SOUTH entry/chart

 

 

SOUTH    (S)a[K]HaTH   1. Tahf as Sahf- 2. Het-3. Tahf as Thaf

SAH-hath                         תחת                        [S-[K]H-TH à S-TH]

ROOTS: Anglo-Saxon suth and Old English sūth (south) are weakly linked to theoretical Germanic terms like sunthaz (sun-side) and to the IE “root” sawel (the sun). To pursue the given etymological direction see  שמשSHeMeSH (sun) at the "SUN" entry.

 

The better etymon appears to beתחת  Ta[K]HaT, which can be pronounced in Europe as תחת  (S)a[K]HaTH (below, under, beneath).  "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered..." - Genesis 1:9.  The Anglo-Saxon rendering of ת   Tahf as TH is also seen at entries like "BOTH", "OATH" and "THOU."  The fact that "weak letter"  ח Het became a vowel should surprise nobody.  תחתית  (S)a[K]HTeeYT is the lower part (of the mountain) in Exodus 19:17.

Arabic TaKHaH is to lie down.שת   SHaT or S(H)aTH (posteriors) is related to Semitic ST terms that mean lowest part or bottom.  Down below, תחת  (S)a[K]HaTH,  six feet under, is theשחת  SHa[K]HaT  or  SHa[K]Ha(S)  (grave).

The more common  ת Tahf as T allows the many falling or down words, like CADENCE (see “CADENCE”), CATARACT and DECAY (see “DECAY”). In Akkadian qadadu is to incline.  Greek kata means down; Hittite katta does too; all three, and the Latin  cadere (to fall) are reversals of  תחת TaK[H]aT (down, below, under – Genesis 1:7. Irish “down” is sios (reading Sahf-Sahf).

טוח DTOOaK[H] is to press;   טחן DTa[K]HaN is to grind down, to mill.

 

The incomparable Rabbi Jeremy Steinberg writes on the “fallen down” theme of the  ח-ת  Het-Tahf sub-root:  "…your people have become corrupt שִׁחֵת SHee[K]Hai(S) (Ex. 32:7).  וַתִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ, and the earth had become decadent (Gen. 6:11).   השחתה takes on this meaning from   שחת  SHa[K]Ha (S) meaning a pit or trap that one falls down into. [K]HaTHahM  חתם,  a signet or seal, is sunken into the wax . יחת Yee[K]Hai(S) in Jer. 21:13 is “come down” (JPS). נחת  Na[K]Ha(S)  comes to mean  “rest” and “repose” because it is settling down, as encamping, in II Kings 6:9.

שחת  SHa[K]Ha(S)  is the moral pit-fall of Proverbs 26:27. In short, this sub-root is about sinking low, “going south.”

 

BRANCHES: The D is a harder T in French (and English) SOUTANE (long tunic worn by Roman Catholic priests), deriving from Italian sotto (under). French sous (under) is like the Latin prefix sus (under) that appears in words like SUSCEPTIBLE, SUSPECT, SUSPEND, SUSPENSE, SUSPIRE and possibly SUSSEX (a southern British kingdom). These are all available because Tahf-Het-Tahf can also be read as (S)-vowel-(S). The dictionary claims that Latin subtus (under) is the source of sotto and sus. תחת   (S)a[K]Ha[S] or  (S)a[K]HaT (under, below) sounds better.

A French "under" word in many an English dictionary is culinary of course:  SOUS-CHEF is the kitchen potentate under the head chef. Sous-marine is French submarine or underwater (see "MARINE"), but as a prefix the second S is dropped in French words like souterrain (underground -- see "EARTH").

 

The Farsi (Iran) bed is takht, from תחת  TaK[H]aT, below,... just as a MAT(TRESS) and מיטה MeeYTah (bed) is related to מטה MaDTaH, below, beneath. See entries  "MAT" and "NETHER" (NT "below" words like beNEATH and NETHerworld).

 

“South”  words are in the table below:

D is available from a dental shift of Tahf/T.  But all these S-D words make one also suspect some influence from  צד TSahD, side (see “SIDE.”)  SUDAN is south of Egypt. Current wisdom has the country named as  Arabic bilād as-sūdān (بلاد السودان), or the "Land of the Blacks."  “Black” in Arabic is أسود is ‘aswad, so this might be a folk etymology.  CATALONIA is just south of France.

Aramaic pronounces the  ת Tahf as a T both times and drops the ח   Het altogether. Aramaic  תת TahT (under) became the modern Hebrew equivalent of the prefix sub- (under). Pronounced SahS, we have another source of Latin sus. The Arabic is taht (under).

