Re: All of creation in Six and Seven

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>
> I feel that these Semitic loans were adopted earlier than the event

of

> syncope in Mid IE (c.5000 BCE). So *sweks and *septm in Mid IE

would have

> been initially loaned as *swekse and *septem. Only the vowels *e

(schwa)

> and *a (low central) were available to IE speakers at the time

which is why

> the vowels don't appear to be quite in line with the Semitic roots.

But this

> latter paragraph is my own idea so feel free to reject it.
>
> While the numeral "seven" in IE contains fossilized Semitic

suffixes that

> show that it was the masculine form, the numeral "six" would seem to
> correlate with the _feminine_ form. (PS: For those who forgot or

don't

> know, *-t- is normally a feminine suffix in Semitic but in

numerals, it is

> the reverse and is used to mark the _masculine_ form. This is

because

> the seemingly feminine numeral goes with the masculine noun and
> vice versa -- a kind of gender-pairing agreement.) Now is this all
> coincidence
> or could there be something more to this Semitic gender opposition

seen

> in feminine *sweks versus masculine *septm?
>
> Piotr calls *septm a "cultural" loan. Personally, I'd rather call

it a

> "religious"
> loan. I feel that the whole reason why "seven" was such a widespread
> loan from Semitic was because Middle-Eastern worldviews were

spreading

> into Europe along with the people during the neolithic. I suspect

it relates

> to a common goddess mentioned by Gimbutas that was widely worshipped
> during this time. While Gimbutas makes it out as some kind of earth,
> fertility or nature goddess, why don't we just call it a "female

principle"

> thing in order to establish the following idea. Think of this all

as the

> "Seven
> Sisters of Pleiades" idea.

I'm always happy when people accept my ideas. Let me remind people
again of Japanese 'subaru' "the Pleiades", Austronesian (all over the
place) 'pitu' "seven", with personal prefix 'si-pitu'.

>
> Now if we were to connect all this with the idea of a "masculine"
> and "feminine", we might be on to something (or be completely

insane,

> one or the other).
>
> So here's a new and improved thought I haven't put out yet. What
> if, not only are the words *sweks and *septm religious loans adopted
> from a Semitic(-like) language during the Neolthic,

(ultimate from Austronesian)

>but that the two
> words were borrowed together in opposite genders, representing
> a Yin-Yang duality that related somehow to a worldview at the
> time. One might think of the universe as a pair of masculine and
> feminine entities that come together, and it is their union that
> causes "creation", both in a sexual sense and in a grander,

metaphorical

> one. We see this around the Mediterranean (eg: Egyptian Shu and Geb
> who "come together" each day and give birth to Ra, the sun). We
> might call attention to certain artifacts which actually combine
> sexual characteristics of both sexes together to form an icon. I
> recall seeing a picture in one of Gimbutas' books showing what

looked

> like a strange cross between a bird and a phallus. One could

interpret

> this according to this Yin-Yang concept, whereby the bird is

feminine

> while the phallus is naturally male.
>
> Actually, on a little side-thought, because I grew up Jehovah's

Witness,

> I grew up with some really kooky ideas that I've now mostly

rejected.

> However, I do recall mention of "six" being related to imperfection,
> the devil, etc while "seven" being considered perfect, or divine. We
> can see the completion of world in _seven_ days, for example, while
> the number of the beast is "666". It's interesting that this

opposition

> exists here and it's along the same lines. Instead of "six"

representing

> a female principle, it has become villainized as demonic or

imperfect

> while "seven", instead of representing the masculine principle, has
> become divine.
>
> Thus, I'd dare say now that *sweks was somehow once related to
> the feminine principle, while *septm was intrinsic to

the "masculine"

> principle. Yin and Yang. El and Baal. Yahweh and Satan. The totality
> of the universe described with two numerals.
>
> Just an empty thought.

One star of the Pleiades is imperfect, since it blew up some thousand
years back, reducing the perfect seven stars of that constellation to
an imperfect six.

Torsten