All My Little Words or a Reflective Vocabulary

"Not for all the tea in China,

Not if I can sing like a bird

Not for all North Carolina

Not for all my little words"

- Magnetic Fields

It is English, not Esperanto that is gaining ground as the next Latin. Or is this a mild understatement? Should I perhaps suggest that English is stronger than Latin, the former having gone further than the latter language with the advent of technology and world travel? 

And yet English, how similar to Latin, both having gleaned from other languages. For instance, without Greek, Latin wouldn't have had the strengths nor the extensive vocabulary. English without the French influence would be far more similar to modern day Frisian.

And travel. Without the Roman Empire, without the conquest of the various caesars and their Roman legions, so too Latin wouldn't have reached both the shores of the Atlantic and the Black and Red Seas, nor the northern climes of Great Britain and the desolate deserts of Africa.

The same too with English. Without the combined economic business muscle of the United States, Britain and the (former) Common Wealth countries, it wouldn't have the universal appeal it has garnered today. Even with China and India leading the world in terms of population and, may I dare say, innovation in some fields, schools throughout Asia are desperate for English teachers. 

I meet many people who say they love English and I have learned to love it as well. It is like your hometown, you have to travel away from it to appreciate it. You begin to see the sights that travelers see and with new eyes, recognize how special they are.

So, too, with words. After traveling to Europe in 2012, I came home to truly think about words. Before the trip, I didn't regard my mother tongue as especially beautiful. I always through French, Spanish and Italians as the romantic contenders for the loveliest of languages. But while away, I had spoken in other languages, a bit of Dutch and a great deal of German. I had also studied Russian before my trip. I began to take note of words, their musical sound, their meanings, associations and even revelations and started to collect them as a means of further appreciation, reflection and wonder.  

In English, for instance, I have always loved 'diaphanous'. I picked this one up in high school. I had a wonderful Grade 12 and OAC teacher of English and every morning she put a poem or a stanza or often a simple quote on the blackboard. Along with my mother, a fellow writer and editor, Mrs.F. too helped forge a passion for language and rhetoric. It is through her I became acquainted with the word for 'delicately hazy' and 'nearly translucent'.

Then there is 'gleaming' and 'twilight' ('gloaming', as well, another word for 'dusk'), 'azure' (the latter having roots in Middle French) and 'ineluctable' which is a poetic way of saying 'unavoidable' or 'inescapable.' The word has always struck me as sad and when I looked furthered into its Latin roots, ēluctā (rī) means to 'surmount, to force a way out or over'. I now imagine the 'in'-prefix as a chain having broken the spirit of the word, that it is no longer free. 

Then there is 'elude' and 'elusive', obviously related. As with 'diaphanous', I feel the two words have a 'surreptitious' quality, that they escape from our lips like near silent-thieves.  

From 'elude', I make the jump into French, loving the word 'étude' and 'nocturne'. The former is a gentler word than our English 'study'. It brings up pleasant memories of classical guitar lessons, works by Fernando Sor and J.S. Bach and of course, first hearing Frederich Chopin. The same, too, with 'Nocturne'. We have 'nocturnal' but normally you don't think of musical pieces and paintings (ie. Whistler's works), only owls and wolves hunting at night.  

I also like the French word 'flâneur' made popular by the 19th century poet, Charles Baudelaire. The term is often blankly associated with our English 'stroller'. Then and, as of late, it has accumulated other connotations such as 'lounger' and 'loafer' and even 'dandy' to some extent. But I like the more philosophical aspects to the word. While taking art history courses in university, our professor described his own youthful wanderings in Paris, reading the French poets of the mid and late-19th century, breathing in the cultural atmosphere of the Left Bank and Montmartre. He himself had been a 'flâneur', both a part and apart from the crowds surrounding him. The word, for me, suggests detachment. One can belong to the moment and yet regard it as passing and inconsequential. As Rilke wrote, 'be ahead all parting'. The 'flâneur' embodies such a notion. 

