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E 0111              BOTTOM

The English word "bottom" is of Germanic origin

H 0010           א ד מ ה

Concept of root : ground man lives on

Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

א ד מ ה

adamà

earth, soil

Related English words

bottom

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

א ד מ ה

adamà

ground, soil

a d . m .

English

bottom

bottom

b . t . m

Old English

bothm

bottom

b . t m

Dutch

bodem

bodem

ground, soil, bottom

b . d m

Latin

fundus;

-

-

domus

-

fundus;

-

-

domus

-

bottom, ground, estate; home, house

f . nd . ;

-

-

d . m

-

Russian

дно

-

дом

-

dno;

-

dom

-

ground, bottom;

residence, house

d n o; d o m

Greek

δημος

dèmos

land, allotted plot; district, community

d . m

 

 

Proto-Semitic *ADAMÀ --- *ĒDŎM > *BŪDM- Indo-European

 

 

A common origin between Semitic and Indo-European in this case is rather doubtful, be it not quite impossible. We will elaborate on the details and the reader will have his own judgment.

 

The basis of the possible significance of the similarity between the words of the above Table lies in the hypothesis of one or perhaps two prefixes. The first one is the well-known Germanic prefix loci "B-" in "bottom" , "bodem" etcetera. The other would be a confirming Semitic prefix "A" in "adama". Adama is the name given to the earth that Adam, Man, works and on which Adam, Man, lives. We mentioned this concept under entry E 0008 ( (Hebrew 0009 ). It may be useful to elaborate the difference between two terms, words from Genesis, the first Book of the Bible : "arets" and "adama". The first word is akin to English "earth", the second one to "Adam".

 

 

Note:
  • Genesis uses both "'arets" and "'adama" when talking about earth. If we want to understand well these words, we have to recall the text itself.

     

  • In Genesis 1,9 God makes appear the dry land and calls it "arets". The text continues to use this same word, until in Genesis the word "adama" appears while indicating "all kinds of beings creeping in (crawling on ) the soil (ground).
  • Genesis 1,26 mentions "Adam" and talks again about the whole earth with the word "arets". The creeping beings are now "upon the arets". Thus not "on the arets".
  • Genesis 2,5 tells once more about the creation, but then uses the following three words, saying there had been "no rain on the arets, nor was there Adam to cultivate the adama.
  • Genesis 2,6 says that vapour from the arets has made humid all the face of the adama.
  • Genesis 2,7 then refers how Adam is shaped, produced from dust of the adama.

     


    This division of messages between the roots of arets and adama in Genesis is clear.

 

Note:
  • Adam and adama . The text of Genesis, however inspired from above ,has been written down by human beings in an existing human language. This language already had a long development behind it. The building of words during the development of a language, usually is done by adding affixes to roots, and again adding new affixes to such newly shaped words that have become roots themselves. Therefore it is much more probable that adama has been shaped after Adam than the other way about, as many scholars believe. One might object that the use of the word "adama", if meaning "men's soil" would be anachronistic as indicating the soil Man was made of, but it can also been seen as "the soil for Man". See also the following note.

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic. There is quite some uncertainty as to what a Proto-Semitic origin of "adamà" would have been like. We see indeed hypothesis like "*daym-, *dayum, *damdam" and finally also "*'adam-", but also "*'adamat-". Behind these suppositions there are many different words in the various Semitic languages.

     

    There are scholars who see "adamà" as derived from " 'adom" that says " red". So "adamà" would be " the red arable ground". It is not clear what the added concept of "arable" does here. If the word would have been based on the one for "red", it would just say "the red one". It is anyhow improbable that "adamà" comes from red. It would not easily have had that second vowel A, but instead a dull E or even an O, like "*'ademà" or even "*'adomà".

     

    If the initial "A" in "adama" and also in "Adam" would be a prefix, the word "Adam" for "Man" would be composed of this "A" plus f.e. "dam, dom" = blood". Such a development might then have taken place before Semitic and Indo-European drifted apart. It seems an improbable guess.

     

    We anyhow would see "adamà" linked to the word "'adam " that says "man". As we pointed out, the word "adam" is not based on "'adamà". This would be a way of word shaping by abbreviation, that fits into modern English but not in old Semitic; "'adamà " is "adam + à", a suffix, that indicates "related to man". It indicates the (arable) soil man works, as distinguished from "arets", or earth in general.

     

    This origin of "adamà" fits in well with other Semitic words , like Aramaic " 'adamtà", Arabic " 'adim-" and "'idamat-". Other words, without the initial Aleph, in fact do not carry the meaning of "soil" and they may have different origins. As a conclusion, the Proto-Semitic root of "adamà " was the same we see in Hebrew : " א ד ם, *Aleph D M", with the annotation that the "M" is not a closing consonant, but is followed by an accentuated vowel "A".

