Ancient Chinese Character Examination: Create

Ancient Chinese character for 'create'

Now here's an interesting one. Turns out, contrary to popular belief, the ancient Chinese weren't evolutionists, but actually creationists! I'm just kidding, evolutionism in ancient China was certainly not a popular belief. But the character above is another great example that the primitive Chinese believed the events written in the book of Genesis were factual, or at least that's what we're led to assume.

The ancient form of the character meaning 'to create' is depicted at the top of the post, and then just below it, it is broken down a little. The majority of the character is a depiction of being able to 'speak'. Within the speak character are three lesser ones. I mentioned a few days ago that the 'mouth' was another way to say human. The next character, in the center of speak is used to describe 'dust', or 'mud'. The small character just to the right of dust is the simple stroke that meant 'life' or 'movement' in some translations. Those three characters create speak, but the last one, underneath speak, means 'to walk'.

So what does this all mean, and why am I comparing it to the events is Genesis? Well, interestingly enough, this character for creation depicts just what the Hebrew scriptures says about how God breathed the breath of life into man, whom he created from the dust of the ground, and he "became a living soul", capable of walking and speaking.

Ancient Chinese Character Examination: Forbidden

Ancient Chinese character for 'forbidden'

This is interesting, the primitive character for the word 'forbidden', is very, very similar to the word covet. Again with the two trees. But this time, instead of there being a symbol of a woman underneath, there's an abbreviated character of the word for 'God'.

Just as I mentioned yesterday about how the God of the Bible forbid Adam and Eve to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, this is the same thing, and the character for forbidden continues in that same vein.

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I think this is incredible stuff, personally, and it's great to hear that some of you readers out there think so too. If you know any others, or if you want to tip me in on something you personally find interesting, lemme know!

Ancient Chinese Character Examination: Covet, Desire

Ancient Chinese character for Desire

The definition of 'covet', according to Dictionary.com is to "desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others." So why is this ancient Chinese character so special?

If you remember the tale of Adam & Eve, the Biblical first man and woman, they could eat from any tree of the Garden of Eden that they wished, except for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, because they would "positively die". Eve came to covet the fruit of this tree very much, so when the Devil in disguise as a serpent told her she could eat from it, she did. She shared some with Adam, and they brought death into the world, as their bodies slowly began to wither and die.

In the picture there are two trees. In the Bible, it makes mention of two distinct trees of importance within the Garden: the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, and the tree of life. So the inventors of the ancient Chinese characters must have felt that to covet something had much to do with a woman and two trees.

Ancient Chinese Character Examination: Boat

Ancient Chinese character for "boat"

To begin, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the most ancient form of the Chinese character for a boat. As I've been posting about the past few days, history, mythology, and theology collide with the story of Noah's ark. This Chinese character, shares a striking similarity to the account in Genesis.

Chinese is a picture language, meaning that it's almost a drawing of a word. Many times, it's a mix of a few symbols, just as this character for boat is. Within it, are three words, VESSEL, EIGHT, and MOUTH. A boat is a vessel that holds eight mouths. A mouth in many ancient cultures, is another way of saying a person. So eight persons. How many persons were aboard the ark that Noah was told to build, according to the Mosaic account? Eight.

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And yes, I did draw this.

Ancient Chinese and it's Connection with the Book of Genesis

So, yesterday I went and spoke a bit about the events in the book of Genesis that correlated with the ancient mythologies of many nations. Today, I just want to take a look at Chinese. The ancient Chinese language actually. You see, not too long ago, I found evidence that the events in the book of Genesis were also found depicted in a few Chinese characters and symbols. So today, I'll do my best to show you what I mean.

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(EDIT) I've decided to post a few at a time, so that I may save some Chinese characters for off days.

The Nine Muses and My Tenth

So, later tonight I'm going with a group of friends to see the band Muse at Nassau Coliseum.  I thought now would be a great time to bring out what exactly a "muse" is.  Well, in poetry, music, literature and other forms of artistic mediums, a MUSE is anyone or anything that gives cause for inspiration.  Primarily in Greek literature and mythology, a muse (Greek "MOÛS", pl. "MOÛSAI") would be the figurative source of inspiration to the artist, story-teller, or other.