Other French words and borrowings include silhouette, Arabesque, chanteuse, danseur and rêve, the latter adding a tender if not restless dimension to 'dream'. The hard 'r' in 'rêver' reminds me that even when we are asleep, we are still awake in ourselves. I often think of the word 'revive' and how when we dream, we are re-introduced, or born again into our unconscious self.

In German, I like 'traurig' (sad) just as much as 'tristesse'. The 'tr' sound either followed by 'ow' and 'gk' in German or the second 't' and long 'ess' in French add more substance to an emotion that is more than just 'sad'.

I also like 'Sehnsuch' ('yearning' and yes, also 'aspiration' and 'desire') and 'versuch' (try, attempt) which both suggest immanent 'search' and 'trial'. The poems of Rilke offer up to the reader the emotional underpinnings of 'sechnsucht'. It is a word that transcends mere 'longing' and implies the spiritual. 

Then there is the German word 'Nebel' (fog) which is reminiscent of 'nebulous' in English. I also prefer 'sleep' in Deutsche, 'schlafen', with its cheerful 'schl' beginning and 'fen' ending that is both amiable and like the sound a sleeper makes deep in R.E.M.

'Love' is a 'lovely' word in English and I also enjoy its many translations: Liebe (German), liefde (Dutch), amour (French), amore (Italian) and Láska (Czech). I especially appreciate the way you say 'I love you' in Dutch, Ik hou van jou (Ik how van yow) and in Russian, Я люблю тебя (Ya l-yoo-bloo teb-ya). 

I should mention my Opa as well. Though I didn't necessarily learn Dutch from him nor my father, only picking out the odd words (and curses), I did garner an appreciation for the language. There is in Dutch the untranslatable 'gezellig' (kghe-zell-ik) which brings together concepts of 'coziness', 'familial comfort' and 'joyful conversation'. While touring The Netherlands, I learned this very gentle and tenderly complex term. 

The Dutch also have 'slappe lach' which describes the kind of laughter you have where you just can't stop laughing. A laughter where you almost stop breathing, it hurts in your gut and you literally 'slap' your knee. Google translates it rather blandly into 'giggle' (as if describing the Big Bang as a 'sneeze') but it is more than just chuckling to yourself. 

Then there is the word 'aardig' which is rendered into the innocuous English 'nice'. I myself have always had a problem with 'nice' and when you look at the word's history it has meant everything from 'stupid, foolish' to 'extravagant' to 'elegant' to 'slothful', 'luxurious', 'unmanly' and 'thin'. Jane Austen once wrote in a letter to a friend, "You scold me so much in a nice long letter... which I have received from you." It's truly hard to say if she was being kind or sarcastic or perhaps guarded in her meaning of the word. But as for the Dutch, it is associated with 'aarde' (earth) and 'aard' (nature). So if you describe someone as 'aardig' in Dutch, you are saying they are earthy, or 'salt of the earth'. (I also think of aardbei - 'strawberry' in Dutch).

Then there are the Slavic words. My mother's side is Eastern European, a mixture of Ukrainian and yes, Russian. Some of these words, like 'gezellig' are nearly impossible to translate without using a paragraph to pin down a meaning. For instance, there is 'тоска' (toská). I will hereby provide Vladimir Nabokov's explanation as he is the master in describing the word:

"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.” (Source: introduction to Happy Moscow, Platanov)

If one Googles 'toska' multiple pages and even Tumblr sites will be made available all dedicated to describing or illustrating the word's complexity. Perhaps there is such a public devotion to the word is because it best explains if not adamantly describes the moods and emotions of some of the greatest Russian novels, stories, plays and poems. If you read Ivan Turgenev, let alone the lesser known Andrei Platanov or Ivan Bunin, the verses of Anna Akhmatova you will experience 'toska'.

Not as a popular but intriguing is Стиоб (stee-ob) which means 'an approach to life that takes no person or words serious' (source: Russians: The People Behind the Power - Gregory Feifer). Like the 'flâneur', the word suggests a mindset of detachment and even stoicism. Our English equivalent would be 'water off a duck's back'.  