 

Note:
  • Indo-European roots. The Indo-European roots we mentioned above, seem well related to the Hebrew word "adama" as the place on earth where Adam, Man, chooses to settle. At the same time we will find the Indo-European words "earth", "Erde (German)", terra (Latin) and aarde (Dutch) related to Hebrew "arets". In these languages these same words cover both concepts we analysed a moment ago as differentiated in Hebrew between "adama" and "arets".

 

Note:
  • English "bottom " , like its Germanic sisters in German and Dutch, begins with a prefix, that is the consonant "B". This sound is found in many cases to indicate a localization or specific placing : "B+ ottom",   "b+odem" . If this "B" is placed before a consonant it mostly becomes "BE", acquiring a dull "E", but if it stands in front of a vowel, it just remains "B": as in Dutch "bodem".

     

    The basic meaning of "bottom" is seen as that of "lowest part, lowest surface".

 

Note:
  • Proto-Germanic. Germanic languages have here a composition of an initial B , a central dental and a final M, with just a few exceptions (modern German "Boden"). The central dental is usually D, but in Nordic and English T or TT. The words have two syllables, the first one with a vowel "O" and the second one with a dull "E" (mostly not spelled in Nordic), besides in Old Saxon and English where we see an "O". Old English had both "botm" and "bodan". Danish has the word "bund" that is rather different from all the others, for which lacks an explanation.

     

    The probable origin of these words in Proto-Germanic seems "*B O D E M-", composed of a prefix "B" and "*ODEM". English "bottom " , like its Germanic sisters in German and Dutch, begins with a B. This sound is found in many cases to indicate a localization or specific placing : "B+ ottom",   "b+odem" .

 

Note:
  • Indo-European. A group of words that are mentioned in the table, may well be unrelated to "adama" and to "bottom". Latin "domus" is a cognate of Greek "domos" that has the same meaning and is seen as related to the verb "demo" that says "to build, construct". It also has a different cognate in Old Indian "dámagh = house, building". But quite different is the situation of the mentioned Greek word "dèmos".

     

    Greek. For the word "dèmos" no etmology has been established . Especially interesting is how Homer, in both Ilias and Odyssea, uses it to say "plot of land", which brings it nearer to Hebrew "adama", the soil that Man works. Old Indian "budhná-", Avestan "būnō" and Armenian "bun" all mean "bottom, ground". It is quite possible that Avestan and Armenian have shortened versions of an original form recognizable in Old Indian. There is anyhow a final "N", that is also seen in modern German, where it has developed out of an earlier "M". This "N" was also used in a different version, "buthn", in Old English. But then again we have Old Indian with "dá:ma- = house , home". The "M" if at the end of a word can become "N". Avestan "dam = in the house" and "demāna = house".

     

    Latin with "fundus" covers many kinds of bottoms and grounds. It also has the verb "fundare" = "to found, provide with a bottom" and related figurative meanings. One notes that the "N" is usually considered an infix, but in this case a metathesis is considered to have taken place between the "D" and the "N". Then Latin would come from an older "*F U D N-".

     

    Greek has a related word in "π υ θ μ η ν, püthmèn = bottom, foundation, basis". For the "bottom" of a vase or the likes there is also a word "π υ ν δ α ξ, pündax, that is considered related to the other word, but without clarity as to the development .

     

    Celtic. We have little information. The usually mentioned Middle Irish words "bond, bonn" that mean "sole (of a shoe)" and that are then semantically linked to Latin "solea" = "sandal", give no real support for a hypothesis.

     

    Slavic. There is a hypothetical Slavic "*b'dno" Comparing this hypothesis with modern Slavic languages would mean either that for example Russian "Д н о , pl. Д о н ь я, dno, donya = bottom, ground, pl. bottoms, grounds", has lost the first part " B' " of the original word, or that this " B' " (earlier "B Ъ "), is a prefix as in Germanic , but that has never found its way into Russian. Other modern languages are similar to Russian. The indication for Slavic becomes thus "*D O N -", that may have come from an earlier "*Ĕ D O N- ".

     

     

    The usual hypothesis for Indo-European is that there were already two versions, one with a consonant "M" and the other with "N". The initial consonant is then given as "BH" but we prefer to consider an aspired pronunciation of the "B" in some important old languages not as a fundamental characteristic that must have been present in Indo-European. We would rather stick to an initial "B" : "*B Ū D M- and "*B Ū D N-". But it is quite possible that Indo-European was in or anyhow had known an earlier stage "*Ĕ D O M/N- ".

 

 

 

 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 21/12/2012 at 10.09.45