We may go to museums and just figure that they're named that way just because they're there to a-muse you.  Ha.  No.  In fact, a museum literally means "place sacred to the muses" or "home of the muses", because they (by figurative standards) are generally responsible for what you see in museums.  Museum is a word English took straight from Latin.  Mouseîon is it's translation in Greek.

But who exactly are the "Muses"?  Originally there were three: Melete (meaning "practice"), Mnemosyne (memory), and Aeode (song).  As time went on, however, those three branched into nine.  Nine different Muses to embody the arts and inspire creation.  In fact mousike means the "art of the muses", and this is where we get the word music from in our language.

The nine muses were, over time, given emblems so that they were easily recognized by. I shall explain below.

-Calliope is the muse of Epic Poetry, and the emblem she carries is a Writing Tablet. Her name means she has a "beautiful voice".
-Clio is the muse of History, carrying Scrolls. Her name means to "recount" or "make famous".
-Erato is the muse of Lyric Poetry, and she is known to carry a Cithara. Many believe her name comes from the root name of the god Eros, who is the god of sexual love (we get the word "erotic" from his name), and if so, Erato would mean "desired".
-Euterpe is the muse of Music, carrying the Aulos emblem. This means "rejoicing well"
-Melpomene is the muse of Singing, but is closely associated with Tragedy, and she carries around a Tragic Mask. "The one that is melodious"
-Polyhymnia is the muse of Choral Poetry, and carries a Veil. And before I say what her name means, you should be capable by adding poly (many) and hymn (songs). "The one of many hymns"
-Terpsichore is the muse of Dance, and holds the lyre. "Delight of dancing." Also, we have a lesser known word in English that comes from the muses name, and that is TERPSICHOREAN or anything pertaining to dance.
-Thalia is the muse of Comedy, and her emblem is the Comic Mask (yes, as in comedy and tragedy). Her name means "the joyous, the flourishing".
-Urania is the ninth and final muse of Astronomy, known for carrying around a Globe and Compass (how scholarly of her). Her name means "of the heavens" and is a great reference to the planet Uranus.

The reason, mythologically, all these muses came about was that Zeus slept with the original muse of memory, Mnemosyne, for a consecutive nine nights, and thus the nine muses were born.

There's also quite a bit of history as to a tenth muse, but not based on mythological record.  For example Sappho of Lesbos was complimented as being the tenth by Plato, because of how inspiring she was.  So it can be used to compliment those who inspire.  It's ironic that the muse that inspired me to write all of this is the band Muse itself.

Plans for the Future

So, thus far into my blogging campaign, Strongly Entrenched Things has become a daily blog, and I want to keep it as such for the time being.  Of course, there's no way of knowing if and when something comes up and I won't be able to produce enough postings to satisfy the "daily" goal, but I'll do my humanly best.  I'm very excited about some of the postings I've put out thus far, and I look forward to keep up the (good?) work in the future. BUT! I do want to keep you posted on an agenda that I'll be trying my best to stick to.

In the coming weeks I've set up a few topics of thought that I've spaced out for special dates and times. Tomorrow I'm thinking of talking about poetic and mythical "muses", and Sunday... I'm not certain on what to do for Sunday just yet.  But starting on the 25th of October, until the end of the month, I'm going to do a seven part series on the origin of Halloween. No, no, I don't celebrate it, but I do wish to tell the world about it's origins, so that should suffice well enough.  Also, on November 1st I'll be posting something I just looked into today.  It's something so big that... I need over a week of time before I can put it into text.  Let's just say, it's a legend that can be proven true, and on November 2nd I'll back that legend up with some ancient Chinese. So, please stay tuned, at least for those dates.

But anyway, today I'll try to stay out of etymology (study of the origins of words) and teach you a little of some Mandarin (Chinese) that I learned today from a friend of mine. I definitely, definitely, don't know how to create Chinese characters on the computer, and I'm not going to look for them, so I'll just stick with English phonetics to help you pronounce as best as possible.