Growing up, I heard also a lot of Polish from the neighborhood kids. Like Russian and Ukrainian, I continually find it to be a beautiful language. Though, when reflecting on my early teen years, I cannot recall any single Polish word as I was too often bewildered and bewitched by the beauty of a few of its speakers, namely Marzena, her sister Anna or their friend, Dominika. Their words were a means to look into their eyes, that when they spoke to each other in their native tongue, I could listen and watch them. And yes, be lost.

Yet a Polish word I came across recently fits my life perfectly and my mindset: 'pokój' (pah-kwee). It means both 'room' and 'peace'. As a reader and a quiet soul, I have often associated these two things in English. If there is a religion I uphold it is the one of a placid interior, a place to think, write and read and research. My room has always been my chapel or cathedral, sacred, sacrosanct. I believe like the philosopher and mathematician Pascal, that 'all human evil comes from a single cause: man's inability to sit alone in his room' (source, Pensées). 

One must ineluctably still leave one's room. One has to go out into the world, find friends, have a good slaape lach and be in the realm of the gezellig and aardig. We are drawn out by our sehnsucht and yet we experience toska at times. Yet the 'room' is a place where one is settled, it is the place of return, of sleep (schlafen), dreaming (rêve). 

Along with Pascal's maxim, I too adhere to the Russian saying that 'visiting friends is good, but home is better.'

Pokój is better still. 

My Life Through the Lens of Classical Vocabulary

Despite not having taken Latin or having the luxury (or ill-luck) to not be born in a century where the school system taught Ancient Greek, I did find myself speaking a bit of Greek and Latin without truly recognizing it, that is until years later. 

For the longest time, whenever I said 'butter' I was also speaking a bit of Old English (butere) which was derived from the Latin butyrum which in turn came from the Greek boútȳron. Or that when I chewed gum, the word to describe my Hubba Bubba and Bazooka Joe originally came the Latin, cummi which derived from the Greek, commi.

In school, we had to spit out our gum. Sometimes we got a warning or in the worst case, a 'detention' (from the Latin stem dētentiō - to detain). But chewing gum wasn't my thing. I enjoyed the various 'topics' (Latin topica in the plural and topiká from Aristotle's work meaning literally 'things'). For instance, I have always been drawn to maps and perhaps this derives from my passionate study of 'geography' (geo - earth, graphy - lines, so 'earth description or writing'). In high school, Mr. P., a mustachioed Italian with a flare for hand gestures taught us about The Netherlands, my father's home country and about Russia, the birthplace of my mother's father. 

Though I didn't truly enjoy it, I was very adept at 'mathematics.'  In Ancient Greek, máthēma actually means 'that which is learned' and 'what one gets to know'. Yet in our modern usage it is applied to the study of numbers, space, structure and so forth. I have always found it fascinating that a word begins with one specific meaning and finds new or an additional meaning when it is borrowed.

For instance, when you walk the streets of Europe and see a 'cathedral', the original word, kathedra meant a 'chair' or 'seat'. In my mind, and I'm certain in the thoughts of others, we most likely see a grand, often opulent building with a steeple or two. We discover the beautiful architecture and within, typically wondrous works of art, whether sculpture or painting. Of course, when we get back to basics, the cathedral is the 'seat' of the Bishop, or epískopos which means overseer or guardian. 

Then there is the word 'Catholicism', katholikismos which is Greek for 'according to the whole'. For me, growing up, Catholics were the Italians and the Polish neighbors. I never thought of them as Christians until my father's friend pointed out that they all belonged to the same source group. Christians, up to the age of ten in my mind were Baptists, Lutherans and Evangelicals as well as Mennonites and Dutch Reformed. 

Yet Catholics represent the western part of the old Roman Empire. So while the Italians, Polish, Austrians, French, and Spanish worship Christianity 'according to the whole', the former Eastern part of the Empire or Byzantine section became Orthodox (orthos - correct, doxa - opinion). (A side-note, the word 'Byzantine', which describes the architecture, art and culture of Byzantium also means 'scheming and complex' when applied to politics and methods).

