A Blissful BlessingBy Duan Vukoti I almost forgot to comment the two footnotes I have marked in my last article (White Wedding). First is the English word bliss (spiritual joy; OE. bletsian, bledsian ; Serb. blaenstvo; from blag 'placid', blaen 'blissful, placid'; Russ. ), which appeared to be related with bless, although I didn't find any serious etymologist who would be ready to link these two words explicitly. It is interesting to mention that The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology says that bliss may be relate to blood (!). Chambers (Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, p. 42), for instance, related bliss with OE bletsian 'consecrate' and Gothic blotan 'sacrifice, kill', while Skeat (Etymological Dictionary, p. 52) was more specific, saying that the "original sense (of bless) may have been 'to consecrate by blood' (also Kluge, "sprinkle with blood" - English Etymology, p. 20-21). In his book, with an indicative title: A Dictionary of True Etymologies (p. 22), Adrian Room is resolute: ""The derivation of the word is not from 'blessed' but from an Old English word related to 'blithe'. ('Bless,' unexpectedly, is related to 'blood')". The authors of The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European (p. 194), Mallory and Admas, introduced the PIE root *wolno/eha- (Lat. volnus, Gr. , Skr. vraa. Of course, a small umlaut "correction" and it is possible to relate bledsian to sprinkle with blood' to blood and bleed (ses Lyle Campbell, Historical Liguistics, p. 252), but the problem is that the same thing can be done with the word bliss. Namely, bliss appeared to be unrelated to to bless, although it is related to blithe Now, let us compare English bless and bliss with Serbian blag 'mild', blagosloven 'blessed' and blaen 'blissful' (Vasmer, I, p. 171; Russ. 'blissful, placid', 'blessing, benediction'). It seems obvious that Slavic languages have the similar words for both bless and bliss. In Czech and Serbian, the word blaenost could be translated as bless as well as bliss; and that word is a derivative of blag (Cz. blaho 'bless, bliss'). Here we could compare Slavic and Latin words for blessing. On the other side are the Latin words, beatus blessed happy, bonus good and benignus kind, favorable, obliging and all three of

them may be translated as blessed. Is it possible that these words, together with those mentioned above (Slavic and Germanic), originated from the common basis? If so, what that basis would be? Isidore de Seville explains: Beatus, blessed or happy, is as if bene ductus, well enriched, namely from having what he wishes and enduring nothing he does not want (Isidore of Seville's Etymologies: translated by Priscilla Throop; p. x.16). Does it not mean the same as English bliss? Isidore also depicted a vague difference among those words and, in addition, mentioned Latin blandus flatering, charming person. In Greek, the relation between bless and bliss is very close to that in Slavic and Latin: , blest, happy, bliss. Hence, it seems, the question imposes itself: how it happened that only Germanic languages connected blood and happiness'/bliss. Does it make sense at all? From his own side, Fransis Volpey suggested three possible sources of the Latin word beo make happy, bless. First was the Greek word life, and alternative was to stuff, to fool and to go Ishel live (probably related to step, walk, , make to go). To add a little more confusion, let us mention Czech blzen fool vs. blaen blissful, beatific (Serb. bulazniti talk nonsense, blesa fool). What about English fool and full; are these two words related or not? Fool comes from Latin follis a leather bag, bellows, purse, puffed-out cheek, which is from its side related to flatus us blow, inflate (cf. Serb. nabuditi, buditi ,bulge, buelar purse, beika bellows, bladder). Now, although it might look as some sort of confabulation, it seems, wherever we look we can see the same progenitor word, which sounded close to that imaginary basis named earlier *belgh-ghno- (White Wedding). Greek appeared to be akin to Latin venio ire come, arrive, and its pro- prefixed form come forward seems to be the same kind word as Serbian probijanje pushing forward (cf. Skr. prabdh, drive, urge, Serb. probadati to pierce, puncture. In reality, it may be that all the above mention words originated from the one unique word-well-generator. Like in the Bible: in the