DEXTER is initially from the Latin for the right side (opposite of left).  There is enough dental-liquid-guttural in DEXTRO- words to suspect דרך  DeReKH.  See “RIGHT.”  But the IE “root” of DEXTERITY and AMBIDEXTROUS is just deks (right side). The AHD adds “hence south, from the viewpoint of facing south.”  This is the correct Biblical orientation, so the ultimate source is  תחת TaK[H]a(S), below, under…our dental-guttural-fricative or dental source of deks, DEXTEROUS or SOUTH.  Slang for a lefthanded person is a SOUTHPAW.  Slang for Australia and New Zealand is Down Under.

The SU- prefix in words like SUSPECT are from a word meaning “under” thought to be from Latin.

Perhaps TAHITI (originally otaheite), the South Sea island, was named THT for being SOUTHERN,

Ta[K]HaT תחת .     "Under" or “down”  in Japanese is shita, a full reversal of תחת Ta[K]Ha(S)  or a straightforward )S(a[K]HaT (below, under).  In Chinese it is zai xia or zay shiah. Turning to the harder KT element in   תחת  (S)aK[H]aT, the Greek prefix kata (down) of underground CATACOMB, or where water falls down from a waterfall or CATARACT etc. has merely dropped the first  ת Tahf of  תחת .  Southerners should not be offended that  a CATASTROPHE means that things “went south” and terribly fell through. Modern Greek for “down” is ka’to.

It’s not hard to see the תחת in the word for “south” in Irish (dheas and theas or theas -- if ח Het dropped) and “southern” in Gaelic (deasach -- M132 S-D) . 

 Also dropping the sometimes quiet  ח Het is the word for "below" for the Andrade Quileute Indians of northwestern Washington state:  sat'  .

Other instant clans-by-speech formed at Shinar/Sumer at Genesis 11 emphatically did pronounce the   ח Het.   Japanese soko means "bottom."  “Down” in Turkish is asagi.  The Turkish recalls SAG, falling down, a designed companion of  our   תחת  (S)aK[H]aT. The famous usage of שוח SOOaK[H] is in Genesis 24:63  where Isaac is out in the field “meditating” (praying) or “walking” (for the non-Orthodox JPS translators. שוח  SOOaK[H] also means “bowing down” (Psalms 44:26) , what Isaac would be doing when praying for success in the mission to bring him a wife. And he would be on the shoulder of the Camel Interstate awaiting the return caravan. The bride Rebecca, probably a rare monotheist, would fall off her camel seeing a man bowing to the Creator in prayer, and not to an idol at a hilltop shrine.  Merely seeing a man “meditating” or “walking” is no de-camelization moment.

 

Fernando Aedo adds from Amerindian:
tukaa (ut…), a downward slope, bank or hillside (Skiri-Pawnee/KRS)
tookaa (ut…), to slope downward, to dip downward (Arikara/KRS)

 

Going  SOUTH anatomically, the Yiddish tuchis (posterior) is an Ashkenazic rendition of  תחת as TaK[H]a(S).  If this TK(S)  element is scrambled in Greek proktos (anus),  the lowly Yiddish

 טאָכעס  tuchis might be raised to PROCTOLOGY. Reverse to  čʰixtš, for the underside or  buttocks of Chipaya (Bolivia). [FA]  The “anus” way up north, for the Siberian Yupik,  similar in 6 other  Aleut dialects in the Arctic, is  eteq .  More “SOUTH” words at “ROOTS” and “SOLE.”

A -TH ending is often mispronounced like an F, especialy by children.  This would allow SOUTH to come from  סוף $oaF (the end…as end of the land). MOUTH has a given etymology as weak as SOUTH.   Aramaic mouth is פום POOM (Daniel 7:5), becoming فم fam in Arabic. Reversing these gives us “mouf” -- as many children, etc. pronounce “mouth.”  A stretch?  Far weirder is the  IE “root” for mouth: men² (to project), an alleged cognate of MENACE and MOUNTAIN (see “DUNE”).

 

Mon-Khmer (Cambodia region)  [FA]:  תחת TaK[H]ahT, below
kötiö [kətɨə] below, under (Bahnaric Branch)  ß

hndaak below (Khmuic Branch) N
teòh [tʌɔh] below; over there (Katuic Branch)

t’köt [tᵊkət] bottom, below (Palaungic Branch)

 

Casú, to get down  (Tarahumara, Uto-Aztecan of Mexico) may derive from a Het-Saph sub-root : חתר K[H]a(S)aR,  to dig into ; נחת NaK[H]a(S) to come  down, descend ; פחת   Pa[K]Ha(S), pit ;  פחתת Pa[K]He(S)eT, sunken spot; ח ת ש   SHaK[H]a(S), pit;   תחת  (S)aK[H]a(S),  below,  beneath, under.  

