About the dangers of science

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

What the word "rainbow" can tell.

All of us at school were forced to sort out words by composition. Remember? I remember very well. Because he regularly received two and three for this thankless job. Well, I did not understand where all these suffixes and endings come from and why the root can sometimes consist of one letter "w"! I don’t understand even now. If you have children who go to school and also do these idiotic exercises, and you are trying to help them, I think this topic is, alas, relevant for you.

It echoes my previous thoughts on the subject of the word "aristocrat". But only where it is uglier and sadder. Because they asked my fourth-grader to make out the word "rainbow". Are you smiling already? Wait. I'll tell you in order …

We take the reference book by ODUshakov, published in 2008 in the St. Petersburg "Litera". On page 70 we find the word "rainbow". Do you know what it turns out to be made of? From the root of "rainbows" and the ending "a". I am not kidding.

An inquisitive mind calls me further, and I begin to look at the root of the word "rainbow" etymological dictionaries. God, why did I do this! It turns out that scientists have not yet come to an unambiguous conclusion about the origin of this word. Most likely you know which hypothesis is considered? That "rainbow" came from the word "rad". Probably because we are very glad to see her in the sky. And as confirmation, do you know what word is being quoted? They say, they say, this is indicated by the dialectal Ukrainian word "merry". That's how it turns out! Lovely!

Now let's take a simple step aside and look at the familiar English word rainbow. Here, no one has any misunderstandings. Rain - rain and bow - arc. In my native Danish, the same word also divides - regnbue. In German it is Regenbogen. In some Dutch - regenboog. The word "arc" is present everywhere and nowhere does it bother anyone. So why is it that our native linguists do not see it point-blank in the word "rainbow"? I really don't know. Or rather, of course, I know. Because you and I, long before 1917, began to wean from the correct Russian language. Now even the word "alphabet" is not accepted to say - a continuous overseas "alphabet". Of the 49 initial letters of the Russian alphabet, how many have survived to this day? Yes, alas, only 32. And the letters. Numerous “letter-setting” did a good job - from Cyril with Mifody to Lunacharsky and others like him. Soon, they say, all sorts of "e" and "y" will disappear. Well, really, why do we need them? Here in English, look, there are fewer letters, but nothing, somehow, after all, the English cope …

Now I will not delve into the many-thousand-year history of our language with you, into the fact that earlier (before Christianization) the Slavic writing was not alphabetic, but figurative, that gradually these images were etched away, and our language became "ugly", that is, precisely what is ugly, that today we need more and more efforts to penetrate the tinsel of suffixes, roots and prefixes and see that word, that image that is captured in the sound. This is now being done by people who are much more knowledgeable than me. By the way, ahead of your pertinent question, I do not mean M. Zadornov here, because he is completely secondary, he just has access to the microphone and any power, probably for future "diversions" of our thoughts in the right direction. Time will tell.

So what about the rainbow? I think you already guessed everything yourself. Of course, as a primordial word, it has no endings or anything else. It has two clear roots: "ra" and "arc". The preachers of the ugly language, of course, cannot see any "ra" in this word in principle. Because “ra” is “light” (to which you can add the epithets “primordial”, “primordial”, etc.). By the way, hence the "joy" mentioned in etymological dictionaries. Because "to please" is to "give light". So the "arc of light" is what our "rainbow" is. And not at all an incomprehensible root of "rainbows", which our children should highlight today in order not to get a deuce.

And what about the German "rainbows", you ask? While I was writing this article, another stupid thought came to me. In the same super-scientific etymological dictionary Vasmer says that in the dialects of Russian and Ukrainian one can find the word "raiduga". The dictionaries of Sobolevsky, Preobrazhensky and Kalima say that it could be a kind of folk etymology, they say, the "heavenly arc" has become a rainbow. Even "paradise" is referred to as the iris of the eye. In all this confused reasoning, I was interested in the concept of "folk etymology". And I looked closely at the English and Danish “rainbow”. In English, "rain" is read as "rain", but it is written "rain". The Dane writes "regn" but reads "ryin". Can you feel where I'm going? Why not suppose that "folk etymology" also took place in the Germanic languages? In their "rain" our "ra" is clearly heard …

Until we are not forbidden to think, I suggest not to waste time.