When 'thing' was not a thing

In our daily conversation we use many words that we don’t give a millisecond of thought to where they arose from. And, sometimes, what they really mean. One of those words is ‘thing’. We may utter it dozens of times in a day and it may have as many dozens of meanings. That word, regardless of intention, may be the most ubiquitous and flexible in our language. It even fills holes in a conversation when the speaker can’t think of the correct word to use. 

But what does ‘thing’ really mean? Where and when did it originate? We will hitch a ride on the ‘thing’ through history and learn answers.

Proto-Indo-European Languages (late Stone Age to early Bronze Age)

The origins of the word ‘thing’ are rooted in the Indo-European family of languages. Most modern languages on the European, North American and northern India continent evolved from branches of these ancient languages. Some of these survive today: English, Germanic, French, Celtic, Albanian, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Slavic, Italic, and Spanish. Just like living organisms, languages evolve, too. Likewise, they follow people as they migrate, colonialize and trade. Eventually, some may share meanings and even sounds. As we will shortly discover. 

All the languages mentioned above descended from a single prehistoric language: proto-Indo-European. It was spoken sometime during the late Stone Age and early Bronze Age (~3300-1200 BC). Because this was before written history, the geographical area of origin is controversial. 

The favored hypothesis is the region of the Pontic-Caspian steppes (modern Ukraine and southern Russia). It is also associated with the famous Yamnaya peoples, nomads who are considered having developed wheeled carts and horse domestication. Bands of Yamnaya spread south, east and west, conquering and assimilating cultures as they went. Most Europeans and of European descent carry a percentage of Yamnaya genetic haplotypes in their own genes. Of course, the Yamnaya took their language with them.

Indo-European Languages (Mid-Bronze Age into the Middle Ages)

By the time written history appeared throughout Europe, many Indo-European languages had evolved from its spoken historical prototype. This was also a period (4000-1000 BC) of great migrations throughout Eurasia and the Atlantic Europe. Hittite (of Anatolia/Turkey) is considered the earliest (4000-3000 BC) spoken Indo-European language, but is now extinct. Spoken Indo-European languages mixed with speakers of other languages during these migrations; they mixed, overlapped and retained some similarities throughout. 

As pastoral cultures (farming) evolved and more people stayed in one location, especially during the Classical (800 BC-500 AD) and Middle Ages (500 AD-1500), branches of the Indo-European language became more standardized within those cultures. They also had more than one dialect. Remember that in those times, only the elite could read and write; most of the population was illiterate and information was shared orally. Consequently, each branch of the Indo-European languages had, and still have, varieties (dialects) of speech. 

Each of these languages had a development stage, similar to proto-Indo-European. For example, proto-Norse was spoken in Scandinavia and is thought to have evolved from a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic during the first century BC and 100 AD. It evolved into Old Norse and its several dialects at the beginning of the Viking age (~400 BC). These later separated and became the modern North Germanic languages.  Old Norse is also believed to be the first North Germanic language spoken. Keep this in mind as we progress through time. 

This thing and that thing

Before we dive into the word ‘thing’, it is important to follow the evolution and separation of the North Germanic languages. As mentioned, Old Norse was spoken in what we know now as Scandinavia.  At the beginning of the Viking Age the dialects of Old Norse diverged into the modern North Germanic languages, also known as the Nordic languages, or Faroese, Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, and Dutch. And their dialects. 

In early Germanic societies a ‘thing’ was a governing assembly made up of free people of the community and presided over by a ‘lawspeaker’. They provided legislative functions, as well as being social events and opportunities for trade.

The earliest trace of the word ‘thing’ is purported to be used by the Germanic
peoples of northwest Europe and Scandinavia during ancient history and into the early Middle Ages (~476-900 AD). The first detailed description (98 AD) of a ‘thing’ was made by Roman historian and politician Tacitus. He suggested that ‘things’ were annual delegate-based meetings for some early Germanic tribes and served legal and military functions. ‘Thing’ was used in Norway before the country’s first Viking king, Harald Finehair who ruled 872-930 AD. It is here where the word and it’s original meaning became famous.

