This Sufi's Ashram: Our own personal LEXICONS in the Age of Specialized Online Dictionaries

Friday, November 26, 2010

Our own personal LEXICONS in the Age of Specialized Online Dictionaries

JOURNEY

Why should life be called a journey? Because there is a change in nature and a change of experience. One goes from one experience to another, and that is also the meaning of the word journey: going from one place to another, passing from one experience to another. The whole of the external life is nothing but a succession of experiences, one after the other, night and day. That is why it is called a journey.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Today I find myself within the Age of Specialized Online Dictionaries ranging from maybe Auto Mechanics to Zoology. Then I can chuckle and think that this particular Age is determinate upon the power grid and library funding. Ours is a culture stuffed to the brim with experts, specialists, authorities on most anything you could imagine, even your imagination! I even am walking in a nation with experts, specialists and authorities on the word AGE. However, only YOU will be the TRUE expert, specialist and authority on YOU. You are like a tree growing on your own unique mental soil.

true: O.E. triewe (W.Saxon), treowe (Mercian) "faithful, trustworthy," from P.Gmc. *trewwjaz "having or characterized by good faith" (cf. O.Fris. triuwi, Du. getrouw, O.H.G. gatriuwu, Ger. treu, O.N. tryggr, Goth. triggws "faithful, trusty"), perhaps ultimately from *PIE *dru- "tree," on the notion of "steadfast as an oak." Cf., from same root, Lith. drutas "firm," Welsh drud, O.Ir. "strong," Welsh dronderw "true," O.Ir. derb "sure." Sense of "consistent with fact" first recorded c.1200; that of "real, genuine, not counterfeit" is from late 14c.; that of "agreeing with a certain standard" (as true north) is from c.1550. Of artifacts, "accurately fitted or shaped" it is recorded from late 15c.; the verb in this sense is from 1841. True-love (adj.) is recorded from late 15c.; true-born first attested 1590s. True-false as a type of test question is recorded from 1923.

*The above etymological entry discloses why in my own past I would launch myself into an adventure in learning upon the word English term DRUID. The English term TRUE finding its etymological history in the PIE Proto-Indo-European, (the hypothetical reconstructed ancestral language of the Indo-European family. The time scale is much debated, but the most recent date proposed for it is about 5,500 years ago) dru- "tree" on the notion of "steadfast as an oak". From an online Webster's dictionary:

DRUID: One of an ancient Celtic priesthood appearing in Irish and Welsh sagas and Christian legends as magicians and wizards
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/druid

I do not minimize the statement that etymology has been a long-time interest and hobby of mine since that high school graduation gift of my trusty old Webster's with its brief etymologies next to words and a small encyclopedia in the back. Little did my now sister-in-law and now deceased older brother know that a gift of a dictionary to a younger sister bound for college would be one of the most treasured possessions of this woman now over the age of 60 years old. That dictionary is currently down in the basement of my Ashram in a box with its cover being partially eaten by a chinchilla and one of my personal stories that I just can't make up.

It is frequently said that the DREAM SYMBOL of GOING DOWN STEPS such as into a basement, may speak of a journey into your unconscious mind.

The mind is the soil upon which, in the form of thoughts and imaginations, plants grow. They live there; but, as they are continually springing up, only the newly created plants are before one's consciousness, and those plants and trees that were created before are hidden from one's eyes. Therefore, when thoughts and imaginations are forgotten, then they are no longer before one and one does not think about them anymore. However, whenever one wishes to find a thought that has once been shaped, it can immediately be found, for it still exists in the mind.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi

itinerant
1560s (attested in Anglo-L. from late 13c.), from L.L. itinerantem (nom. itinerans), prp. of itinerare "to travel," from L. iter (gen. itineris) "journey," from ire "go" (see ion). Originally in reference to circuit courts.

itinerary
mid-15c., "route of travel," from L.L. itinerarium "account of a journey," from noun use of neut. of itinerarius "of a journey," from L. itineris (see itinerant). By late 15c. it meant "record of a journey;" extended sense "sketch of a proposed route" is from 1856.

.... Yet there is a part of life from which this life of changes has sprung; the life which is everlasting, which is eternal, the life to which all things return; and that life is the goal. Therefore, life is not only a journey; it is a goal. The goal is the stable part of life, the source of life; the manifested life called creation is the journey.

In this way we see that there are really two journeys. There is the journey from the goal to the life in the world, and there is the journey from the life in the world to the goal. And both journeys are natural. As it is natural to go forth from the eternal goal, so it is natural to go from the changing life to the life which is unchangeable.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan

..Unfinished Entry

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Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan

BBC - History - Historic Figures: Noor Inayat Khan (1914 - 1944)
Noor Inayat Khan was born on New Year's Day 1914 in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother. She was a direct descendant of Tipu Sultan, the 18th ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/inayat_khan_noor.shtml

Noor Inayat Khan was a wartime British secret agent of Indian descent who was the first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France by the Special Operations Executive (SOE). She was arrested and eventually executed by the Gestapo.

Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan: Exotic British spy who defied Gestapo brutality to the end - her last word was liberté (Liberty)

Etymological Abbreviations

Eng. English, West Germanic language spoken in England after c.450,
heavily influenced by French and somewhat by Scandinavian.
O.E. Old English, the English language as written and spoken c.450-c.1100.
Gk. Greek, Indo-European language spoken in Greece in the classical period, c. 8c. B.C.E.-4c. C.E. Among its dialects were Ionian-Attic (the language of Homer and the Athenian dramatists), Aeolic (used in Thessaly, Boeotia and Lesbos), and Dorian (the language of Sparta).
Heb. Classical Hebrew, ancient Semitic language of the Israelites.
L. Classical Latin, the Italic language of ancient Rome until about 4c.
L.L. Late Latin, the literary Latin language as spoken and written c.300-c.700.

I.E. Indo-European, the family of languages that includes most of the languages of modern Europe (English among them) and some current and extinct ones in western and southern Asia. All are presumed to share a common ancestor, PIE.

PIE Proto-Indo-European, the hypothetical reconstructed ancestral language of the Indo-European family. The time scale is much debated, but the most recent date proposed for it is about 5,500 years ago.

Online Etymological Dictionary

ONE

In the Semitic language of Aramaic which Jesus most likely spoke, the Aramaic word which is translated as God in the European bible was actually Alaha. According to some linguists, the word Alaha which Jesus spoke would have had the ending "a" softened or not pronounced at all, leading to the pronunciation "alah". Since the Arabic language was largely derived from the earlier Aramaic (much the same as Aramaic was derived from the earlier Hebrew), the modern Arabic word Allah is likely derived from the earlier Aramaic pronunciation "alah". Indeed, Allah of the Qur'an and Alaha of Jesus refer to the same One. In contrast, the word "God" is a relatively new, and perhaps unfortunate, European invention which has been the source of much misunderstanding and conflict.
http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/mv_glossary.htm