Let's start with a simple hello: Ni-Hau (This literally translates to "you good")
To turn statements into questions put this word at the end of the sentence: ...Ma?
So then, to ask someone how they're doing: Ni-Hau Ma?
To respond to the question and say I'm good: Wai-Hau ("I good")
If you want to tell someone they're you're friend: Ni-Shie Wah-duh Peng-yo ("You are my friend")
If you want to introduce said friend: Ta Shie Wah-duh Peng-yo (Ta means he or she - "He/she is my friend")
Just put their name after the statement: Ta Shie Wah-duh Peng-yo, Dakota
To say thank you: Shie-Shie
And of course, to say goodbye: Zai Chien ("see you again")

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I'd love to learn more, and when I do I'll be sure to share with you.

"Paradise" Found

During my final year of schooling in High School, I was placed into a group of four students and asked to try and create our own utopia. I was never a studious student (doesn't seem like it right?), but this was a topic worthy of my invested time. I went home, brainstorming different facets of a "utopia" and I did a bit of research online. I wasn't fond of the word utopia, however, so I searched "paradise" in it's place. This search was far more rewarding, for the search on a utopia was too... idealistic and suited for personal pleasures.

Paradise, over time and much misconception, has changed in meaning drastically since it's origin, particularly from the meaning of its original root to the beliefs within Christendom and other religions.  Early Christians (anyone who followed in Jesus' footsteps) believed that paradise would be a restored Garden of Eden that would cover the entire earth as Matthew says the happy shall "inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5). Some time after Jesus' death, seemingly within a short period of 2 centuries, Bishop Irenaeus (now considered Martyr and Saint) merged the ideas of a paradise and a heaven into one. Many Christians today believe this doctrine as truth, while some groups have reverted back to believing the doctrine that the earth will become a paradise after a global expurgation of evil.

The word Paradise can be traced back down the ages to the Old English (Anglo Saxon) PARADIS which came from the Latin PARADISUS which goes further back to the Greek PARÁDEISOS and even farther back to the Old Iranian (Avestan) PAIRI-DAEZA... That's a mouthful, but I find it amazing nonetheless.  The Old Iranian word pairi-daeza meant literally "a wall that surrounded a park or garden". The Persians were very meticulous about this practice about making a wall around their gardens or orchards to the point where they encouraged the Greeks into carrying out this practice, and a Greek mercenary (Xenophon) who spent time in the Iranian army called it a parádeisos.

In the 2nd century BCE, a group of seventy Greek men (a septuagint) translated the Hebrew word for paradise (Gan-Edhen) as parádeisos in reference to the Garden of Eden. And this was appropriate, as the Garden of Eden was evidently an enclosed park area. Over time, around the 13th century CE, Old English adopted the word into their language as paradis, now paradise.

I find it interesting to note the Hebrew word for paradise, though. It makes perfect sense, but it still astounds me. The Hebrew word for paradise is "GAN-EDHEN" which literally means Garden of Eden. This is what my group ended up calling our supposed utopia: Gan-Eden. But it just occurred to me to try and dig a little deeper. Our word "garden" sounds like a shortened gan-edhen, does it not? I looked it up, but the farthest back the word seems to go is the German GARTEN... I wouldn't be surprised (maybe I would actually) if our word for garden traced all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

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If you find any research on this matter, I'd be glad to look into it, as I'm just as curious myself. If you have any other questions you'd like to ask me about this article or others, please do so in the comment area below. Also, if you have any ideas as to future topics of discussion TELL ME.

Medusa, the Jellyfish Phoenix

Oh, the Jellyfish.  Another one of the marvelous species we can find (almost) only below sea level.  It's one thing that they don't need a respiratory system, but one species of jellyfish is biologically immortal (well, potentially).  The Turritopsis Nutricula has the unbelievable ability to revert to it's polyp (baby) form before it dies, so that it can live it's life all over.  Almost like a phoenix, in a sense, this jellyfish can cheat death, time and time again.  Anyway, I just found all this out today, but the reason I thought to write about jellyfish was something I read from a while back.