beginning was the word. Actually, beginning may be of a key importance for the understanding of the process of the branching of words. How can we suppose that, for instance, Serbian poetak beginning may be related to English beginning, if we do not start to analyze all possible semantic links between these two words. The true is that phonetic laws could be of great help in certain cases, but, on the other hand, they might be a big obstacle in the process of understanding of the evolution of human speech. There are many irregular changes to take the sound laws as an undeniable measure of the truth. One more example: what to say about possible kinship of the Serbian word polazak, polaenje to start/to go off, moving forward and Latin pulsus im-pulse, beating, blow. Just when I thought that Serbian polaz setting off, departure and the verb puknuti blow up were derived from the same proto-word as it happened to Latin pullsus (Serb. *bl-gh-ghn- => puknuti explode, blow up; English blow probably used the same *bl-gh- basis, doesnt matter in what sense, strike or inflate), the other word, similar to pulsus, with the meaning of pulse porridge came to blow up the prearranged celebration. Logically, when the thing bulged/inflated to an extreme it had to explode/blow up (the simple law of physics; Latin explodo = Serb. is-paliti to fire off). Latin puls might be related to Serbian pasulj bean (Gr. ), and Latin phaselus boat, kanu (in accordance to the bean-pod shape of the vessel). Now, visiting Lithuanian dictionary we can find the word pasaulis, which means world (similar in Serbian, vaseljena/vasiona universe). What is happening here? We started with

bean, phaselus boat, vessel (as we can see, vessel came from Lat. phaselus; Gr. ), and ended with pasaulis world and vaseljena universe. Close to vaseljena is the Byzantine emperor, (Basileios; Serb. p.n. Vasilije). At this moment we are coming to the point where all the above thinking proves or disproves itself. Is it not truth that vessel (boat) belongs to the kind of transportation device? Then, if vessel (form phaselus, which sounds very similar to Serb. vozilo vehicle, Skr. vhika) is transportation device, could that word not be of the same origin as Latin vehiculum i? In this case things appeared to be self-evident: Latin vehiculum is a compound word consisting of the words veho convey', drive and col- something round, round-shaped (like oculus eye; in Serbian too: vozi drive + kolo wheel (*vohi-hlo => vozilo, contraction; cf. Cz. vozidlo vehicle). Nevertheless, although the above explanation of the origin of vehicle sounds pretty plausible, it is hard to say what pasulj bean, vaseljena/vasiona cosmos and the Byzantine emperor have in common with the notion of driving. Maybe, it is just a coincidence, a chance resemblance, vessel, vozilo, vehicle? Of coarse, it becomes clear that pasulj (Gr. ) has been named like that in accordance with its round or kidney-like form. Latin vesica bladder is obviously the same word as Serbian beika bladder, and this Serbian word may be a Romanian loanword (bic; Petar Skok, Etimologijski rjenik Hrvatskoga ili Srpskoga jezika, I, p. 141), but it doesnt change the fact that beika and vesica (vesiculum; bic) acquired their names thanks to their round form. Actually, beika (vesica) is derived from the basic IE proto-form, which sounded closely to the root *bl-gh- (many times mentioned here). The basic meaning of such a proto-form is lump or round formation (Serb. oblo round OSl. , Lat. bulla swelling, oval egg-like, OE belgan to swell with anger, bylg bulge, bag, Eng. bulge; Gr. lump, clod of earth, Skr. bhgola earth, globe probably a metathesis of *bulg-). The other meanings of the above-mentioned root are derived differently in different IE languages. In Serbian, for instance, oblo round branched later into words like obliti pour over, suffuse, obilaziti go arround, to visit, oblaziti go around, obilaznica detour, obilaenje detouring, polaziti start, to go off, depart. Similar process can be followed in English too: from ball, visit to begin. Now, I hope, we can see the multitude of sound changes that hardly may be traced down in a satisfactory manner (assimilation, dissimilation, metathesis, aphaeresis, haplology, epenthesis, elision, umlaut, ablaut etc.), and, what seems to be the biggest problem, there are a lot of unpredictable changes that can not be subjected to any regular