The older I became, though, the more words I spoke and many of them of Greek and Latin origin or Greek-Latin mixes. I talked on the 'telephone' with my friends and girlfriends (tēle - far, phōnē - voice). I watched 'television' (Latin, visio - sight). I played 'video' games (Latin, vidē- to see). When home video cassettes became available, my father did his painstaking research and bought a Betamax (Bḗta - the second letter of the Greek alphabet). Sadly, despite my father's effort to invest in a quality product, Sony lost to VHS in its sales war due to marketing (from Vulgar Latin, marcātus, for traffic, trading). The high resolution, however of our first VCR was superior hence the 'max' or 'maximum' (Latin superlative of magnus or great) of the Betamax applied. 

In high school, I found myself drawn to the 'arts' (Latin ars, skill or craft). I already had a certain 'talent' (Latin talenta, plural of talentum derived from Greek tálanton balance, weight, monetary unit) for the guitar but also for writing and drawing. I also enjoyed painting (Latin pingere to paint).

For fun, I also enrolled in drama class (Greek for 'action' - derived from drâ (n) to do + -ma noun suffix). We learned about the history of the 'theatre', even the origin of the name, théatron, Greek meaning "a place for viewing". Interesting enough, 'tragedy' or tragōidia translates into 'goat' trág (os) 'song' ōidḗ (this latter word also finding its way into English as 'ode'). It is believed that a goat was the prize of the playwrights in Ancient Greece or that a goat may have been sacrificed during or after the piece was performed. 

Tragedies were performed for purposes pertaining to 'catharsis' (katharsis) wherein the audience felt 'cleansed' and 'purified' by viewing the sorrows and misfortunes of others. While the characters (so too, a Greek word, charaktḗr meaning a graving tool, its mark, equivalent to charak- base of charáttein to engrave) bemoaned their fates, the audience members felt 'pathos' for them. In other words, they 'suffered' along with them.

I asked our drama teacher if 'apathy' and 'pathos' were related. They were as apatheia means the 'lack of emotion'. Then, when I took Ancient History, my grade 11 teacher further explained it was actually a philosophical concept before it came to its modern use in English. For the Stoics, for instance, thinkers like Zeno of Citium and later, Seneca and Epitctus in the time of the Roman Empire regarded 'apathetia' to be the pinnacle of their thought. Then, it was preferable to exist in a mindset emotionally unmoved, to be distant and untouched by the passions. Whereas Aristotle, writer of Topika (or 'Things'), wrote in his Ethics about finding a balance, the Stoics said a laconic (Greek Lákōn a Laconian, people known for their verbal austerity)  'no' to feeling completely.

(And, before I get to the end here, as for 'comedy', it is derived  the Greek - kômo (s) - merry-making  and aoidós -singer.)

From high school to university (Latin ūniversitās or totality, equivalent to ūnivers), I went on to study 'psychology' and 'philosophy.' Many of us know the former word means 'study of the soul or mind' and the latter 'as love of wisdom'. I also joined a 'photography' (phōtos - light, and graphé meaning lines or drawing) club and when I was sick, I learned about different 'therapies' (therapeía - healing) on my journey to wholeness. 'Psychotherapy' being one of them and yes, one could translate it as the 'healing of the soul'.

Of course, wine has played a large and beneficial part in my life. I have always believed in its healing as well as 'social' (Latin socius - or companion, comrade, partner) properties. I considered getting into 'oenology' (oinos - wine) and becoming a winemaker but I think I would rather become a teacher of English and sip the Dionysian drink after a long day.

 

To Mince or 'Mint' Words: Vocabulary Coined by Authors, Poets and Thinkers

In a first year English class, my quasi feminist-Marxist professor told a rather quaint and adorable story about two nuns who attended a Shakespeare festival. In turns out, scholars had discovered this duo hadn't heard of Shakespeare let alone attended a single one of his plays. After sitting through several hours of performances, the nuns were then told to give their impression of the bard and his works. Being religious, they hemmed and hawed about the violence, the sex and the ribald humor but one of the ladies said something telling, if not humorous. 

