Utu

 Utu, Sun: 𒀭𒌓

According to this table, this means god, heaven + day = sun...

But, did the god sign originally mean shiny thing (sun, star)? And did the day sign originally mean "eye"? 

Because if the did, then we would get: shiny thing + eye = to see = sun? 

Makes a lot of sense...At least to me...Cause I am a Slav...Cause Slavs have Svetovid...

svet (world)

svetlo (light)

vid (sight)

Svetovid (sun god) = world, light + to see = sun  

I talked about this in my post "Svetovid"...

Thanks to @selineith for the original sun pic...

Big man

This is Naram Sin, The Great king of Akkad, trampling his enemies...Appropriately, the Great King is depicted as a Big Man much bigger than his dead enemies...

Akkadians and their Great Kings, succeeded Sumerians as the rulers of Mesopotamia...And in Sumerian the word for "King" (see capital K) was  "Lugal" which comes from "lú" (man) + "gal" (big) and literally means a Big Man...

Now here is something "weird"...

In Serbian, the word for people is "ljudi", from Proto-Slavic *ľudьje (“people, men”)...

In Serbian, one of the words for big is "golem",  from Proto-Slavic *golěmъ...Cognate with Lithuanian "galėti" (to be able) and Lithuanian "galià"(power, might)

So coincidence that the roots are the same in Sumerian and Slavic? Again? Just like the roots for all these unimportant words:

Scribe, Tablet, Mind, Breath, Life, Grain, Teeth, Sickle

Just to be clear, Sumerian is a language isolate and has nothing to do with Slavic languages or any other Indo-European language for that matter...So what's going on here? Who borrowed all this from whom? Where? When? Or is this just an incredible coincidence...

Holy fire-drill

The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I with a torch, worshipping the fire god Nusku. About 1200 BC. The artifact is in Berlin. Pic by petrus.agricola.

In Babylonia and Assyria Nusku is the symbol of the heavenly as well as of the terrestrial fire. As the former he is the son of Anu, the god of heaven...

Well no surprises here. Originally fire from sun descended to earth through lightning...So fire was the child of heaven...

I wrote about this in my article "Sun, Thunder, Fire"...

He was also looked upon as the protector of the family. No surprise here either, as fire has always been "the protector of the family from wild beasts"...

He was also the mediator between humanity and the gods, since it is through the fire on the altar that the offering is brought into the presence of the gods...Fair enough...The smoke of the offerings rises to heaven bringing offerings to the Father Sky...Logical...

The fire-god is also viewed as the patron of the arts and the god of civilization in general. Well a great surprise here...Apparently, because of "the natural association of all human progress with the discovery and use of fire"...

"While temples and sanctuaries to Nusku-Girru are found in Babylonia and Assyria, he is worshipped in a more symbolical form than the other gods"...

What does this even mean? 

Wait for it...

Nusku is basically Asyro Babylonian version of the Sumerian god of fire Gibil, god of fire, the son of An (Sky) and Ki (Earth)...

Well, as I already said, no surprises here. Originally fire from sun descended to earth through lightning...The Sumerians actually spell it out pretty clearly here: The fire is the product of lightning which connects the father sky and mother earth...

In some versions of the Enûma Eliš, Gibil is said to have broad wisdom, and that his mind is "so vast that all the gods, all of them, cannot fathom it". 

Again a great surprise here...Why would fire god be smarter than all the other gods put together?

Some versions state Gibil, as lord of the fire and the forge, also possesses wisdom of metallurgy...Again no surprise here as without fire there can be no metallurgy...

No I went and checked the etymology of the name "Gibil"...I came across a very interesting paper entitled "The Vocabulary of Sumerian" that talks about the habit of Sumerian priests to encode gods' names by inverting them...

So Gibil was written bil-gi, where "bil" means fire and "gi" means reed, stick...So Gibil is not a name. It means fire stick, fire drill...Gibil, the fire god is actually a deified fire stick, the tool used for making fire...

Which is exactly what the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I is worshiping: a fire stick on a throne, altar...

Babylonians and Assyrians are not worshipping Nusku "in symbolical form"...They are worshiping Nusku in his original form, Gi-Bil, Bil-Gi, Fire Stick...

