The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought: Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-DayChamberlain, Alexander Francis
Science
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought: Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day
Chamberlain, Alexander Francis
Child rearing; Children -- Folklore; Folklore and children
The same idea comes out strongly in the words relating to birth and
childhood in the languages of many primitive peoples. With the
Cakchiquel Indians of Guatemala the term _boz_ has the following
meanings: "to issue forth; (of flowers) to open, to blow; (of a
butterfly) to come forth from the cocoon; (of chicks) to come forth from
the egg; (of grains of maize) to burst; (of men) to be born"; in Nahuatl
(Aztec), _itzmolini_ signifies "to sprout, to grow, to be born"; in
Delaware, an Algonkian Indian dialect, _mehittuk_, "tree,"
_mehittgus_, "twig," _mehittachpin_, "to be born," seem
related, while _gischigin_ means "to ripen, to mature, to be born."
In many tongues the words for "young" reveal the same flow of thought.
In Maya, an Indian language of Yucatan, _yax_ signifies "green,
fresh, young"; in Nahuatl, _yancuic_, "green, fresh, new," and
_yancuic pilla_, "a new-born babe"; in Chippeway, _oshki,_
"new, fresh, young," whence _oshkigin_, "young shoot,"
_oshkinawe_, "lad, youth," _oshkinig_, "newly born,"
_oshkinaiaa_, "a new or young object," _oshkiaiaans_, "a young
animal or bird," oshkiabinodji_, "babe, infant, new-born child"; in
Karankawa, an Indian language of Texas, _kwa'-an_, "child, young,"
signifies literally "growing," from _ka'-awan_, "to grow" (said of
animals and plants).
Our English words _lad_ and _lass_, which came to the language
from Celtic sources, find their cognate in the Gothic
_jugga-lauths_, "young lad, young man," where _jugga_ means
"young," and _lauths_ is related to the verb _liudan_, "to
grow, to spring up," from which root we have also the German
_Leute_ and the obsolete English _leet_, for "people" were
originally "the grown, the sprung up."
_Maid (maiden)_, Anglo-Saxon _moegd_, Modern High German
_Magd_, Gothic _magaths_ (and here belongs also old English
_may_) is an old Teutonic word for "virgin, young girl." The Gothic
_magaths_ is a derivative from _magus_, "son, boy, servant,"
cognate with Old Irish _mac_, "boy, son, youth," _mog_ (mug),
"slave," Old Norse _mqgr_, "son," Anglo-Saxon _mago_, "son,
youth, servant, man," the radical of all these terms being _mag_,
"to have power, to increase, to grow,"--the Gothic _magus_ was
properly "a growing (boy)," a "maid" is "a growing (girl)." The same
idea underlies the month-name _May_, for, to the Romans, this was
"the month of growth,"--flowery, bounteous May,--and dedicated to
_Maia_, "the increaser," but curiously, as Ovid tells us, the
common people considered it unlucky to marry in May, for then the rites
of Bona Dea, the goddess of chastity, and the feasts of the dead, were
celebrated.
_Plant-Lore._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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