"He's not very original, is he?"

With a raised eyebrow the scholar leading the project further questioned the nun. Shrugging, she simply stated that he borrowed a lot of cliches. "You know," she said clapping her hands, "all's well that end's well, and to be or not to be. The show must go on. All those phrases."

I suppose for someone who's never heard of William Shakespeare, the idea that he was the originator of such phrases would seem perhaps outlandish if not remarkable as they have permeated our lives, our lexicon and our lay speech. The other day I found myself saying "there's something rotten in Denmark,"let alone "there's method in my madness" and "there's the rub" - all from Hamlet. Or on oft occasions, that I've murmured "neither here nor there", "mum's the word" and "for goodness sake" (Othello, Henry IV and Henry VIII).

Yet it is not only the phrases but the 'monumental' words the poet has minted that we should be thankful. The two nuns and the 'countless' numbers of English speakers don't realize we all quote Shakespeare every single, 'excellent' day of our lives. When we hurry, when we are fretful and lonely, when we are obscene or majestic, critical or frugal, when we hint at something or tell a barefaced lie, when we are submerged in responsibilities, we are heavily borrowing from a bard who may well have been borrowing from the Elizabethan London of the late 1500s, a time of innovation in language and culture.

Shakespeare's originality has been questioned as much as his identity yet the plainspoken beauty of the plays and the enriched vocabulary of our English tongue cannot helped but be noticed. He is said to have invented 1700 words (I highly recommend the website Shakespeare-online.com to further explore the list.)

So, in their college years, when students are puking after a night of trying to be fashionable, they may struggle with their papers in the bleak hours of the morning, deconstructing As You Like It or comparing Troilus and Cressida to Chaucer's version, nonetheless, they really should be thanking the poet from Avon.  

But during Shakespeare's time, before and after, words still came into being as a result of poets and authors. Sir Thomas More, famous for his book, Utopia, coined 'absurdity' (which might explain his own tale of a perfect society), that the work of fiction itself exaggerates, rather than explains how human beings could live in exact harmony, one might say, acceptance of such a possibility is quite difficult. 

Ben Johnson, a contemporary of Shakespeare is not a defunct poet, nor a clumsy one, but when we are wet, we can say we are damp due to him. 

Then there are the 19th century authors many of us should really thank. Where would advertising slogans and marketers be without Samuel Coleridge, the opium intoxicated author of 'Kubla Khan' who gave us 'intensify'? If we didn't have Jeremy Bentham, how would we describe flights other than domestic, having provided airlines with the word 'international' (let alone committees, businesses and organizations that cross borders). Then there's Thomas Carlyle who without him, Green Peace and a host of other earth-friendly companies and activists wouldn't know that they were fighting for the 'environment'.

In the Pickwick Papers, Dickens described our first encounter with a 'butterfingers'. Meanwhile George Eliot, in a letter first used 'chintzy': back then chintz was a calico print from India said to be basic and cheap, hence anything we now refer to as pure crap or rudimentary in design (maybe one day Ikea will replace 'chintzy'). 

In the twentieth century, we saw a few selectively cynical words enter our lexicon. Norman Mailer's 'factoid' is a great example of how entertainment co-ops information. The ornery author, most famous for his World War II novel, The Naked and the Dead, defines his manufactured term as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority." When we learn about the latest Justin Bieber antic or reflect back on Paris Hilton's shenanigans and Britney Spear's bald head, what ever tidbits we glean and somehow cannot forget, they have no real relevance on our lives or world history. Like junk food, they sit unsettled in our mind's intestinal unconscious, half-digested and difficult to move. 