Anyone stopped to think why would Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, people from some of the most developed ancient civilisations, worship a fire stick? If making fire was by their time already a common knowledge for eeee 1 million years (according to official history books)...

Ah wait. I did 🙂

And I published what I thought about it in these three articles: "Fire-drill", "Fire bird", "Prometheus"

Did Sumerians believe that the fire god possessed unfathomable wisdom, because they considered the invention of fire making to be such an amazing thing, that it could only have been a product of "unfathomable wisdom which all gods together could not get". Let alone mortals...

But that is ridiculous....Right? We all "know" that humans have been able to make fire like for ever...

ZIB-BA AN-NA

In this article I would like to talk about the constellation Libra. 

If you search for the information about this constellation, you will find that "it was Romans who first marked Libra as a separate constellation". The sun at that time rose in Libra on the autumnal equinox, a day during which daylight and nighttime are evenly divided. So libra was the balance point of heaven. 

In my post about Libra zodiac sign, I wrote that Libra was originally just the Solar marker for the Autumn Equinox, the moment when we have "the balance of heaven" and that the constellation was a late addition...

The widely available info on Libra will tell you that "the ancient Greeks called the Libra “Chelae,” which means Claws". 

Why? 

Well because they didn't see Libra as a separate constellation that it is today. 

They saw the constellation we today call Libra as "Claws of Scorpio". 

This name was used in early Greek astronomy as a name of constellation Libra by Eudoxus, Aratus, Pseudo-Eratosthenus and the others...

The less widely available info on Libra will tell you that after the 3rd century BC. we find the name zygos "the balance", lit. "balance, beam of balance, yoke, lever" first mentioned as a name of the Libra constellation in Greek texts. 

Interestingly, in Ptolemy's Almagest both names occur. The Claw as the constellation name and The Balance as the zodiacal name (mainly in tables).

Anyway, we can see from this that it is quite possible (well certain) that Romans borrowed Libra as the name of the constellation from the Greeks...

But of course Greeks didn't invent this Libra = Balance thingy themselves. Like many other things, they borrowed this from their eastern neighbours....

To see where the Greeks could have nicked "Claws" as the name for Libra, we need to look at MUL.APIN (𒀯𒀳) a Babylonian text that deals with astronomy and astrology. Most likely compiled around 1000 BCE, the text is preserved in a 7th-century BCE copy on a pair of tablets...

And it this text we find this:

mulZI.BA.AN.NA SI mulGIR.TAB = zibanitu karan zuqaqīpu 

What the hell is this?

The Akkadian word for "scorpion" was "zuqaqīpu". It was written with the cuneiform signs GIR.TAB.

Seriously cool. It actually looks like scorpion...

Now what about ZI.BA.AN.NA?

Sumerians had two words meaning Scales, Balance": 

The first one was GIŠ.ERIN.

The second one, which is believed to have been a borrowing from Akkadian, was  ZI.BA.AN.NA. It was actually an expression consisting of two words: ZI.BA (balance) and AN.NA (heaven). Apparently, it was "a type of balance being provided with an otherwise unknown part or mechanism called *zibana". These words are derived from the common Semitic root "*zbn" which seems to convey the idea of making a special sort of bargain...

Both were found in astronomical texts as a name of constellation and zodiacal sign Libra. 

Sumerians obviously saw Libra as "the moment when heaven is in balance"...But did then mean  equinox (day day equal to night) or did they mean something else? 

In several of my posts, like "7 stars of Scorpio" and "Ploughing", I explained why Scorpio is where it is on the zodiac circle. The climate in Mesopotamia is divided into two seasons: dry, hot part (end of April, beginning of May-end of October beginning of November) and wet, cool part (end of October beginning of November - end of April, beginning of May). The moment when hot, dry part of the year turns into wet cool part of the year, the moment when "the balance tips from death to life" is the moment when the first winter rains arrive. And when the first rains arrive, scorpions disappear, because the weather gets too cold and wet...And when scorpions disappear, it's time to sow grains...Which is why we see scorpion above the sowing plough on this seal

So what tipping point was really marked by ZI.BA.AN.NA, "the balance of heaven"? Is it just "darkness returning / night overcoming day"? Or was it that and "life returning / rain and cold overcoming drought and heat"?  

