E 0537          LIFE, TO LIVE

The words " life " and " to live " are of Germanic origin .

H 0535          ב ל

Concept of root : (seat of ) life

Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

ב ל

lev, liv-

heart

Related English words

life

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

ב ל

      lev, liv-

heart

l . v

English

life;

to live

life ;

to live

l . f;

l . v

Old English

līf

l . f

German

Leben;

leben;

Leib

lében;

libe;

laib

life;

to live;

body

l . b

Dutch

leven;

leven;

lijf

léven;

life

life;

to live;

body

l . v

Swedish

liv;

leva;

liv

liv;

leva;

liv

life;

to live;

body

l . v

 

 

Proto-Semitic *LĪB --- *LĪF- < *LĪB- Proto-Germanic < *LĪB- Indo-European

 

 

A bit daringly, with also the entries E 0452 (Hebrew 0533) and E 0547 (Hebrew 0534), we give three similarities on the basis of the Hebrew word "lev", for "heart". Basis of our thesis is of course the supposition that the heart has been seen as the seat of life. In Hebrew it has basically remained at that position of the important organ we feel as it throbs in our chest . It has not given way to words meaning "to live", but may have been connected with long disappeared pre-Semitic, Afro-Asiatic or even Nostratic words, that have continued their road on a wide track into Germanic languages ( to live ) and in more narrow ways into other European tongues.

 

Note:
  • Swedish. The final A in the verb "leva" is typical for Swedish, but it is a suffix, not part of the root.

 

Note:
  • Living and staying. There is a widespread theory according to which the word "life" and its sisters have been derived from an Indo-European root "*leip", expressing some concepts like "humidity", "sliminess"and "stickiness . This idea has been reinforced by the reasoning that in German (bleiben), Dutch (blijven) and Nordic (blive), like in Old English (belīfan) we find words that look like the words for "life" and "to live", and have as their meaning "to remain".

     

    The reasoning goes that "to remain" means "to stick around", thus "to stick". Therefore the concept "to live" has been expressed by means of the concept "to stick".

     

    This seems to us an upside-down way of thinking. The mentioned Germanic words, "bleiben" etc., all have been formed by adding a prefix "be" to an existing root. This is very clear, as often, in Middle Dutch, where we still find the original word "be-liven" side by side with the newer contracted form "bliven". Old English has as well the original form with "be-" in "belīfan".

     

    Another point is that, when Man wanted to express in words the concepts of his own body, of life and living and of the heart he felt inside, he certainly was not guided by ideas of his own sliminess, humidity or stickiness. Nor of that of fatness. Thus the root "L B", often becoming "L V" or "L F" according to pronunciation habits becoming rules, came to life in both senses. We will perhaps never know the reason or explanation of this choice. The common vowel inbetween was not a "resounding" A or O, but a more intimate E or less dominant I. We really do not know very much about the way vowels were chosen.

     

    The resulting frequent sound "LIV" has as a counterpart without clear relationship in Latin "VIV". Latin has a sister in Oscan (an Italic tongue) "BIV" and a cousin in Greek "BIW" that has led to the internationally well-known word "βιος , bios" for "life". In Old Indian (Sanskrit) we see "JIV" and in Old Church Slavic "ZIV" that is near another Greek root "ZO" or "ZW" and may correspond with "JIV" or with an eventual "*GIV".

     

    We know of no way to explain the difference between "LIV" and the group "VIV-BIV" or "ZIV-JIV". Particular aspect of this situation is that Greek is present in both these last two groups.

     

    The total picture strengthens our basic idea of the relationship between Germanic and Hebrew, as we tried to approach it in the entries E 0452 (Hebrew 0533), E 0547 (Hebrew 0534) and the present E 0537 (Hebrew 0535).

 

Note:
  • Hebrew life. It may be useful to look again at entry E 0297 (Hebrew 0469), where we see that the Hebrew word for "to live" is a reinforced version of the word for "to be". And that the older version of this root has "GH W", found in the Biblical name for the Mother of Life, "EVE".

     

    This "GH W" is not impossibly far from "JIV" or a hypothetical "*GIV" in the previous paragraph. But this kind of conjecture would require a special profound research.

 

Note:
  • Body. Apparently the body is what lives and that explains the use of one and the same root to say "life" and "body" in Germanic languages. In Swedish the words are still identical. The English word "body" has a different origin, as we supposed in entry E 0103 (Hebrew 0237).

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic. Proto-Semitic had this root that continued into Hebrew, seen also in Aramaic and Syriac "ל ב א , libbŕ" and "lebbŕ = heart, stomach". Ugaritic uses the same two consonant root, Ethiopian has "lebb", Arabic "lubb" and Akkadian "libbu".

     

    Proto-Semitic probably used already "*ל ב , L B". It is useful to note, that as to the distance between "heart" and "life" as concepts, some Semitic languages use the root of this entry also to express the idea of "mind". This is found in Aramaic and in old Ge'ez Ethiopic.

 

Note:
  • Proto-Germanic. In all Germanic languages the concept of "to live" is expressed by verbs that have a first consonant "L". The following vowel is either an "I" that is mostly short, " Ĭ " or, as in German since Old High German and in Middle Dutch and Dutch, a long "Ē". The second consonant is generally "B", with an exception for Old Norse "lifa" and Middle Dutch, Low German and Dutch all having "V" in "lēven". The resulting probable Proto-Germanic form is "*L Ī B", as seen in the older languages Old English "libban"m, Old Frisian "libba", Old Saxon "libbian" (but also "lebon), Gothic "liban" and Old Frankish "libbon". But it is still quite possible that in Proto-Germanic also the vowel "Ē" was used.

     

    One may note that the form "*L Ī B" is in fact the same that is found in constructive forms in Hebrew!

     

    In the above table we have mentioned a few words that have been shaped with the root of this entry and bear the meaning of "body". In older languages we see examples in which one word says "life" as well as "body" and often "person". This is the case with Middle High German "līp", Old Frisian "līf" Old Norse "līf" and Old Saxon "līf". Probably Proto-Germanic used a form "*L Ī F-" to express the noun "life" as well as the noun for "body". This final "F" is a development from "B", not from "P" as some might think. The final "P" in Middle High German is a temporary alteration, between Old High German "līb" and modern German "Leib".

 

Note:
  • Indo-European. For the concept of "life" we find in Indo-European groups "LIV" in Germanic, "VIV" in Latin" and "BIW (BIO)" in Greek. We have no answer to the question of a common origin for these three forms. For the Germanic "version" LIV" a similarity with Semitic has been argued in this entry. Possible cognates with related messages in Slavic, Latin and Old Indian have been presented in Entry E 0547 (Hebrew 0534).

     

     

    Indo-European seems to have had the consonants "L . B". The used vowel may have been "U" or "I", with the first one more probable : "*L U B-" and "*L I B-". In the comparison anove we present this last version.

 

 

 

 

 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 25/01/2013 at 16.25.02