In the Viking Age, ‘things’ were public assemblies of the free men of a place.* They functioned as both parliaments and courts at different levels of society: local, regional, and transregional. Their purpose was to solve disputes, establish laws and make political decisions. Earlier local ‘altings’ were a common assembly where all free farmers had the right to participate.  

‘Thing’ sites were also often the place for public religious rites. Norway’s ‘things’ provided the institutional and legal framework for subsequent legislative and judicial bodies, even in the modern Western world, and remain today as superior regional courts.

‘Things’ took place at regular intervals, usually at prominent places that were accessible by travel. The place where a 'thing' was held was called a "thingstead" (Old English þingstede, Old Norse þingstaðr) or "thingstow" (Old English þingstōw). The Vikings and early Norse settlers often brought their culture with them to new locations abroad, including their legal systems and establishment of ‘things’. The collaborative Thing Project has discovered and documented historical locations of ‘things’ in Norway, Iceland, Sweden, the Faroe Islands, Scotland, and Isle of Man. 

Was ‘thing’ always a thing?

Well, no and yes. Depending on where and when, the original word evolved over time from one language to another, from one definition to another.

In Old Norse, Old English, and modern Icelandic ‘thing’ was pronounced ‘þing’, where ‘þ’ is pronounced as unvoiced "-th". In Middle English, Old Saxon, Old Dutch, and Old Frisian, it evolved to ‘thing’. The difference between ‘þing’ and 'thing' is mostly spelling. ‘Thing’ is pronounced as ‘ding’ in German and Dutch; ‘ting’ in modern Norwegian, Danish and Swedish.

In Middle English, the word ‘thing’ shifted to mean an entity or matter (sometime before 899 AD), and then also an act, deed, or event (after 1000 AD). The original definition of ‘meeting’ or ‘assembly’ did not survive the shift to Middle English. In modern usage, the ancient meaning of ‘thing’ in English and other languages has been displaced to mean not just an assemblage of some sort but simply an object of any sort.

 The meaning of personal possessions, commonly in the plural, first appears in Middle English around 1300, and eventually led to the modern sense of "object". This semantic development from "assembly" to "object" is mirrored in the evolution of many words throughout history. Yet, the most ubiquitous word, at least in English, is ‘thing’. 

And it can mean……. any thing.

 * According to Norway's Law of the Gulathing (the historic ‘thing’ at Gula), only free men of full age could participate in the assembly. In written sources, women were present at some ‘things’ despite being left out of the decision making bodies, such as the Icelandic Althing. Women elders, however, were often consulted on in decision making. 

A-Z Challenge. Xēros and xerosere.

The letter 'x' is rather lonely. Compared to other letters of the alphabet, not many words begin with this letter.

My first association with any 'x' is the female chromosome. But that's an abstract association: the shape of the female chromosome is 'X'. I suppose that might be a legitimate blog post for today's letter, but let us venture into a word that does begin with 'x': xēros. Then we will slide right into another word that descends from xēros: xerosere.

The etymology of 'xero' is from the Greek xēros, which means 'dry'. In combination with a noun or vowel , xero- indicates dryness. Now, if we add the suffix sere, we have 'xerosere'.

Sere is derived from the modern word 'series', which means a group or a number of related or similar things or events arranged or occurring in temporal, spatial, or other order or succession or sequence. The two words were combined as xerosere in the late 1920's to refer to the series of changes occurring in the ecological succession on dry soil, including bare rock.

A primary component of a xerosere is limited water availability. Deserts, rocky places, and lava beds are examples of the type of ecological succession that typifies a xerosere.

Xerosere

This begins on exposed parent rocks or dry sand. The pioneer plants in the primary succession are lichens and mosses which help in forming soil by accelerating erosion. In time, herbaceous vegetation such as grasses, etc., grow on the soils deposited on rocks and enhance weathering. As these plants die, they add nutrients and organic matter to the forming soil deposited on and around the rocky areas.