Not sure. 

But, in my post about "Dilmun scorpion/goats seal" I talked about how scorpion, because of it's association with the arrival of rains, was in Mesopotamia, but not just in Mesopotamia, the symbol of the return of life. We can see this clearly on this seal on which a palm tree (the tree of life) grows out of a scorpion.

The Ibex goats are just another symbol of the beginning of the rain season, as they mate when the first rains arrive...I talked about this link between Ibex goats and rain Mesopotamia in my posts "Jumping goat", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar", "Queen Puabi's cylinder seal" and many others...

Anyway, the mystery of what was the real meaning of the "balance of heaven", continues into Akkadian times and then into Babylonian times.  

Now that we know what ZI.BA.AN.NA and GIR.TAB mean, the above expression from the Babylonian text MUL.APIN

"ZI.BA.AN.NA SI GIR.TAB"

Can be interpreted in two ways:

1. As a listing of two unrelated features found in the night sky: 

"The Scales and The Horn (The Claws) of the Scorpion" 

2. as an equation of the two words referring to the same feature found in the night sky 

"The Scales otherwise known as The Horn (The Claws) of the Scorpion" 

Babylonians clearly saw Libra as Weighing scales. Their name for it was "Zibānu", the word related to "zibānītu" meaning "Weighing scales"...

But in Mesopotamia, weighing scale had the same shape as a Scorpion's claws

And as I already said earlier, we don't know what BALANCE of HEAVEN we are talking about... 

So it is easy to see why the Greeks understood the above excerpt from MUL.APIN as "ZI.BA.AN.NA, the name for the Libra constellation,  means claws of scorpion"...

Alexander Militarev in "Once more on the origin of Semitic and Greek star names: an astronomic- etymological approach updated" says that this is exactly what Arabs did. Their name for Libra "az-zibana" meaning "Claws (of the Scorpius)" was a misinterpretation of the Akkadian/Sumerian "ZI.BA.AN.NA" by the Arabs and its replacement with their "ZUBAN/ZABAN" meaning "insect bite"...

Interestingly, the Sumerian/Akkadian word ZI.BA (balance) has no known etymology. One proposition found in the paper "The Names of the Assyro-Babylonian Months and Their Regents" by W. Muss-Arnolt is that it is derived from the root *zibu=gold, presuming weighing scales were originally invented to weigh gold only...So "zibānītu" would literally mean "the gold thing"...

Hardly likely... 

Now here is something mad...Proto-Slavic "zybati" meaning "to cradle, to rock, to swing"...From Proto-Slavic "*zybь" meaning "oscillation" but beyond that - of uncertain origin...

???

Remember "ZI.BA (balance) was a type of balance being provided with an otherwise unknown part or mechanism called *zibana"

I mean ziba = oscillate, rock, swing is what zibanitu, zibanu = scale does...Until ziba = balance (or tipping point???) is reached...Right?

But that balance is short lived. The scale swings (ZI.BA) all the time. Summer follows winter which follows summer which...

Anyway, another old Mesopotamian root found in Slavic languages...

Like Sumerian words for Mind, Writing, Grain, Grain devouring insect, Sickle, Life, Breath, Teeth. And Akkadian word for acorn

How? Why?

Ehh if I only knew the answer to this question...

Teeth

In most Slavic languages "zub" means tooth. Officially it comes from Proto-Slavic "*zǫbъ" from Proto-Balto-Slavic "*źámbas" from PIE "*ǵómbʰos"... 

Hmmm... 

Sumerian word for teeth is "zú"....

Sumerian language was attested from the late 4rd millennium BC, but is probably much older. It is officially not related to IE languages... 

Based on statistical analysis (???) as we have no written sources, Indoeuropean (IE) languages starting branching out from the hypothetical Protoindoeuropean (PIE) language some time between mid 5th and mid 4th millennium BC 

Officially, Slavic languages are much younger and branched out much later, some time after the early 2nd millennium BC...

How come then Slavic "zubi" (teeth) has the same root as Sumerian "zú" teeth? Another ancient root miraculously preserved in "young" Slavic languages?

