Unravelling the ancient etymology of �oka�

L M Leteane | Friday March 4, 2016 12:33

This week, I unearth vestiges of this protolanguage in the specific context of the proto-term oka (a verb) and its noun oko.

The term oka basically means ‘attract’ and we have dealt with aspects of it in the past weeks…always in the light of Setswana. Let us begin with the English term ‘hook’. From a Setswana perspective, we can see that it compares favourably with ho-oka: ‘to attract [and hold on to]’ (in Sesotho, the h is still pronounced softly whereas in Setswana it has hardened to a sound similar to the Spanish J in ‘Julio’). The term boka (consisting of ba/be + oka) basically means ‘be attracted’. In Sesotho, the term ba/be – as in the phrase ‘a be bonolo: ‘he must be gentle’ – is still used according to the ancient way it was used in Sumerian (I detected this directly from their epics).

The term boka (‘be attracted’) acquired a semantic shift to also mean ‘surround, or crowd around’, as in the term ‘boka-nela’. This shift of boka to mean ‘surround’ (become many around) gave rise to yet another shift to mean ‘praise’, and the semantic shift came about in the sense that when people praised a hero, they tended to gather around him. The sense of ‘many’, in turn, led to the term ‘book’ in two senses: firstly a book is a compilation of many words and, secondly, it was initially in the form of several scrolls put together and in which the subject matter was typically praise to a god; they were usually recited aloud so that people could hear. The semantic shift of ‘surround’ is also discernible in the term foka (‘blow’, or ‘flutter in the air’). When the wind blows (and things flutter), it is because of something (air) that is all around us. Thus, the Latin term voca (‘of the voice’, as in ‘vocal’) can be traced to the sense that a voice reaches ‘into the air’ and, as it were, ‘surrounds us’. As such, a ‘vocation’ is literally a ‘calling’. Indeed, we would be remiss not to note the evident ancient proto-association of voca with ma-foko (‘words’: foko is the noun of foka)

The term moka (mo + oka) literally means ‘crowd around him’. Now, this can be in a positive or negative sense. Thus, the English term ‘mock’ means ‘gather around so as to ridicule’. But we have to be careful here; this sense may actually be secondary. The term is more likely based on the proto-term ka (as if, like) – as in the Sesotho term ‘je ka’ (now compounded to ‘jaaka’ in Setswana. These days, we hear a lot of ‘e tshwana ka’ (‘it is the same like/as’) and, linguistically this is perfectly okay from a syntax point of view (‘linguistics’ is not necessarily the same thing as ‘modern and accepted grammar and spelling’ and this is a basic mistake that often leads brash and vocal ‘language purists’, as opposed to linguists, astray).  Thus, mo-ka (in Setswana it is now mong-ka) means ‘that which seems like’ or ‘is virtually like’, and so ‘mock’ has the strong, primal sense of ‘mimicking so as to ridicule’ – like the mocking crown of thorns that was placed on Jesus’ head. Needless to say, ‘mimic’ (mo-mo-ke) means ‘imitate him/he in a playful or belittling way’ (wherein ke is the past perfect tense of ka), and even though these proto-terms, these basic building blocks, are barely discernible now to all but the most astute of etymologists.

Etymologically, the Setswana term amoga was actually amoka (a + moka). As discussed in some detail in other articles, ‘a’ is a proto-term that can mean ‘of/towards’ or ‘away from’ depending on the context. Examples of the former use is in the phrase ‘metsi a noka’: water belonging to the river’ and, in English, ‘abase’ (‘lead toward being at the base’). An example of the opposite meaning is ‘attenuate’ (‘lead away from being tenuous, i.e. to weaken’), and ‘asexual’ (away from (i.e. ‘not’) sexual’. Thus, amoka belongs the latter sense: it means ‘shun’ or ‘keep away from’ (there is also a semantic shift of ‘keep away from’ to mean ‘steal’ (‘keep [something] away from’) and then an even further shift to ‘[actively] rob’: ‘take something away from’). Recently, we also had a look at oka as meaning ‘unite’ (i.e. make [two or more things] come together) and we treated this in light of the Sanskrit term ‘yoga’ (ya-oka: literally, ‘that which is for uniting’). Indeed the fundamental definition of ‘yoga’ is: ‘the practice that unites one with God’. Accordingly, ‘yoke’ (also comprised of ya + oka) is a device for ‘uniting’ (forcibly linking together) people or beasts of burden.

Looking now at the oko (the noun of oka), we also find that it is also a true proto-term. The term ‘lock’, we can discern, is made up of lo + oko (‘that which binds together’). A semantic shift from this basic meaning of loko is discernible in the Zulu term for ‘[around] here’ – which evidently relates to the Latin term loco, thus ‘locale’, ‘location’, etc. The shift evidently derives from the fact that a ‘locale’ is a fixed (‘locked’) place. ‘Locomotion’ is thus ‘movement from [fixed] place to [fixed] place’. To ‘unfix’ is thus loko-lla in Setswana (‘release/ undo the locking of’). Its noun is tokollo and this term obviously relates to the Latin term ‘tokology’ (alternatively spelt ‘tocology’) which is basically ‘obstetrics’ (the science of delivering babies). Child-bearing typically involves much pain and when the baby is born the mother has been ‘released’ (tokollo). A final sense of loko is le-loko (‘that which is a member of: i.e. is fixed or attached to [something])’. Log-ong (a ‘log’) is thus ‘a piece [of wood] that was attached (fixed) to [a tree]’. A ‘log’, similarly, is a piece of information entered for a larger context.

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