Tracing the linguistic roots of the term �red�

L M Leteane | Friday November 13, 2015 15:12

The actual root term of ‘red’ is ru. How? It features in terms like ‘ruddy’, ‘rusty’ and ‘rustic’. A ruddy complexion is red. Rust (iron oxide) is the reddish layer that results when iron reacts with oxygen through water as a catalyst. A rustic (rural) person was so named because he spent a lot of time outdoors and thus had a ruddy complexion. Given this, it does not take much to figure out that the term ‘red’ was originally ru-ed: i.e. indicating that something had turned ru in colour.

Words in most languages are typically extracted from something basic, natural and evocative around us. Two such basic items that are red in colour are swellings and blood. In Setswana ‘swell’ is ru-ru-ga. Indeed, a swollen body-part engorged with blood is visibly red in pale-skinned people. We must also note that consonants l and r tend to be exchangeable in many languages, as are r and d. Given this, we can understand how brood (bo-ru-ed) became ‘blood’ in English and still rhymes with ‘hood’ in many parts of the United Kingdom today. In Setswana, blood was evidently ma-ru, which became mari, and then finally madi. (The r d morph we have already noted, but must also note that ma-Illu (‘Shining Ones’) were also called ma-Irru. Also, in Sumerian – the Mesopotamian protolanguage I showed to be very close to Setswana – the superfluous, embellishing plural term i was often appended to many plural terms ending in u. So, for instance, “ma-Illu” (gods) was often “ma-Illi” – as in “eno-ma-Illi…”, the famous opening line of the Enuma-Elish epic – a practice later adopted by Latin: e.g. villu(s) singular, villi plural.) 

Let us now use this knowledge to assist us in understanding certain important terms in “mythology” (I have shown time and again in this column that much of what scholars classify as “myth” is actually proper history). We may begin with the Babylonian god Marduk. According to Zecharia Sitchin’s translation, this name, this epithet, means “He of the pure mound”. A good try, but Setswana can better interpret it. Firstly, we must recognise that the “gods” of old were actually flesh-and-blood humans of advanced technology whose pale skin turned red in harsh sunlight and were thus called “A-Ma-ru” (Amarru) by the ordinary people, hence Maru-ti (or “Maruts” in the Anglicized version of Vedic Sanskrit). It literally meant “the Full Red Ones” – as “full gods”, as opposed to “demi-gods”, were called.

Duk (toka in Setswana) means “righteousness”, just as “Melchi-ze-dek” is understandably “Mmereki-tsa-toka” (“Righteous Worker” or “Worker for Righteousness”) in Setswana, and this helps clarify Sitchin’s translation of it as “pure”. Since we have already noted that ru-ru-ga means “swollen” in Setswana, and the Sumerians must have depicted this graphically as a lump, we can see where Sitchin et al had derived their “mound” from! But the original and intended meaning was evidently “[he of] the Righteous Gods”, and Marduk/ Maru-a-toka was thus named to be a symbol, the epitome, of the “Upright Ones”, the “gud (good) ones” – which where the term “god” comes from.

Another important understanding of ru that would help us better understand bygone times relates to the Nefilim of Genesis 6:4. Why were they called “heroes” in some biblical translations? Actually, these were indeed not “spirit-demons” from the angelic realms as is widely and erroneously supposed, but the same pale-skinned flesh-and-and blood “gods” of old that ruled, and still covertly rule, mankind. The story of “Heaven,” and how they “fell” from there, meant nothing more than that they rebelled and descended on Earth from space where, as the Igigi, they had acted as lonely watchers for near-Earth objects that might threaten this planet, just as these objects had previously devastated Mars (N’ibiru) and Tiamat (a surviving fragment of Old Earth). “Hero” thus emanates from he-ru, “the Red One”. In fact, per Sumerian legend, Old Earth was originally called Tiamat. When it was devastated in a major cosmic incident, the gods fled to Mars (Ma-ru) – a planet they later called Na-hibiru (N’ibiru): the “Red-like (reddish) One”, This Red Planet, scientists have proved, once had plenty of oxygen and water.

We had noted in previous articles that Abraham was none other than the Egyptian pharaoh Mehibre – mo-hibiru, “the Red One”. He was the original Hyksos leader that invaded Egypt. His followers were eponymously named the Hibi-ru (“the Bright Red Ones”: the appendage hibi meaning “bright, bold, unrestrained” – opposite of inhibi as in ‘inhibit’: restrain). Why were they so named? The original roots of Abraham, the first true Hyksos, lie in Aryan India and Aryans were white. This is why he named his wife Sarai after India’s Saraisvati river and his maid Hagar after its tributary the Hakar. In fact, the very term “Aryan” comes from A-ru-an:  “Red Ones from the Skies (outer space)”, which is where the gods came from. The name was formalised as the symbol “Aries” in the Age of the Ram, during which “monotheism” was primed to replace the worship of gods as the dominant outlook of the world, duly kicked off by Abraham himself.

Let us now end with events closer home. When Bantu people migrated southward, they encountered ‘yellow skinned’ people whom they termed Ba-se-Ru (“they are European-like”, now “Basarwa). Just as the Amarru were associated with the west (i.e. Europe/E-ru-pan), ‘south’ became borwa (Bo-ru: “Region of the Ru”). Indeed, these ‘People of the South’ once populated Ma-se-Ru (a name found in both Lesotho and the Kgalagadi), Serowe (Se-Ru-eng), etc. The term “ru”, it seems, was once truly universal.

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