rule. For instance, we can only understand the process of phonetic mutation, which split up the *bl-ghbasis to three different words with different but close meanings: one is the above-mentioned palaz-ak setting off, then it comes pogon driving force, and finally poetak, poinjanje beginning. The both words, English beginning and Serbian poinjanje beginning appeared to have the same morphology, both have b- prefixed form of the common 'stem *ghon-. This *ghon-, as a bound morpheme (almost always) indicates a certain kind of movement/motion (cf. Ger. beginnen begin, start, commence, begegnen meet, encounter, begehen do, execute, perform, do, commit, gehen go, move, proceed, gegen opposite, contra, against; gucken see, gaze, watch). In Serbian language, the same morpheme is turned to *in- (poinjati begin (Russ. , Cz. zahjit, zatek, zanat, Pol. zaczyna), poiniti execute, do, commit (Russ. , Ita. iniziato initiate; from Lat. initio initiate ab initio from the beginning,

Russ. ), a clear-cut counterpart to German begehen (Serb. poiniti nedelo to commit the crime). All the above-mentioned words might be considered as cognates. Latin pello pellere beat, drive out, push, strike, drive away and bello bellare bellavi, bellatus fight, struggle may be of great/crucial importance for the understanding how the IE vocabulary was evolving. Pulsus stroke, beat, pulse, impulse seems to be close to Serbian bilo, bijenje throbbing, pulse (Russ. ), as well as to Greek / throw (Russ. hurl, throw; Serb. dial. obaliti fall down, throw). There is almost no doubt that these words (all seemingly derived form *bl-gh-ghn- basis) are cousins to other younger words as Serbian ubijanje killing, boj, bitka battle, bolan ill, sick (Russ. ), bol pain (Russ.), ubadanje/bodenje stabbing, piercing (Russ. , gore, to hole), paliti burn, spark , burn, stoke a fire, ignite (Cz. vypalovat; Russ. ), opaliti fire off (Russ. ). It can hardly be a coincidence that, in this case, Latin and Serbian have the words with a similar phonetics: vulnus wound, mental/emotional hurt and bolan painful, flamma blaze, flame and plamen flame, blaze, even bello bellare seems to be a cognate to Serbian borenje fighting, batlle (obviousli from bol-hre-ghne with the loss of the sound [l]). Maybe I am not able to explain precisely (especially not in English) what I have in mind, but the main point of my above meditation is my attempt to instigate an unconventional approach to the field of comparative linguistics. Namely, how it would be if we did take all the three (abovementioned) Valpys alternatives (life, to go, to fill full) as correct? Does it not make sense? The Slavic word bogat wealthy (Cz. bohat, Russ. , OSl. ) may be derived from *bolgat"-; again, the solution of this enigma may lie in the Latin words opulentus opulenta wealthy and abundus copious or in Greek wealthy (Lacon. ); all word related to English plenty (Latin plnus full, Slavic polno). In Serbian, blago has meanings be well, treasure, livestock (Russ. for the wellfare of the people) and it indicates that the above assumption, that bogat came from *bolgat (one who possess blago, treasure or livestock, all the same) is probably true. Vasmer (I, p. 182) connects bogat to the Slavic noun bog god (OSl. , Cz. bh, Russ. , ), but, according the above analysis, these two words cannot be linked directly. Bog god probably acquired that name thanks to his greatness, big (Serb, velik big, bulk; Serb. veliki bog god is great, almighty god; Russ. ; Cz. velik). A special curiosity here: the English word big is phonetically closer to the Slavic word bog, than Slavic velik big. However, there is the Russian word (bol''shoj) big, which may possibly explain a lot of things about the name of the Slavic god (bog). Slavic blagosloven blessed could be the same word as Latin benedictus (from *belgne-dict-) and both words have the same meaning. It also can hardly be considered as a coincidence. Now we can go back to Saint Isidores words mentioned above: beatus a -um blessed, blissful, bonus um, good, benignus a um kindly, mild, affable and try to figure out that all they might be derived from the same and unique agglutinated

proto-word. The same proto-word was probably used by all IE languages. I would say that the relation between bless and bliss was better understood in earlier times (see on the left what Wedgwood rote in his etymological dictionary). skolalukicevo-etymology