The word 'meme' too reflects on our self-indulgent and mind numbingly oblivious culture. Richard Dawkins coined it in the 1970s to describe ideas, trends, behaviors and styles that spread from person to person, almost plague-like before dying. This past summer we had the ever-charitably-profitable and annoying ALS-Ice Bucket Challenge that turned everyone into viral fools of self-back slapping. The author of The Selfish Gene was most likely shaking his head as hordes of people stood in front of digital cameras for their fifteen seconds of Facebook fame. 

In the world of technology, 'cyberspace' is another word which may have come from several authors, yet it was William Gibson who made it famous. Then's there 'Microcomputer' from Isaac Asimov, another sci-fi guru, author of I-Robot. Fondly enough without Karel Čapek Asimov wouldn't have had a title for his famous novel. In 1920 the Czech author published his most famous play, R.U.R. - Rossums' Universal Robots. 'Robot' is derived from the Russian работать (rabotat' - to work), a reference in some ways to the Soviet slave labour of the early 20th century. 

Yet, without Dr.Seus (Theodore Geisl) we would have no idea how to describe the very people who love and follow fantasy and science fiction. In his book, If I Ran the Zoo, we find the first appearance of 'nerd' in our language. 

There are a host of other words and this blog could continue on but it is safe to say, let alone even conclude that poetry and innovation have contributed largely to our expanding vocabulary. That from the Grand Willy himself to a self-titled doctor of children's fiction, language is heavily reliant upon and grateful for those artists and thinkers who bend and play with words. To quote Shakespeare, it appears English is quite dauntless in its ability to keep building and expanding.

 

Going Dutch: The Low Countries and their Curious Influence on the English Language

In the late 1600s, the Dutch participated in the 'Glorious Revolution', a quasi invasion-slash-change of the constitution in England. Without tripping and stubbing our toes on various political and historical facts let us say that it was initially fairly bloodless: William III of Orange Nassau overthrew King James II and with his wife, Mary II, took the reins of the mighty British Empire. Perhaps one might call the events of 1688 a bit of a hostile takeover or someone simply getting kicked out of the royal sandbox. Jimmy, you're out, Willy, your time to play. 

Unfortunately, the sun successively set on the seductive and lavish Dutch Golden Age of Culture. William III funded several exhausting wars, those against the Jacobites in Scotland, another in Ireland and of course, one had to get France somehow involved and riled up as well. And, as a result, within two decades, back in the king's home country of the Netherlands, the Dutch Republic was financially out of pocket despite being in a place of military security. Instead of money for art, funds were invariably funneled towards arms and this is why we don't have a succession of Dutch masters like Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals and Steen in the 18th century. 

Yet even before William III was even conceived, the Dutch had already invaded English Culture. In the 17th century, the language of the rising empire was already inundated with Middle Dutch words and this was due to previous invasions.

During the Norman conquest, 1/3 of William the Conqueror's army was from Flanders. And it didn't stop there. Between the 11th and up to the 17th century, a majority of Flemish refugees, many of them weavers and others skilled in textiles peacefully crossed the channel to make their home in England, Scotland and Wales. 

So this is why we have 'boss' from Middle Dutch baas. Of course times were always tough in the Medieval period and before we had 'Dutch courage', we had büsen which became our pejorative term for alcohol, hence 'booze'. (The word slurp, from slorpen, to sip, should also be mentioned as well as 'brandy', derived from brandewijn or 'burnt wine' and 'gin', from genever.)

From tubbe came 'tub', from bicken (to slash, attack), 'bicker' and bundel, obviously 'bundle' whereas Duffel is actually a town in Belgium and the original source for the cloth of the eponymous bags. My two favourite ones are boele (lover, brother) which eventually became 'bully' (not a lover nor brother) and blinken (to glitter) which became our 'blink'. It is quite lovely to think that when you are gazing at the eyes of your better half, when she quickly closes and opens her lids, that one is seeing her face 'glitter'.

Due to both England and The Netherlands maritime position, nautical terms, too, found their way into our language. 'Deck' from dec (covering), 'dock' (docke), 'freight' (vrecht or 'load'), 'skipper' (schipper or 'shipper'), 'sloop' (sloep), and so forth. To such a list one could also add 'yacht' (jaght or jaghtship, jagen, the Dutch and German word for hunt), 'buoy' (boei, 'to shackle') and 'cruise' (kruisen, to cross).

