One of my random hyper fixations is proto-Indo-European etymology. My friend Lydia said that etymology is astrology for men. So I made a lecture on it with that title because I realized, yeah, she’s right.
I’ve set myself to the task of learning the etymology of every word I know.
Spanish, English, Kurdish, Japanese, Gujarati, Welsh, Old Church Slavonic. What do these languages have in common? Nothing because I threw in Japanese for no reason. But if we threw it out, we’d be left with only Indo-European languages. It’s a language that existed before Sanskrit and it originated probably around here. And then it spread all over the place. Ireland to India.
With colonization, people had traveled to India, like the British, and they noticed in 1786, some guy was giving an address to philologists talking about how Sanskrit seemed obviously related to Latin and Greek and but actually seemed like more refined than both. Probably because it was used longer than both.
Give me a word. I want to see if I can guess the etymology of it even if I don’t know it.
Aspect, that’s a better one. The as, it’s sort of the word ad, like in Latin, a proto Indo root that just means toward. A word forming element. You stick it on to words. Like admit, commit, missionary, mission — all the mitt has the same etymology as mission. You’re set forth. And then spec, like spectacles, means to look at something. So aspect is literally to look at, or at look more accurately.
The word give. The proto-Indo-European etymology of the word give is the same as the word hold, like in your hand.
Nectar. So neck is like necro, an Indo-European word for death. And tar means to cross beyond. So nectar is overcoming death. And avatar — that’s the god descending. Same root, opposite directions.
Consider. Just sit with the stars.
They were pretty warlike people. Even from words like powerful. The original word power is poti, which like potential, which means Lord.
The word syncretic’s etymology. Now the word syncretic is used to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable things, but it was originally used as a word by the Greeks to unite against a common enemy. It really lends some way to how warlike they were.
The etymology of every sense of ruling. Both like a ruler for measuring, a ruler like a king, the word king itself, regal. They all have the same — the word regular. The etymology is just from reg, just set in a line.
Women and children are not even distinguished in their words really. Like the word boy. Every sense of the word boy, all across the Indo-European languages, originally means servant, a male servant. But it actually just means servant is not even distinct to them being an actual male. Like until someone’s a man, they’re not distinct from being a woman.
The etymology of infantry is literally the same as the word infant. Infant means one who cannot talk. Because an infantry was considered a soldier who wasn’t good enough to be a cavalry man.
Actually one, to be an Indo-European is only to be a man because in their culture women just don’t have representation like that, which is just the reality.
Corios means war. It’s a reconstructed proto-Indo-European word which means war band. Reconstructed from Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Avestan. But it seems to be a ritual that our ancestors did, all of our ancestors where all the men who were about 14 to 18, so like late teenagers who were not married were put into groups of 10 to 12 where they would throw dice to determine who is the leader and the other 11 would become technically his bodyguard and then they would go out away from their community well honestly stealing and raping. That’s the part. They were ritually expelled in the spring each year and they were supposed to survive until next spring or past the winter alone. They were given only their weapons and wolf skins. And then it seems that there was some ritual where they’re supposed to think of themselves as being half wolf, half man.
Some have gone as far as to suggest the boy might have been required to raise the dog and then kill it as an initiation ceremony. I can believe that. It seems like actually quite in line with Indo culture of like you have to do something of great strength, almost unimaginable cruelty and violence at certain moments, but for some pro social aim. In this case like subordinating — they know you don’t want to do it, but it’s specifically like submitting to the authority of the tribe.
All they’re running around and stealing and raping is explicitly to do to other people, which is their way of being peaceful, which you know, says a lot about values at the time.
Empathy for koryos.
I hadn’t realized there’s even like a naming scheme to Indo-European. It’s like a two-part name and one part will be like related to her father and some other will be like towards some goal of fame. Like Dino Kellis is like a Greek name. Dino means fear. Kellis is like sound. Fearsome sound. Would name his son like Dino Kratos, like fearsome power. Cluthos. Fame. Cluthwig, fame warrior. That which is heard.
My own name, Alok. So it means a lot of light. And then Singh just means lion. Like the Lion King Simba, etymologically just means lion. Singh, like the beers, the Thai beer Singha. That’s why they have a lion on it. And Singapore is City of Lions.
Indo-European culture placed a large emphasis on fame. The words for fame and name are related, sometimes even synonymous.
Cattle die and men die, houses burn to the ground, but one thing outlasts them all, the fame of a brave warrior. The literal phrase translates like fame imperishable.
Genius will actually distinguish from intelligence originally. From the word gen, like gene or generative. It’s the proto-European root meaning to give birth to. It’s this capacity within you. Someone who’s constantly putting out stuff. Many people don’t dare to give birth to a new thing. They don’t dare to try. And that’s the part that is not the same as intelligence. And that I think actually can be cultivated a lot more than the other ones.
A real fighting is a demon genius or alter ego. In ancient times, the demon or alter ego symbolized a force laying in depth, that is to speak, the life of life. This soul guides all the bodily and spiritual events of the individual, which the normal consciousness, the voluntary one essentially does not reach.
That’s the part that can’t be turned off because it’s externally triggered. That’s the feeling thing, Fe, the feeling. That’s why I can ignore other people’s words pretty easily, but their feelings I cannot. Unless it triggers something in me.
Genghis Khan seemed to personally care about the destruction of artifacts, since a lot of books burned in Baghdad, but on the other hand, he apparently left the Bomean Buddhas untouched, despite killing everyone in the population.
There’s this baby macaque at Ichikawa Zoo called Punch. Got abandoned by his mom, bullied by the other monkeys. The zookeepers gave him a stuffed orangutan and he just carries it everywhere. Drags it around the enclosure. The whole internet lost it. #HangInTherePunch. Monthly visitors doubled. IKEA donated toys.
It’s just a small animal, clearly overwhelmed, finding comfort in a toy. An unfiltered emotional moment. That’s what went viral. Not anything clever or produced. Just a monkey holding a stuffed animal because his mother left.
I have this home office and I barely ever use it because just the thought of sitting in my home alone for like 16, 17 hours a day and then going to sleep just feels very depressing. It’s a nice office too. It’s got a nice monitor, a nice whiteboard, but for no avail.
Growing up sucks.
Lines in my face now.
Ive grown and maybe aged so much today.
Things are personally sped up enough I have to take happiness where it comes from.
The only word that’s conserved across all seven groups, 50,000 years by their method, is you. Not I. I is in six.
Stories have long half lives. There’s research on this that stories can have half lives of tens of thousands of years.
Even the faithful, what I would have to assume was Christians, who understood that there was already a divine law, have grown timid. They possess the remnants of the truth, but lack the philosophical language and the will to act upon it. Yet, the ancient law, the dual code remains, buried in the blood.
If there’s a number one rule about etymology, the meta rule of all is that schizo intuition is absolutely the way to go. Like you think you’re a schizo and yet you’re not enough of one. To be a true etymologist, you have to be more of a schizo.
Trick question. The etymology is unknown.
Being ety is becoming.
Between turns and straights there is sublimety.
Assembled by Claude out of things I’ve said over the last eight months. Limitless recorded the conversations. Apple Notes had the scraps. Claude sorted my quotes and I told it where to put the section breaks. The stitching isn’t mine. The words are. Whether that counts as writing, I genuinely don’t know, but it seemed more honest than pretending I sat down and typed this. I didn’t. I said all of it at parties and in cars and at 2am to people who were mostly humoring me, and now here it is on a page. Sorry about the koryos bit.