Mixed shrubs then establish the area, which attracts birds and mammals. These animals help in the succession by dispersing and depositing seed. Intermediate plants develop and form a transition community. Eventually a climax community (also called a 'biome') establishes itself where populations of plants or animals remain stable and exist in balance with each other and their environment.

The following is an example of forest xerosere on barren rock.

1. Bare rock is first colonized by lichens and bacteria.
2. Small amount of soil formed by the lichens is colonized by mosses, which do not have roots and require little soil, and ferns.
3. As the seedless plants live and die, the soil continues to develop to the point that grasses can successfully grow and a grassland community forms.
4. Over time, the soil level increases to the point that shrubs can grow in the grassland.
5. The grassland is replaced by a shrub community.
6. The shrub community may be gradually be replaced by a forest.

A desert xerosere is quite different than that in an environment with greater water availability. For those that live in the deserts, I invite you to look around you and ponder how such a progression of a stable ecosystem might proceed from bare rock or sand. Consider the time involved in these changes, and then consider your own role in this progression.

A-Z Challenge. V is for.... Volk?

Americans have their common generic name, 'Smith'. Germans have their common name, 'Volk'. I can always recognize upon introduction a person that speaks German when they pronounce the word as 'Folk', which is the correct German pronunciation.

The etymology of the word, 'volk' is interesting because it has several derivations. The noun 'volk' is the generic German and Dutch word for 'people' in the ethnic sense. The Old English noun 'folc' was derived from the an early German term, and was used in reference to 'common people'. Hence, the modern English word 'folk' has the same meaning and pronunciation of the German 'volk'.

The German 'volk' is now used often in compound words, specifically determining 'of the common people'. The most well-known example is the popular little car Volkswagon, literally translated as 'the people's car'. Another example is the 'Volkswalk' (a common event of public walking groups).

Of course, it also is a common surname. In fact, it is my family name and I wear it proudly. And there are other Volk's in the American science community, such as a a chemist at UTHSC in Houston, TX, a biologist at SUNY-ESF (Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY), and an anesthesiologist in Oregon (whom I met while I lay on a gurney waiting for anesthesia).

I know of three scientists in my own extended family: My father (biochemistry), Sherry (retired biology teacher), and myself (biologist). Considering the large number of siblings in past Volk generations from which I descend from (10-12 siblings recorded in several generations), there may be other distantly-related 'Volk' scientists out there we are not aware of. Maybe we are the 'common people' scientists.

Then again, 'volk' is also Slovenian for 'wolf'. That could explain many things. ;) Perhaps wolves and people have a long shared history together.

Hats off to all you 'Volk's out there!

Da bo vôlk sit in koza cela!

Wolves could be people's best friend. Volk's in kind.
"Wolves had a pre-existing capacity to learn from social partners — and that humans capitalized on that capacity more than 18,000 years ago."

A-Z Challenge. Ohm.

In case new readers haven't caught on yet, I have an odd and inexplicable curiosity of names. (My favorite subject is toponyms, but that's for the letter 'T'.) This interest even surfaces in my science writing where I often address scientific names and common names of, well, just about everything in science. Yet, I am also known for totally disregarding official names, including my own. I'll let the couch-psychologists toy with that.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes (literally, desert dust) and listening to a quail thumping outside my window while waiting for my coffee to brew, the roulette in my mind landed on a rather insignificant word for today's letter 'O': ohm.

What's in an 'ohm'?

Some might recall from physics (the 'F' word, 'fysics') class learning about the relationship between the potential difference applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current; aka Ohm's Law.

Those with an engineering slant will immediately gravitate to that Pièce de résistance of electricity, the ohm. It is an SI (International System of Units) unit of resistance: the proportionality of current and voltage in a resistor. The definition of ohm as a unit has undergone several revisions since the 1860's, but it also has been assigned a symbol: Ω. That's easier to remember.

Probably few know that Georg Ohm, the German mathematician and physicist, received most of his education in chemistry, mathematics, physics and philosophy from his self-taught father, who was a locksmith by trade. His brother, Martin, also became a well-known mathematician. Despite the lack of exceptional institutional education, both siblings surmounted that resistance with family motivation. Seems to be the 'Ohm way.'