Just like words for Mind, Writing, Grain, Life, Breath, Grain devouring insect, Sickle whose roots are the same in Slavic languages and Sumerian...

Mystery...

Ore

And this is why I will never finish my article about Enki 🙂 I was looking for a picture of Tigris and Euphrates river system when I came across the discussion about the etymology of the name Euphrates. 

Apart from a suggestion that the name comes from an "unrecorded substrate language" we also have a suggestion that the origin of the name Euphrates could be Proto-Sumerian *burudu, Sumerian urudu (copper). Which would make Euphrates "The copper river'. 

"Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical" By Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, Vjaceslav V. Ivanov

The explanation for this proposition is that Euphrates was the river by which the copper ore and metal was transported from the rich copper mines in the Maden/Elazığ region where we also find the source of Euphrates...You can read more about these copper mines in "Geochemistry: Earth's System Processes" by Dionisios Panagiotaras

Now this Sumerian word for copper is very very interesting...

"urudu, uruda, urud" (copper, metal). From "ùru" (luminous object), + "dù" (to make, apply, mould, cast)

Now the word "ùru" actually means "watchfire; light; glowing, luminous object, to watch, guard; to protect"

What we are talking about here is the watch fire, the camp fire, made to slowly burn, glow for the night....

The colour of this fire is orange-red-shiny...And so that would mean that the Sumerian word for copper literally means "something made orange-red-shiny"...

Which is basically what copper looks like...

Well if it's found as a pure natural copper...This is the first copper exploited by men. It didn't require any smelting. Just finding it, digging it, and then cold working it into metal objects...

But this type of pure natural copper is very rare...Most copper is found in different types of ores which are not orange-red-shiny. 

They have to be mined, crushed, smelted to be turned into orange-red-shiny copper, which can then be worked into metal objects...

Which means that Sumerians called copper "something we made to be "ùru" (orange-red-shiny)...

Here is the interesting bit: In Slavic languages the word for ore is "ruda" which comes from Proto Slavic word "rudъ" meaning red, which comes from PIE root "h₁rewdʰ-" meaning red (in all its hews from orange to brown) which has cognates in pretty much all IE languages meaning red...Except in Indo-Iranian languages where it means red "metal, copper" 🙂 ...

So Slavic word ruda (ore) literally means orange-red stuff...Why? Why would ore be equal to red? Well because, the first ore (stone mined to be processed by crushing and smelting) was not copper. It was ochre.

Ochre is a natural clay earth pigment which is a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. 

The most popular variant of ochre was "red ochre" which owed it's colour to large amounts of hematite, or dehydrated iron oxide...

Here is what the red ochre looks like when it's found

Iron oxide is one of the most common minerals found on earth, and there is much evidence that yellow and red ochre pigment was used in prehistoric and ancient times by many different civilisations on different continents.

The use of ochre dates to the Middle Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic. 

The earliest evidence of its use by "Modern Humans" in Africa dates to 307,000 years ago.

The earliest evidence of its use by Neanderthals in Europe dates to 250,000 years ago...

Red ochre was mined in mines like this 20,000 years old red ochre mine discovered in Tzines, Greece...

And red was all the rage in Palaeolithic...

Palaeolithic people used red ochre for painting their skin to protect it from the sun and from insects (there are indications that red ochre is an insect and particularly mosquito repellent) and for painting pictures in caves, like this bison from the cave of Altamira in Spain, painted with red ochre between 16,500 and 15,000 BC.

There is even a theory that the red ochre directly contributed to the human evolution...

The second ore mined was cinnabar. 

Cinnabar was mined to make vermilion, the brightest of red pigments...

And red was all the rage in Neolithic...

The first documented use of vermilion pigment, made with ground cinnabar, dates to 8000–7000 BC, and was found at the neolithic village of Catalhoyuk, in modern-day Turkey. Which means that the people of Catalhoyuk were already mining cinnabar somewhere in the area at that time...Cinnabar was mined in Spain beginning in about 5300 BC. Archeologist Miloje Vasić believed that the vast mines of cinnabarite (mercury-sulfide) on Avala were crucial for the development of the Vinča culture, on the banks of the Danube in Serbia circa 5700 BC. In China, the first documented use of cinnabar as a pigment was by the Yangshao culture (5000–4000 BC), where it was used to paint ceramics, to cover the walls and floors of rooms, and for ritual ceremonies.

