Re: [tied] All of creation in Six and Seven

----- Original Message -----

From: Glen Gordon

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 2:04 AM

Subject: [tied] All of creation in Six and Seven

Mate:
>It was already said that PIE *septm is a definte loanword from Semitic, as
>is quite clear. It is also obvious that PIE word for 6 and the Semitic one
>(cf. Arabic sitt-at-un) are similar. But here it's not so obvious that we
>have a case of a Semitic borrowing into IE as in 7.

Grrr, I defy your opinion! :)  I'd say that since we can be sure that *septm
is a loan, that *sweks is likely to be also a loan from the same source.
This
is only logical. The Semitic form afaik is *s^idTu-. So IE *k here
correlates with the stop in Semitic and the *sw combo with the Semitic
*s^. The thibilant *T is reinterpreted as the second *s in *sweks.
Everything
works perfectly and there is no reason to accept *septm as a loan while
denying *sweks.

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.

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, 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.


= gLeN

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. 
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/features&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.