'Aloof' is bearing mention as lof is of a 'windward direction' and 'avast' is actually 'hold fast' (hou'vast). 'Aardvark', interestingly enough means earth (aard) pig (vark). Who knew?

We also get a few military terms from the Low Countries. 'Beleaguer' (16th cent. belegeren,'besiege') and 'bulwark' (bulwerk) and when you're on leave in the army, as an enlisted man you're on 'furlough' (verlof or 'to be off'). Most recently, the American 'bazooka' is Dutch for 'trumpet', bazuin which one could also connect to bassoon of Italian (bassone), French (basson) origin meaning 'deep'. So when firing a rocket or chewing the gum, we have the Dutch to thank for the word. 

The arts of Holland too influenced our English tongue. There is the Dutch painting term landskip derived from landscap (region) which, without really having to hazard a guess we know to be 'landscape'. Schets become our 'sketch' and ezel, Dutch for donkey became 'easel'. So when you visit the Rembrandhuis in Amsterdam, the structure holding the canvas in the artist's studio was once referred to as a domestic animal.

Bill Bryson, noted traveler author once wrote that he found the Dutch language to be 'a peculiar version of English.' It really isn't far from the truth when we consider all the words we've gained from the Low Countries. Even today, if you visit the northern climes of the Netherlands, the Frisians are said to speak a language similar to our early English. Maybe the reason we remember William the Conqueror and see William III's bloodless invasion as a portion of minor history is because the Dutch had already infiltrated the English language. The latter William was just taking over the reigns from his ancestors, no more, no less, the Dutch having already made their home in the English vocabulary to the point the so-called British of the late 17th century were already eating coleslaw (kolsla, cabbage salad), cookies (koekje, diminutive of koek, cake) and frolicking (vrolijk, to be joyful) when the news of his take-over had reached them.

All this knowledge. One can't help now but feel like a bit of a 'geek' (gek, fool). 

Etymologies for 'Health' and the Holistic

For me there are worlds within words just as there are worlds both beyond clouds and stars and beyond what we can see around us. Words have their own gravity and history and most of the time, by using them without knowing their origins, we float above their meanings and roots. It's like a treasure or a discovery right below our noses. We construct our sentences, thoughts and ideas using these sacred things. It seems too easy but words have traveled a long way to get to us and not just in English but in all languages.

Lately, I have been reflecting on the word 'health'. When I was sick in my twenties, 'health' was something I spoke about but didn't quite know. Being ill was being outside of health. And to think, at twenty, two years before I faced disease, I took for granted my youth, I assumed health was a given, that nothing could strike me down.

During the time of ill-heath, I read books on wellness, well-being, healing, medicine and natural remedies. I came across Dr.Andrew Weil's Spontaneous Healing. In the book he wrote something that never quite left me: "The literal meaning of 'healing' is 'becoming whole.' It is possible to have an inner sense of wholeness, perfection, balance, and peace even if the physical body is not perfect." 

And from another book by Weil, Health and Healing, the doctor describes health itself as 'wholeness', the word coming from the Anglo-Saxon and pre-historic German, khailaz (whole). By adding the suffix -itha, we arrive at khailitha (health).

Growing up, whenever I sneezed my father would either say Gesundheit or the Dutch, gezondheid which literally means 'a state of health' but implies a continuation of 'good health' (when we sneeze, our heart stops, apparently). 

Yet in both German and Dutch 'health' (Gesund and gezond) refer to the body's health while heil belongs to the soul's health. Geheiligt and geheiligd translate to 'hallowed' as in 'Geheiligt werde dein Name - 'Hallowed by thy name'. Yet, to be cured in German is geheilt, implying something sacred in the process of retaining health or wholeness.