So the first ore was red-orange and the second ore was red...

No wonder the word for ore in Slavic languages comes from "rud" (red-orange) + da (give) = what gives us red-orange...

Around the same time people in the middle east started mining and processing native metallic copper. A copper pendant was found in northern Iraq that dates to 8700 BC...

So the third ore was orange-red...

Well this is interesting...

Wait, how old are these Indo-European words then? Could they really have palaeolithic or neolithic origin? 

And are they Indo-European at all? Does Indo-European and Non Indo-European even make sense if we are talking about Palaeolithic and Neolithic???

Considering that the Sumerian word for copper comes from "uru" (orange-red) + du (to make)...Should I mention again that Sumerian "urudu" was also spelled "uruda"? Very similar to rud + da, right??? Or was it originally ru + da??? 

Have a look at this. 

There is another Slavic word "krv" which comes from the PIE root "krewh₂-" which means "blood outside the body (as of a wound)"...What is the original red pigment? Well blood of course...

And our ancient ancestors must have had a word for it...I mean when not killing eachother they were killing animals for meat...Blood everywhere...

So logically, "h₁rewdʰ-" (red) and "krewh₂-" (blood) have to be related...Right? 

The common part for both of these PIE roots is "ru" (rew)...

Interestingly we have several Slavic words for red-orange-brown which are all based on "ru":

rud, rus, rujan, rumen...

Now that would provide the link between the PIE words for ore (ruda) and orange-red (rud) with Sumerian words for copper (urudu, uruda) and orange-red (uru)...

But maybe there is no other link here except the fact that both culture mined "the red ores"...Same experience produces the same linguistic links between red and ore without the need for borrowing...

But....

Did you know that the PIE word for blood "krv" is found as a root for some very interesting Semitic words, going all the way to Akkadian, related to sacrifices...I talked about this in my article "kurban"...

So this is very very interesting...Right?

Scribe

I would like to talk about Sumerian writing: Cuneiform. Actually about their words for "write" and "tablet, document"...

Cuneiform emerged in Sumer in the late fourth millennium BC to convey the Sumerian language, "a language isolate which has no relationship with any other language"...It is one of the earliest known systems of writing...

Cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms...

In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract, eventually turning into symbols...

The pictograms (later symbols) were were cut on clay tablets, using a blunt reed for a stylus. Basically, cuneiform writing was "making marks on clay using chiseling technique"...

Now, the word for writing in sumerian was "sar, šar" written using this symbol:

And the word for tablet, document was "dub" written using this symbol:

Unsurprisingly the word for a scribe was "dub-sar" (tablet, document-writer):

And scribes learned their trade in "e-dub-ba-a" house of documents writing 

Here is a very interesting thing. 

Sumerian document (dub) was clay tablet (dub) with patterns, symbols gouged, chiselled, written (sar, šar) into it...

In Serbian, the word for chiselling, gouging is "dub" and the word for "making patterns, symbols" is "šar"...

So Sumerian dub-šar (scribe) literally means "one who gouges, chisels patterns, symbols" in Serbian...

Eee what? 

How can such important words in Sumerian, language isolate, have roots in Serbian, totally unrelated IE language, which only appeared after Sumerian language died out?

Now this must be a complete coincidence, a fluke. But unfortunately this is just another example where we find Slavic words related to very important words found in Sumerian. 

Like words related to knowledge...You can read more about this in my post "Um"

Or

Like words related to grain agriculture...You can read more about this in my posts "Breath" and "Sickle"

I don't have an explanation for this madness, but...Have a look at this: 

The Vinča symbols, sometimes known as the Vinča script are a set of symbols found on Neolithic artefacts from the Vinča culture (6th to 5th mill BC) from Central Europe with its centre in Serbia...

And these are the Tărtăria tablets, discovered in 1961 at a Vinča culture site in the village of Tărtăria, in Romania. Originally dated to c. 5300 BC. 

Looks familiar?

