4) Revision of past episodes

Before diving into the word « Tour », I must once again begin with an erratum. Don't think it's easy: I may be the Paraklet, but I'm a man like everyone else. Anyway, in my last video about sharing, when talking about the PaRTs of the carcass, I should have mentioned the aNTeRioR et du PoSTeRioR - which divide both time and bodies. In Greek, anterior is ySTéRos, from which derive ySTéRa, eNTRaiLs and uTeRuS.

By the way, ySTéRos posterior is a comparative. Do you know how to say the superlative, « the oldest »? ySTaTos : here again, the same R and ST form, found in « MoRe » and « MoST » - my 3 buddies. But let's get back to the VeNTRal entrails, from Latin VeNTeR, back to the GaSTèR in Greek. That's where our « gastroenteritis » comes from.

There's another word I forgot in my previous video on sharing, the Latin ToRReo, to DRy, and which appears in ToRRiD or the French ToRRéFié (RoaSTed). What does this have to do with parting meat? The connection is simple: dried meat, « carne seca » in Brazil 🙂, is made by cutting meat into small STRiPs that are then spread out in the sun. In Greek, dried meat is TaRiQos.

Then, in Egyptian, there's also ITReT, a line, a RoW - in short, a STRoKe. And lastly - and this is an unforgiveable oversight - we find TaR in TeRuwMah. TeRuwMah, in the TowRah, is the ConTRiBution, the PaRT BRouGht, PoRTed, to the temple PRieSTs. So much for parting and porting, to borrow a pun from Marcel Jousse, that out-of-fashion anthropologist to whom I'll return soon.

But that's not all. I also need to add several points to my second-to-last video on the Ra sound. First of all, you may remember that I mentioned the net, ReTe in Latin, in reference to the STReaKed one. I should have mentioned that in Hebrew, the net is ReSheT - remember ShaR SeR, SeWing ...

And above all, most of the verbs used in Genesis to express the concept of creation include the Ra sound: ʔaMaR to say, QaRaʔ to call, BaRaK to BLeSS, BaRaʔ to CReate, to SePaRate, and NiReʔah to aPPeaR. There's of course also HaRah which means to ConCeiVe, to give BiRTh to - you'll recall we had the same in Egyptian with IRI, the eye expressing the idea of making or conceiving. But more importantly, I forgot to mention YaRaʔ: FeaR. Fear of the PoWeR of the eTeRNaL, the divine. Of the iéRos I've already mentioned.

And getting back to Egyptian there's also IARuW, the ReeD, growing in the shape of a STRoKe, by the RiVeR. The ReeD was very important in Egypt, but I won't draw it for you, otherwise it'll take up all the space, and I need it. Then there's also HRuW, the DaY, in the same semantic field as auRoRa, oR in French (gold – auReus in Latin), ʔowR, the light in Hebrew.

And then there's WOR, meaning to flee RaPiDly, from which derives WOReT, the leg, and, probably, RuWT, the DooR I mentioned in my previous video and that I associated, probably erroneously, to the concept of « tranching ». But I'll come back to my doubts about Ancient Egyptian at the end of this video.

In short, as Heraclitus said « PaNTa Réi » : everything FLoWs, or rather everything is « Ra ».

OK, now this short erratum is over, let’s go back to my trial; remember, the one where I am being sued by those clueless and lazy Pharisian linguists who accuse me of choosing my aSSoCiations. They are not completely WRoNG: when you get into paleolithic linguistics, one needs to be thorough, not to remain a clueless and lazy Pharisian linguist.

Let’s take a closer look at all the Hebrew words ending with TaR. We’ve already seen BeTaR, the PaRT of an animal, waTaR, the part that’s left behind, yowTaR, the surplus of the PaRTing, MuTaR, a part that is authorized. And then there is also nowTaR, with a VaV, what’s left of the parting.

Let’s linger a moment on NoTaR. Without the VaV, this word has several meanings, and several of them are related to movement, to TRaNSPoRT – we’ve seen this already, or to DeTaChment (I’ll come back to this in a few minutes). Then there is also NeTeR, NiTRe, from which our NiTRaTes come from. However, this meaning of NeTeR comes from the Egyptian NeTseR (a god), and Netsher is very different from NeTeR. We’ll come back to this shortly.

We also saw KeTeR, the CRoWN, the CaPiTal, something that SuRRouNDs. We’ve seen the connection with KiTR and KaTR in Arab, the dromedary’s hump; but I’ll expand on this soon.

There are more. First, ʕaTaR which means abundance - again - and also its counterpart, to BeG - remember the parasite, who eats at your table. There is also PeTeR, to SoLVe a problem, and its metathesis PeRaT meaning ..to DiViDe, to part, to partition, and from which comes the name of the Euphrates river, which divides itself into several BRaNChes. Those words relate easily with the theme of sharing.

As you can see, TaRa has many derivatives, which shows its seminal and archaic nature. Three of them are trickier: first ḥaTaR, meaning to DiG and ṢeTeR, the SeCReT, close to ṢowD, also secret. If you don’t mind, we will leave those aside for the moment.

And what are we left with? ʔaTaR, the place, the location, ʔaÇaR in Arabic. It is not featured in the Torah itself (apart from the plural ʔaTaRym, which refers to a specific place), but in the books of Ezra and Daniel; just as – remember? - TowR the bull (TauRus in latin), written ShowR in the other books of the Old Testament.

So my first clue, to understand the meaning of ʔaTaR, was that it was a place, for indeed, to express the idea of place, the first letter often turns out to be Aleph, what linguists call the « GLoTTal stop » (ʔ); for example ʔY, meaning an island, but also the idea of non-existence, ʔeReTs, the eaRTh, where we run, ʔaḤ, the HeaRTh, the place where HeaT is present, or ʔaRaḤ, to eRR, which we've seen already. We have the same phenomenon in French with the prepositions « à », « y », « où », « en », « au », also conveying the idea of place. Remember this rule of Paleolithic linguistics: France has been the eldest daughter of the Church for tens of tens of thousands of years, long before there was even a Church, and long before there were even Jews.

As my research progressed, I realized that many traces of so-called butchery SiTes had been discovered. Butchery sites were places where animals were TRaPPed, SLauGhTeRed, and CuT into pieces to be then TRaNSPoRTed back to camp. Among them, the Mesolithic auRoChs hunting site of Sénas, in the French Bouches-du-Rhône region, has been studied in detail, enabling us to better understand how our ancestors cut up animals, thanks to the meticulous study of all bones from each animal.