Post of March, 2018:

The KING JAMES VERSION made “eye for an eye” (Exodus 21:24) such a famous phrase that one can hardly blame bestselling atheist Richard Dawkins for the hateful, Replacement -Theology belief that the Old Testament deity is primitive and vengeful. I blame the new Jewish Bible translations for keeping the same translation of   עין תחת עין  AYiN TaK[H]aT AYiN, which suggests that the Jewish court will gouge out the eye of someone who blinds the eye of another.

 

Even the Artscroll /Stone Edition of The Five Books of Moses keeps “eye for an eye,” explaining only in a note that  תחת  TaK[H]aT means financial compensation for the income loss, etc. of the victim.

 

Only two and three verses later the KJV does not, can not, commit the same subtle atrocity for תחת  Tak[H]aT when a servant  is given freedom as financial compensation “FOR THE eye’s SAKE” and “FOR THE tooth’s SAKE.” Now its clear that תחת TaK[H]aT is about financial compensation. No dark ambiguity now to exploit for demonization.

 In Genesis 30:15 Jacob answers Rachel with a question (proving that he’s Jewish):  התחת אלקים אנכי  HaTaK[H]aT Elo[K]iM ANoaKHeeY ? Am I IN PLACE OF the Lord?  No 1-for-one, tit-for-tat is inferred. Even the common meaning of  תחת TaK[H]aT or (S)a[K]HaTH as “below” or “beneath”  BELOW infers that the area or replacement is close by, but is  NOT literally exact.

“Eye for an eye” shall be gouged out of future Bibles.

 

 See “SUCCEED.”

 

The country below Egypt, The SUDAN, must have been named by a European colonizer with his word for “south.” So was the German-populated SUDETANLAND of southern Poland which was seized by the Nazis in 1938. SUDBURY, in southern Ontario, was likely named by the French.

 

תחת , normally TaK[H]aT (below) --  the 3 root letters can be reshuffled :

1) D, T, (S) or any fricative  2) harsh K[H] , silent [K]H  3) T, (S),  dental (D or TH) or any fricative 

Anglo-Saxon	S uTH	south     guttural drop
Arabic	Taht	below
Aramaic  תתא	TaTAh	below     guttural drop
Bengali	DaKSina	south
Danish, Norwegian	S y D	south      guttural drop
Dutch	Z ui D	south      guttural drop
English / Old English	Sou TH / sūth	south
Finnish	takamus, bottom < Nasalized	under, below
French, Italian, Romanian	S u D	south   guttural drop
Frisian	SÚD	south   guttural drop
Gaelic	DeaS	south   rev. or S-D, guttural drop
German	SüD, SüDen	south    guttural drop
Greek	KaTa -, in CATARACT (waterfall)	down   1st ת dropped, or ß, last
Gujarati, Hindi	DaKSin	south
Hausa	KuDu	south  ß  S-D
Icelandic	SuÐur	south  (soft ח Het dropped)
Italian	SoTTo	below  (soft   חHet dropped)
Japanese - reverse Ta[K]Ha(S)	SHiTa	below, or Sahf, S-G
Japanese
Latin	D eXTer	Left (south), as southpaw = a lefty
Mon Khmer: Palaungic/ Cambodia	T’KöT   [tᵊkət]	bottom, below
Old English	S ū TH	south
Pawnee: Sioux  (Native American)	TuKaa	downward slope  dental drop
Spanish	S u D (prefix)	south
Swahili	KuS ini	south   dental drop
Swedish	S o D er	south
Tahitian	otaheite	South Sea island of Tahiti
Telugu	DaKSina	south
Yupic (Siberia + 6 Aleut dialects)	eTeQ	the anatomical bottom, ת Tahf  or Tahf drop
Yiddish	TuCHiS	the anatomical bottom

 

 SOUTH or BELOW is not within the main body.  So  תחת  fits below these dental-guttural words:

 טחה DTaK[H]aH, a bowshot, Genesis 31:16 (going outward)

 טוח  DTOO’aK[H],  טח  DTaK[H], plaster, plastering, smearing the outside (Lev. 14:42)

 תוך  TaVeKH, TOAKH, middle, midst  (interior)  Genesis 15:10   …בתוך, מתוך

     Thus …

   תחתTaK[H]aT, below (not inside) Genesis 1:7    [from David Funnel]

 There are a few NG/GN “SOUTH” words at “dry SACK” Turkish “south” reverses  נגב  NeGeV (dry, south of Israel)  to güney.

 More “down” or “below” words at  “MAT,” “NETHER” and “ROOT.”