idea to be very evident in terms of the word idea. The relationship is not that significant between Greek and English in terms of the very use of the word, rather we can say that ideo which is Latin for writing, as an ideography, a dwarf for the word calligraphy. Yet these words, ideos/Latin, ideography/Latin for writing in draw form, idea/English for a thin-through is further from word, ideaia, ideia/Greek meaning ‘to write’ are much the same thing. If we add Igbo language to the meaning of the ideos or idea, or as with ideaia, meaning ‘to write’ we would discover the saying ‘ide ya’ literary meaning in Igbo ‘to write it’ and ide ihie in Igbo would mean to write something. It does appear in this context that Igbo, Latin, and Greek are seriously close in terms of the word for writing, more like the saying in English edit, or editing, which invoke a process of the writing, which is not idea and therefore would not replace the statement in the above examples. If there is shift in terms of sounds of words in a language, there is also shift in terms of meaning given the evolution of the said words. By that we mean to suggest that English is merely a shift from its older version and older review and so on, a process which may have led to idea serving the place of thought, an advanced form of what was written, whose more original version such as Latin and Greek, contain the very word ide to mean write. Then ideaia for Greek is even further from the comparative. Yet an African language by way of the Nigerian Igbo, contain word for word, meaning for meaning, the word ide for write and ideyaa to write, all of which are Greek to us.

In this given example, we are led to see why we cannot under any circumstances achieve the very corresponding of words in comparative significance on account of the syntax and word structure alone. For as much these structures could help to form a very empirical view of the whole, these structures cannot help our knowledge of the languages of the world. In fact, the only time that syntax in terms of Chomsky can be on great benefit is only when autonomy of language is achieved or intended. For instance, a speaker community would not be expected to relent in terms of the structure if we can gauge within the community a pattern of deliberate or natural departures of that language within the speaking community. The language in question will carry a system where such things exist in isolation, developed in isolation, unaffected by foreign influence. A close review of such place and autonomous language community would be one that died a natural death, one whose structure will never change, and one whose sounds are only expected to vary.

Sanskrit will say paku and the Igbo will say aku, meaning the same thing. The Sanskrit will also uba for chief, the Jews will say uba for wealthy chief. In Igbo, uba means wealth, but the Nigerian Bini and Nigerian Yoruba has oba as chief. These words appear in Igbo as Obasi, meaning most high. The relationship between uba in Sanskrit and oba in the Nigerian Igbo languages such as Bini and Yoruba is that is found in Africa and the other Asia.

The Sanskrit is a hymn for the Veda in India, which in my view is no different from the Jewish Psalms or ‘hymns for the community’ called Leda’wid - not necessarily David. That is my way of saying that Psalms of David in the way we understand it in the Bible may just be a bad interpretation of what should be songs of Edda, where the word Edda is much the same in meaning as Jewish community. Hence the Hebrew word Ledawid is just the same as saying ‘Hymns for Jewish Community’ as opposed to the Psalms of David. Even at that, the comparison does not impress, since there are no direct connection between Igbo word Edda and the more direct word Edda for Hebrew. Ami-ida is Jewish Hymns, which is not different from Ledawid. Yet there are other Eddas in world, such as German Edda, Icelandic Edda, British Edda, French Edda, Russian Edda, and assorted Arabic Eddas one of which is called the Al’qa’eda. All these Eddas have the same persuasion towards ancient Chronicles, some of which we find in German Edda such as the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda which for a long time was the madness of Nazi.