Inside the foundation of the church :: Mmegi Online

The word “church” (kerk or kirk in its Germanic root) is thought to emanate from the Medieval Greek term kyriake which became the adjective kyriakon (supposedly: “of the Lord”), the basis of which, in turn, is the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) term keue – “to swell” – thus, “swollen” and hence [implying] “strong, powerful” (ref: www.etymonline.com).

Indeed, with a little help from the ancient but underestimated protolanguage of Setswana (the closest surviving language to Sumerian), we can determine that the primordial root of keue emanates from the Sumerian term kur (“bulge, swell, curve” – later “mountain”). Kur is the evident root of koro in Setswana (as in le-koro, kor-alla, etc.) as well as “curve”, “corrugated”, etc. (English.) We can thus easily decipher how kyriake (kuru-yaa-ke: his “mountain”; thus his “power-base”) came to be “church”. Kyriakon is also perfectly understandable as kuru-ya-ka (ga)-One (“His Power-base”).

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