Here is the best bit. Apparently archaeologists are now proposing much later date, based on the signs!!! And are dating tablets to 2,750 BC-3,300 BC, when Sumerian proto-writing, otherwise known as dub-šar :), was developed...

Now to conclude. I actually believe that Sumerian is a language isolate. And is not related to IE languages, including Serbian. But It is annoying that we keep finding these isolated, important words in Sumerian with IE roots...Why? As I said I have no explanation of this madness...

But we can't just ignore all this...Right?

Sumerian dictionaries:

Sumerian cuneiform English dictionary ed. Peter & Tara Hogan
Sumerian Lexicon Version 3.0 by John A. Halloran
The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary

Um

A ceramic vessel bearing the sculpture of a pensive-looking figure has been found in the Israeli city of Yehud. The vessel dates back about 4,000 years, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

But this is not the only nor the oldest ancient "thinker" figurine. This clay figurine depicting a person deep in thought, which with the height of 49cm far exceeds the usual figurine size for the Neolithic period, was found in Larissa – Greece. It dates to the period 4500 – 3000 BC.

This is another figurine depicting a person deep in thought. This one, known as the "Thinker of Tarpesti" was made by people of the Cucuteni culture at some point between 4750 and 4500 BC. Cucuteni culture was a Neolithic - Chalcolithic culture from Romania - Ukraine. This one is interesting as it portrays an old man with a beard, and elder...

This is the so called "Thinker of Hamangia". It was made between 5250 and 4550 BC by people from the Neolithic Hamangia culture, a Late Neolithic archaeological culture of Dobruja (Romania and Bulgaria).

The first level of knowledge is experience. You experience things, and you learn what works and what doesn't. Basically you learn to survive. Then you pass this knowledge to your progeny so they can survive.  They will hopefully learn from your experience. Which is why in most cultures, elders were respected and used as advisors both in families and in societies.

The next level of knowledge is understanding of the reasons why something works and something doesn't work. This allows you to progress from "this works" to "this works because...".

The final level of knowledge is inventing new knowledge. This allows you to progress from "this works" and "this works because..." to "this new thing I just invented is better way of doing..."

Everyone (who is still alive) can learn from experience.
Some can understand their knowledge.
Very few can create new knowledge.

These precious few are depicted by the above figurines.

Without them we would still be animals...

What enables humans to learn, understand and invent is their mind, their "thinking machine".

Now here is something interesting.

The word "mind" comes from Proto-Germanic "*mundiz" (memory, remembrance), from Proto-Indo-European "*méntis" (thought), from Proto-Indo-European "*men-" (to think).

PIE "*men-" is the root of the word for mind in pretty much all Indoeuropean languages:

Proto-Indo-Iranian

mánas = mind, intellect, thought

Ancient Greek

μένος (menos) = mind, desire, ardor, wish, purpose, anger, courage, spirit, vigor, power, strength, force, violence

Latin

Minerva = goddess of wisdom

Proto-Celtic

manyetor = to think

Old Church Slavonic

мьнѣти (mĭněti) = think, assume, believe

And then in Slavic languages we have these words:

"um" which comes from Proto Slavic "umъ" which means mind, thought, understanding.
"uman" = wise, smart (one who has um) probably from "um" (mind) + "on" (him)
"razum" = ras + um = split, separate + mind = intellect, reason, understanding
"umeti" = to know how, to be able to (literally to have mind)
"umetnost" = art (literally to be really good at being able to do something)
"umešnost" = artistry, skill

Now the etymology of this word is uncertain. Officially it is "possibly from PIE *men- meaning to think"...

Deriving "um" from "men" is problematic. You could say that "um" (mind) was derived from "uman" (wise, smart) which is derived from "u" (in) + "men" (think) =  with thoughts inside...??? But that is very unlikely as we actually have the word "mineti" which is derived from "men". 

I would propose that it was actually the opposite. The PIE root "men" (to think) was derived from even older root "um" (mind)  through "uman" (wise, smart, able to think) by dropping "u" at the beginning. This root was preserved for some weird reason only in Slavic languages.

There are several reasons why I think that this is the case.