Yet reflecting on Weil's summation of healing as becoming whole and his idea that we can be in a state of emotional well being without the physical intrigues me. For the Shamans of many cultures, the person who is deathly sick has lost themselves. The shaman must travel to the underworld to find and recover the lost self and return it to the ailing body. The implication is that the body suffers because the self is dis-united with the physical being. 

For the Romans, specifically Juvenal in his tenth satire, mens sano in corpore sano ('a healthy mind in a healthy body'). Though we know this line, we rarely know the context. Juvenal, like many of the Latin poets and authors of the Roman Republic and Empire were all-too-aware of the excesses of their times. Towards the end of his satire about the vanity of fame, fortune and desire as well as the difficulties of old age, he advises his readers to pray for a

                                                a valiant heart,

Without fear of death, that reckons longevity 

The least among Nature's gifts, that's strong to endure 

All kinds of toil, that untainted by lust and anger

That prefers the sorrows and labours of Hercules to all

Sarandapulus' downy cushions and women...

One might construe that Juvenal is offering 'sane' advice. And it is interesting to note that both the French and English derive benefit from 'sano': santé, the French word for health and our term for mental well-being, 'sanity'. Both are ultimately related to sanus, a Latin word of unknown origin though it too, like the pre-Germanic khailitha means 'health'.

From sanus we also get 'sanatorium' (or 'sick' room) and 'sanitary'. Sanus is in turn related to sanctus (holy) and our source of 'saint', 'sanctuary' and 'sanctify'. Even in the relationships between words, there is this bond between the spirit, the mind and the body. 

The French, naturelement, use the word santé as a toast. Glasses clink, health is wished for, lips sip wine. In Spain and other Latin American countries, there salud is both the word for health and a toast. Also of Latin origin, salud is directly derived from salus, relative of salvus (safe, safety) and our source of 'safe' and 'save'. 

(The word 'salve', as a side note, meaning a medicinal ointment is related to salvus - alternatively, it might stem from the West Germanic salbo, the Greek élpos, both meaning 'oil'. Ointments are typically 80% oil based and can be greasy - Sanskrit spras - greasy).

The concept of 'salvus' (source of salvation, salvage) applied to me back in my twenties. Being sick, you never feel quite at home in your own body. Another Latin writer, Seneca the Younger once wrote that you should never let yourself be subjected to something alien to your being. I felt as if I was invaded and the longing to be whole was stronger than any desire I ever had in my life. 

The idea of a lost self is something I encountered in the writings of Mircea Eliade, a Romanian historian of religion. He wrote widely about Shaman culture as well as the origins of religious rituals and practices. 

In his book, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, Eliade writes that religious man’s "desire to live in the sacred is in fact equivalent to his desire to take up his abode in objective reality, not to let himself be paralyzed by the never-ceasing relatively of purer subjective experiences, to live in areal and effective world, not in an illusion.”

Elaide describes the Hierophany (Hieros - Greek for holy and phainen, to reveal) as the manifestation of the sacred in the Earthly. "The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world... the hierophany reveals an absolute fixed point, a center."

Learning that health is related to wholeness and the spirit, I gradually discovered that I had to be whole within my psyche and self long before I could be whole in my body. The idea of not feeling safe, of not being home in myself is related to the idea of the 'abode' above. The body was revealing the fragmentation, the misinterpretations of what I believed about myself and my life. But because I couldn't be honest with myself, my body had to be the truth teller. 

I like how in the Russian language Здоровье (zda-roe-vye) is health. The prefix Зд- means to build, create. In Russian there is building (Здание), creature (Создание) and author (Создатель).

Like in French, to greet (salut!) is found in Russian (Здороваться). To be sane, similarly, also derives from
Здоровье - здравый (zdrah-vee).

To return to health is truly to build, to create. One thing I kept thinking when I was sick is I wanted to go back to the way things were. Yet, the more I thought about it, the way things were lead to me being sick. That kind of return was not going to favour a full recovery. With what I had, with who I was, I had to truly be the author of my well-being. I had to replace the foreign and alien, i.e. negative misinterpretations of myself aside and create newer, healthier perspectives. 

I had to learn compassion.