Translated material
Suffix -ak, dur-
Where did the domestic fool come from
The word "fool" in the Russian language is primordial. In Russian dialects, the word fool has been preserved, which means an eclipse, fever, whip, extravagance. But its history can be found out only if we “go down” to the Indo -European level, focusing on languages that are in close and distant kinship with the Russian. Ultimately, the word of the fool turns out to be a related verb to blow, that is, to inflate. The concept of pouting-indulgence is associated with the idea of speed, riot, spontaneity, an increase in volume. In Russian dialects there is a large nest of words with the root of the fools who have such meanings (with further semantic development). For example, fooling is to grow rapidly, bad grass is weeds, weeds: the idea of speed and spontaneous growth is laid here.
If you move on to the designations of people, then among the relatives of the word a fool there are also words with a shade of spontaneity, uncontrollability. For example, Durova - unrestrained, fool - an unbridled person, fooling around - a hooligan. Other meanings are derived from the idea of speed and spontaneity, for example, the idea of power. They say: smoke is falling into a fool - it means very much. Spontaneity gives rise to harm, hence the name of toxic plants with a fool. Where there is harmful, there is dangerous: bad - damn, unclean power.
Well, if you take into account the idea of blowing - inflating, increasing in volume, the word is clear in the meaning of “pus”. When pus appears in the wound, it swells, increases in volume. They say about large containers - a fool ("poured a whole fool of water"); A fool is called a large battery. Probably, the same idea of a large, “hypertrophied” manifests itself in the fact that the words are a fool, threat, a fool and so on. They call healthy, tall people. The close meaning is in the expression to the fool - a lot.
There is a certain intrigue that you can establish certain connections, albeit very indirectly, a fool between words and think. These words are in a very distant relationship. They are not derived from one another, but simply based on the verb with the meaning of “blow”. Blowing, breathing, according to our ancestors, is associated with the spoken word (we seem to exhale the words). And then the values of “advice” and “thought” go. Thus, “thinking” is connected with “breathing”, and the “fool”, as already mentioned, is with the idea of a soul as an uncontrollable, spontaneous process, leading to inflating, an increase in volume. These are very ancient words - both.
Why in Rus' the fool called children? In the past, the custom was widespread to give the so -called security names. For example, the surname Nekrasov is on behalf of Nekras, that is, ugly. In the same way - a fool. These are the names “vice versa” that were given to children to protect them from the corresponding properties. That is, so that they are not fools and ugly. But more often, the fool was not a name, but the nickname, judging by the prevalence of the surname of the fools. Only this nickname was given to a person that he is a complete idiot. There are a lot of meanings in dialects: it could be a very violent, capricious, playful, hooligan or simply tall, healthy person. But, as a rule, still lazy or stupid.
When designating stupid people, a “garbage” metaphor is often used. It is assumed that a person’s head is stuffed with something-usually garbage. Hence the expression a stuffed fool. There is no content in my head, but there is something loose and inferior that fell asleep there: cork, sawdust. So they say: the chandelier head, in the head of straw, sawdust. They also say a round fool, impenetrable, finished and so on. There is so much expression in the word itself that I want to pronounce it in combination with some other epithets.
But a fool does not always mean stupid. In the stupid, a slightly different idea is initially laid down - this word is related to the adjective deaf. Deaf, fenced off from the world - stupid. A fool is a more expressive word.
E.L. Berezovich is a specialist in the field of Russian and Slavic ethnolinguistics, onomastics, dialectic lexicology, etymology and semantic reconstruction. The author of 158 scientific and scientific and methodological works.
First published in NT No. 13 dated March 31, 2008