I was reading a Spanish article (and trying to pick up a few words), but my lack of knowledge in the Spanish language held me back from fully grasping the meaning.  But, what I do remember was that the article was definitely about jellyfish, because of the pictures of them floating around in the deep blue.  What I didn't find however was the word jelly (gelatina) or fish (pez) in the text, so I was sorely lost.  I did find that they used the name "Medusa" to describe them a lot however, so that's when it got me thinking that this may have been it's given name in the Spanish language, which peaked my interest to no end.  Sure enough, the word for jellyfish in Spanish is MEDUSA, and it's no coincidence that it shares it's name with the Mythical Gorgon from Greek mythology.

In Greek myth, in place of Medusa's hair, were many living snakes squirming and thrashing about, and if you were to gaze into her eyes you would be turned to stone.  Perseus (also of legend) was said to have beheaded her and brought her head back to Zeus.

Anyway, there are some similarities you can find between a Jellyfish and the head of Medusa.  Obviously somebody thought so, and it stuck.  But no, you won't turn to stone if you look into the eyes of a jellyfish (do they even have eyes?), although you don't want to come into contact with their tentacles or they will sting you.  Also, if you think about it a little in your mind's eye, the jellyfish can look like the shape of a head with snakes attached to it.

Which brings me to the question, how, and under what circumstances, did this observation originally take place?  At this point in time (because I can't seem to find anything on it's origin on the world wide web), I'd like to think it had to do with superstitious sailors from long ago.  Probably ancient Greek sailors even, seeing as how Medusa is part of Greek mythology.  In those times, they merged their history and ancestry with mythology, so many believed these stories as truth.  So, possibly at some point in time one of them may have fell overboard and, already in a panicked state, thought that this creature was the head of Medusa. Or perhaps he simply described it as such to his crew and it stuck.  Either way, it stuck very well.

Today, many languages use the word Medusa (pl. Medusae) in place of our English word "jellyfish".  Among these languages are Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, Finnish, Hebrew, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Russian, Czech, Romanian, Hungarian, Slovak and Polish.  (I did not check them all, but I'm positive they must have varied spelling and pronunciation.)

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If anyone does know the truth as to the origin of why jellyfish were named after Medusa, please please PLEASE let me know.

Strongly Entrenched in Amor

A great friend of mine recently began a blog called Memoirs of a Modern Amorist and I think that it's what drove me into wanting to start this blog finally. Because in all honesty, I've been mulling this whole idea of a knowledge blog over in my mind for quite some time now and have talked to a few people who thought it'd be a great idea. But who knows until you try right?  Anyway, so the title of his blog, which I'll abbreviate as the MoMA (not referring to the Museum of Modern Art), struck me as so simple, but with such an aura of creativity about it.  I loved it.  I was enamored by it.

Get it? Enamored by it? Maybe not. Yet.  You see, the word AMORIST is one of the many English words that derive from it's Latin root: AMOR = to love. In fact, many languages use the exact same word for Love. The Spanish and Portuguese AMOR (pronounced the exact same way), the Italian AMORE, the French AMOUR, and the list goes on.  Amorist itself means one dedicated to Love or one who writes about it, which my friend working the MoMA blog is doing just so.  So ENAMORED would mean that he's inspired me with Love.

Other words derived from the Latin amor include AMOROUS, AMATORY, and yes, even AMATEUR! For those sports fans out there, amateur comes from the Latin AMAT which means he/she Loves.  Amateur literally means Love of sport.  We also see amor in the Italian name for cupid "AMORETTO" (pl. amoretti).

Speaking about mythical creatures of Love, let's talk about some of the Pagan gods of Love.  There are many.  But have you ever noticed that the mythology of the Greeks, the Romans and the Egyptians are all the same?? Well... that's another story for another day.  But the Greek god Aphrodite and the Roman Venus are one and the same, with the same mythology and history, and their whole thing was about amor.  Aphrodite gave us a nifty little-big word in English. Can you guess it? APHRODISIAC, which is anything that makes you... well want to make Love.  Unfortunately Venus got her own word, but it's not as pleasant. VENEREAL. Nope, not pleasant at all.