But there are more 'ohm's to be had. A large impact crater on the far side of the Moon (cue Pink Floyd) is known as the 'Ohm lunar crater'. The name of that crater was assigned by the the International Astronomical Union, and, of course, in tribute to our friend Georg Ohm.

The Ohm River lies in the region of Hesse, Germany, and is a tributary of the greater Lahn River. Suitably, the town of Homberg/Ohm in the valley of the Ohm was famous for its beer in the 13th century.

Now let's go across the ocean to the U.S. The small town in Ohm, California, was named (1900) after the Ohm Ranch. Thomas Ohm, a German native, established the ranch in 1868 and raised grain. I wonder if his crop was hops.

South of the border, a Mexican of German descent, Germán Ohm, was a popular featherweight boxer. His boxing career was short, spanning the age 18 to his retirement at 22. Most of his fights of recognition took place in the late 1950's. Seems that his fists carried the Ohm legacy of resistance.

Sweeping across the globe now to India, and overlapping centuries across time, 'ohm' is also an alternative spelling for 'om'. The sound is a mantra of Hindu origin, but also a sacred sound in Buddhism, Dharma and Jainism. The syllable represents many meanings depending on the source.

Anyone that grew up in the 1960's (me, for instance) will recognize its association with the Flower Child and Peace Anti-war Movements. One explanation probably describes it in both earlier and latter contexts: ""OM" is the reflection of the absolute reality, it is said to be "Adi Anadi", without beginning or the end and embracing all that exists." Or, as I like to put it, "No matter where you go, there you are."

And with that, let's slowly form the syllable 'Om' in our throats and mouths, slowly humming it out with no resistance, and embrace the day.

"Ohm....................."

A-Z Challenge: M is Message and Meme.

What is a meme? What is a message? What is a gene? What is the basic denominator of life?

If you consider on a broad scale, information is what is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things. That covers all scales, from a phone call, to nanoparticles and electrons, to sound, to firing neurons, to light traveling the universe. Any thing conveyed from one point to another, the 'message', is a transfer of information.

A unit containing information can be thought of as a message. For example, the well-known and greatest significance for the gene is its information transfer in living material. The content of this message carries instructions; it is what determines the structure and function of life. The exchange between a hormone and an organic tissue is an active and dynamic process of information transfer. 

The same can be said of any interaction at any scale and reduced to the laws of physics: for every action there is a reaction. The degree and direction of both action and reaction are dependent upon the information that is exchanged between the two points. Our attempts to understand that information is analogous to decoding the 'message'.

To add another related word to the 'M' box for the day, the information transfer in human social life contains messages that we may or may not be aware of, and which propagates through the social hierarchy like a gene. It is called the 'meme'. A meme is an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.

In the 1980's, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins likened our social information transfer to genes in that our ideas can replicate, mutate, and evolve. It was Dawkins that coined the use of the term, 'meme'. Just like in physical and biological systems, information is actively communicated in a network, transmitted and received, coded and decoded. Messages that we receive are processed in our brains and then transmitted into the same or another network where it exponentially mutates, evolves and replicates. 

Dawkins wrote:

“Memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. They compete with one another for limited resources: brain time or bandwidth. They compete most of all for attention." (The Selfish Gene)

Messages, memes.....They all transmit, replicate, and evolve information. “All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.” (R. Dawkins)

It's a meme life out there.

A-Z Challenge. K is for Karma

Karma is the mad hatter of a hater's world. – Amy Wynne Whatley

Now as a man is like this or like that,
according as he acts and according as he behaves, so will he be;
a man of good acts will become good, a man of bad acts, bad;
he becomes pure by pure deeds, bad by bad deeds;

And here they say that a person consists of desires,
and as is his desire, so is his will;
and as is his will, so is his deed;
and whatever deed he does,
that he will reap.
—Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 7th Century BC 

Word for Today: June 21, 2011.

Word for Today: thingification. The consideration of an abstraction or an object as if it had living existence and abilities; objectivication in social relations; modern Cartesian science. Reification.