As a writer I’m interested in phonosemantics – the branch of linguistics that investigates how vocal sounds (phonemes) have archetypal meaning as well as emotional signatures that are perceived cross-culturally. Phonemes provide the building blocks of meaning for a word. The Qabbalah, among other esoteric teachings, reveals both the earthly (material) and heavenly (spiritual) attributes of words through gematria and sound symbolism.
It’s not accidental that the letters making up words in written or printed form are known as ‘characters’, because they too, like human agents have a spirit of their own and are made up of consonants – the mute skeletons, muscles, tendons, flesh and blood – providing the frame through which the oxygen of the vowels needs to be breathed to bring the full character of the word to life. Words, and the letters of which they are composed, are therefore imbued with the notion of identity, expressing apparent and hidden qualities.
In normal speech there are four times as many consonants as vowels, corresponding to the relation between breathing and blood circulation (18 breaths to 72 pulse beats).
The sound of words is complementary to the overt literal meaning. Although the meaning of these sound packages has been lost over time we nevertheless still perceive the energetic signature via the frequencies that permeate our being and comprehend the hidden message via the collective unconscious. Myths and archetypes seem programmed within our genome and expressed via language… possibly to assist with our soul’s motives?
I looked at the Hebrew word, AMAT (pronounced EMET), meaning TRUTH, in terms of an EMETIC i.e. that which makes one bring up, to rebalance. Truth and Reconciliation. Compare AMAT with MAAT, the ancient Egyptian concept of truth, order, harmony, law, morality and justice (personified by the goddess who set the order of the universe at the moment of creation). Hence the Afrikaans, MAAT, and English, MATE, underscoring the reciprocal (balanced) energy required to sustain friendship or companionship. META denotes transcendence. The Afrikaans, MaaTstaf, means a measure. When we measure something there’s a quantum or AMouNT. We question whether our life efforts ‘have amounted to anything’.
Now let’s reverse the consonants in AMAT and TAME ‘ATM’. The smallest self-organising ITEM known to us is the ATOM. i.e. AT (H)OME or AT ‘OM’ (the resonant frequency of planet earth). The earth is pulsing at middle C. Although vocalised as the Buddhist ‘OM’, this sound is technically A-U-M. /A/ [air] connects one with the Godhead and all that is; /U/ [earth] calls on universal truth, and grounds that energy; while /M/ [water] reflects and amplifies that energy.
Consonants and their paired associations always express seeming opposites, or the flip-sides of archetypes, but are in effect part of a continuum and express the whole. (Hot and cold, for example, are not opposites but rather a differentiation of degree.) So, the tiny MiTe seems in contradistinction to MighT, but is not. MeeT leads to MoaT which leads to TeaM. And a ToMe is a book or story that’s complete and independent, yet part of a series or whole.
Now let’s take a minute to see what eMANATeS from MNT. MINUTE (as in ‘time’) and ‘minute’ (as in ‘small’). William Blake remarked about the ability to: ‘See a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.’
To MiNT something is to create something anew. To MouNT is to ascend (and, by analogy, we arrive at ‘loftiness’). The consonants MT or TM are also related to NT or TN (‘nut’, ‘nit’ or ‘gnat’ – silent ‘g’ – versus ‘ten’ or ‘ton’). From this analysis we can see that AMAT expresses the qualities of holism / independence yet interconnectedness / self-organisation / balance / small and large at once: the merging of micro- and macrocosms i.e. infinite and inviolable – all characteristics embodying the golden standard of TRUTH.
AMAT is framed by the consonants MT and brought to life (ignited, seeded, fuelled) by the divine energy of the ‘A’ that preceded and initiated creation. Aha! In the Taoist mindset, what’s MT (EMPTY) is also FULL. AMAT is Latin for ‘he, she, it LOVES’ – the force responsible for bonding TRUTH. By applying several languages, we have come full circle to a more intimate understanding of the archetypal dwelling place (TeNeMeNT) of TRUTH (AMAT).