1. The root "um" (mind) can be derived from "u" (in, inside) + "m" (me, myself) = inside of me, the inner me, mind.

I talked about this in my post "Vowels", in which I discussed the intrinsic values vowels have in Serbian. 

Here is the relevant excerpt: 

The holy sound of Vedas which is said to represent "the whole of Vedas", is OM, pronounced as "AUM"

I actually believe that this sound was originally AOUM but that O was lost first only for AU to be later replaced with O.

And here is something very interesting:


AOUM consists of these vowels: A - outside, O surface of the body, U inside of the body, M core. M is one of the only two sounds that can be made with your mouth closed. And the only sound that produces the vibration of the whole central cavity, our core. This is why M is the core sound of words that mean me, my, myself (me, mene in Serbian), the words whose meaning is directed inwards. So the above mantra brings our focus from outside into our core, (m)ind by using emotional discharge through descending vowels. The word for mind in Serbian is UM. This word derives its meaning from U + M = inside + me = mind. This is probably the old "AOUM" shortened down to the absolute minimum number of sounds necessary to convey the intended meaning of internal me, real me....mind, UM.

That this ancient root is not just my fantasy can be seen from the fact that we find it in derived words in Sumerian, which was already completely separate unrelated languages during the 5th millennium BC. 

umum, umun

umum  -  metalworker, smith, mold, raw form or material

I love the fact that ideas are linked to mold. Just like objects are created from ideas, metal objects are created from molds

umun - deep thinking, knowledge, scholarship, idea;
umun - title of respect (the knowledgeable one, the wise one, elder)
nam-umun-na: sovereignty (abstract prefix + "title of respect, elder" + nominative).

I love the fact that it seems that in Sumerian knowledge was respected to the point where "the wise one" became the title of respect which gave the root to the work sovereignty...

ki-umun-(m): "place of knowledge" (school)

And this is great:

umu, um: old woman; nurse; wise or skilful teacher.

Women were original preservers and passers of knowledge...

um-mi-a

um-mi-a = scholar, expert, craftsman

In Slavic languages "ume" = "he knows how"

umuš: discernment; intelligence; reflection, consideration; decision
umuš...kúr: to change one's mind ('discernment; decision' + 'to change').

That this is not just a "weird coincidence" can be seen from the fact that some other, pretty important root words, like the words for life and grain are also the same in Slavic and Sumerian languages. I wrote about this in my post "breath".

The million dollar question is still opened: How did Slavic and Sumerian, two totally unrelated languages, end up sharing these words? Considering that the meaning of the base root "um" (mind, my inner self) can be derived from the meanings of even simpler Slavic roots "u" (in, inner) and "m" (me) suggest that the borrowing went from PIE to Sumerian. When did this borrowing happen? Probably during metalwork expansion from the Balkans eastward into Mesopotamia, probably at the very beginning of the Sumerian civilisation. 

Interesting, right?

Finally where does the word "human" come from? Official etymology says from Latin "humanus" (humane) which comes from "humus" (ground, floor, earth, soil)...

Apparently:

"The phenomenon of a derivational relationship between the words for both earth and man is also seen in Semitic languages: Hebrew אָדָם‎ (adám, “man”), אֲדָמָה‎ (adamá, “soil”)"

I mean this is mad. Men, animals, plants are "of earth", born by Mother Earth...There is nothing special there about humans...


Is it possible that the root is "um" (mind, brain, intelligence) through "uman" (one who has mind, brain intelligence) = human, not animal???

And I think these ancient words prove that this indeed could be the case:

Enemy, malevolent. From dus (negative prefix) + (u)manas, (u)menas = bad human

Indo-Iranian: *dušmánas 
Hellenic: *dusmenḗs

Friend, benevolent. From hsu (positive prefix) + (u)manas, (u)means = good human

Indo-Iranian: *Hsumánas
Hellenic: *ehumenḗs

But this would mean that these words from "ancient" Indoeuropean language branches would have to be derived from a word root from "the youngest" Indoeuropean language branch...Not a very popular suggestion...



Sumerian sources: 

https://www.sumerian.org/sumlogo.htm

https://www.bulgari-istoria-2010.com/Rechnici/Sumerian_Cuneiform_English_Dictionary_12.pdf