Anyway, a little bit of our usage of the word Love is lost to us today.  Instead of saying "I Love her/him," we may say a half-hearted "I like her/him".  This is not the case for most other languages though.  In fact, there is no word in most languages to describe the word for simply "liking" someone/thing else.

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If you do find yourself needing some Love advice, please check out my friends blog, the MoMA. He has great, practical advice for the casual dater to those lost in translation, and all you need to do is ask him a question and he'll be willing to answer it for you.

The "Werewolf"

Being the young man that I am, I Love monster movies.  Well... not always. I'm a big critic, and many monster flicks today are meant for the general public and tend to have tragically Hollywoodesque storylines.

Anyway, I Love the lore that these monsters are based on.  I'm not going to go into too much depth as to how myths about werewolves began, or whatever, but I do want to take a closer look at the name. "Werewolf." We know it literally means man-wolf, but what does the "WERE" come from.

Well, I hadn't ever given it any thought until this one day in a Latin class of mine.  We had just learned that the Latin word for man was "VIR".  The letter V in Latin is pronounced the exact same way we in English would pronounce the letter W.  The rest of the word is pronounced as it would be in the Spanish language, so by rolling the R at the end of VIR it sounds like you're pronouncing "weed".

At this point, it still hadn't clicked to me; the similarity of VIR and WERE.  Soon though, a classmate of mine mispronounced vir and said "were".  I mulled the two over in my mind a little and after class I asked the teacher if there was any connection.  He said he didn't know, but that it would make sense because it meant man-wolf.

Sure enough, there is some connection between vir and were, as I read here.  The Old English word for man is "WER", coming directly from a Germanic language.  But both the Germanic and Latin origin of the word come from the same family of languages (if I get around to it someday, I'll attempt to cover what exactly the Indo-European language family is).

So yes! There is a connection between the Latin word for man and the monsters we see on tv and read about in books.

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Also brought out in the article were other words that are derived by vir: Virile and virility. Vir can also be a word to describe masculinity, so virile has to do with it's strength. Other words include virtue and virtuous (signs of strength or manliness).

But the really cool thing brought out in this article (besides the origin of the word werewolf) was that our word "world", although hidden over time, literally means "man-age".

Overturning Reasoning and Those Strongly Entrenched Things

Welcome to my new blog, Strongly Entrenched Things.  Here we shall discuss three major topics: Language, History, Theology.  I don't know everything, no, but I wish I did.  So, as I do learn, and as I do study into these three topics, I will share my knowledge and findings with you all.

But first, maybe a little bit about myself.  My name is Dakota López.  My father was born in Spain, his family all Puerto Rican.  My mother is a caucasian American and does not know her heritage.  I was born on November 4th of 1991 in a hospital in Miami beach and lived there for thirteen years.  I moved to Los Angeles for three years, and am now living just north of New York City for the past two years.  I've been all over.  I am fluent in English... but English only, unfortunately.  I can understand Spanish when spoken, but carrying out a conversation is nearly impossible, albeit I try.

I am now 18, fresh out of high school, and am taking a year off before going into college next year to study language (Spanish and Mandarin particularly).  I love to travel, and I love to learn. When I was little I even dreamed of going to Egypt, learning to read the hieroglyphics, and to become an archaeologist.  Well... my dreams have changed since then, but only a little.  There was a long period of my life where this yearning to explore and learn had vanished, but in high school I took a year of Latin, and it awakened in me this urge to pursue a life of language and history and the sorts.

And before it's asked of me, yes I AM religious, BUT... I do not just believe everything thrown out to me, by anyone, unless there is scriptural and/or historical evidence on the matter.  This, in truth, is why the name of the blog is entitled "Strongly Entrenched Things".  In 2 Corinthians 10:4,5 it is translated directly from the Greek into saying "For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things. For we are overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God;".  So not only will we be discussing theology and doctrine, but also how history and language have strongly entrenched themselves into who we are today.