PART VIII
The words grasp, vessel, shell, empty, cave point to oldest human language connections and to Turkish
By Mehmet Kurtkaya, Published on November 15, 2019
The words "foot" and Turkish "ayak" sound completely different, but can they be related? The answer :
Words for foot and leg in world languages
Etymology of daughter, milker, child, tribe, family, clan
Earth in world languages connect five continents
Part I: It's not only the word for earth that connects world languages. Let's talk sweet :
Honey and mead in world languages
Part III: Bee Mythology and dual meaning of the word for bee and pure Of bees and humans:
from Paleolithic to Antiquity.
Part IV Paleolinguistics honey, bee, licking Of bees and languages:
from Paleolithic to Antiquity.
Part V: Pelasgians Identified, Midas, Phrygia -Etruscan connection confirmed
Linguistics, Mythology, Archaeology and Genetics combined as usual!
PART VI Beekeeping and bee related words
From the Altai to Kura -Araxes Beekeeping and bee related words
PART VII Linguistics and the latest genetics
This article must be considered together with The word earth in world languages shows deep ancient connections
Pottery making one of world's oldest crafts
Pottery is one of the oldest crafts of humanity. Another craft, probably older than pottery is closely related to pottery making.It is thought that ancient people used baskets covered with river clays to transport water. When the clay dried under the sun it separated from the basket, hence forming oldest forms of pottery. Some ancient ceramic pots have remains of fibers attached to them.
Ceramic crafts are not restricted to pottery as seen in the Vestonice mothergoddess figurine.
Pottery was a crucial invention for the preservation of food. Water was carried with them too.
Since pottery was made from river clays, it is also related to cultures practicing fishing. The first pots are thought to be used for storing fish.
Pots were later used for many other liquids in addition to water, such as honey, mead, wine, and beer. Mead may have been the first, or among the very first alcoholic drinks humans tasted as it occurs in nature when honey becomes wet after a rain and is fermented with yeast available in the surroundings/air.
Pots were critical in conserving/storing foods. While baskets were good enough for solid foods, pots were used for storing or transporting water, liquids and grains.
Oldest pottery remains are found in Ancient China from around 18,000 BC. And from around 14,000 BC in Russian Far East and 10,500 BC in Jomon culture, Japan.
In the Americas, earliest known pots in South America date to 9000Bc and North America to 5500 BC. In the Near East, oldest remains of pottery date to 6500 Bc while in Africa to 9000BC. Was pottery invented in East Asia and spread from there? We don't know, even though the descendants of the people called Ancient North Siberians (24,000) who were descendants of Ancient North Siberians (30,000BC) spread to all continents in the world. We know it from both Neandarthal and Denisovan genes too.
The invention of pottery was a major turning point in the history of civilizations for the reasons cited above.
Stone tools helped with hunting and they are the earliest tools humans used. Weaving cloths and baskets advanced our capabilities and pottery was an even further step of civilization. Since baskets and cloths are perishable we won't know how far it dates back but the oldest cloth remains are from Dzudzana cave in Georgia dating to 20,000 BC. Oldest basket remains are from a much later time from 10,000 BC. Needless to say that does not say much since these are oldest dates of the archaeological finds regarding perishable artifacts.
With pottery, there is a much greater chance of preservation.
Common words for "vessel" in world languages
Borean is a linguistic macro-family according to Sergei Starostin. It encompasses almost all language families worldwide except those native to sub-Saharan Africa, New Guinea, Australia, and the Andaman Islands.In his database, checking a few roots that are shared by different language families, it is possible to see that Altaic is common to most.
In other words, there are too few words that are shared by two or more languages and do not have an Altaic correspondant using the same root. Moreover, such groups are small compared to the groups where Altaic is found, some of which are spread over five continents. That's compatible with the migration data uncovered by ancient genomic studies. In history, there are only two Altaic languages, that spread West of the Altai mountains: Turkish and Mongolian which are also known as the closest and most related of Altaic languages. Furthermore word migration direction is from Turkish to Mongolian.
Searching for the word "vessel" in the database formed by Sergei Starostin we find 22 results, of which 17 are directly related to vessels.
Distribution of the Results: 5 Altaic-Uralic (Eurasiatic: *ṗVHV, *sVl[w]V, *komtV, *ḳUńV, *[sw]VjmV) 4 Borean (Eurasiatic: *ḳaṗV, *kala, *pVNV, *ḳVwKV) 2 Altaic - Indo-European (Eurasiatic: *ḳumbV, *ḳU[b]V) 1 Altaic - Uralic-Indo-European (Eurasiatic: *ḳurV) 1 Altaic - Dravidian (Eurasiatic: *tVti) 1 Altaic - Indo-European - Dravidian (Eurasiatic: *ḳVrḳV) 1-Altaic - Uralic- Indo-European - Dravidian (Eurasiatic: *wVḳV) 1 Altaic - Uralic - Kartvelian - Dravidian (Eurasiatic: *čVṗV) 1 Dravidian-Kartvelian (Eurasiatic: *čUrV ( ~ č`-)) |
Of all the word roots for "vessel" shared among languages only two root words are not found in Altaic languages (*čUrV and *ḳVwKV) and these two are shared with a small number of languages compared to others.
Hence, almost 90% of the words are shared with Altaic and these are also the languages covering a good part of the earth. Of the words for "vessel" above the root "*ḳaṗV" has the widest geographical coverage:
Altaic: *k`àp`à, Indo-European: *kap-, Uralic: *kappV Kartvelian: *ḳuṗr- (+ Georg. q̇vibar-), Dravidian: *kapal-, Eurasiatic : *ḳaṗV, Afroasiatic : *ḳab-, Sino-Caucasian : *[q]wā́ṗā, Austric : PAA *kVp jar, African (misc.) : Cf. Bantu *-káp- 'bale out (water)'.
When we search for this word root *ḳaṗV in the database we discover an important linguistic/cognitive phenomena
This exact root "*ḳaṗV" has two more meanings in addition to "vessel": "grasp", and "cover, close".
All three are conceptually related and they certainly go to the roots of the human language and civilization.
Meaning | Borean Root Across Languages | Turkish Word |
---|---|---|
To grasp | *ḳaṗV | Kap |
Cover, close | *ḳaṗV | Kapak |
Vessel | *ḳaṗV | Kap |
As you can see there is a perfect match between these Borean roots and Turkish words used today. The existence of these roots point to a common origin at very ancient times at least 12,000-15000 years ago because they are also the same as the proto-Nostratic root for "bowl,vessel" and "taking at hand (grasp)"
There is more. There are other ancestral roots very close to the above roots for "vessel". Let us look at some of these words.
Meaning | Borean Root Across Languages | Turkish Word |
---|---|---|
Bark | *ḲopV | Kav |
Husk | *ḳVpV | Kevik |
Cover, shell | *gebV- | Kavuz (+Kabuk my note) |
As you can see above, the words in Turkish for "husk", "shell", "bark" which certainly denote important items for Paleolithic Age (Stone Age) people are close for the words for "vessel", "grasp", "cover" and their Turkish counterparts. That's already inter-connected 6 global roots found almost exactly the same in Turkish.
Let us continue. The word roots for "empty", "hole" and "cave" are connected to "vessel" conceptually. An important linguistic and cognitive connection.
Meaning | Borean Root Across Languages | Turkish Word |
---|---|---|
Hole, Empty | *gop`a | Kovuk |
Empty | *gewV | Gevşek (Kov, My note) |
Cave, hole | *ḳVjwV | Kuyu (well, ravine etc.) |
There are many others that are related to the above, "beehive" as I had analyzed in the past articles as well as others that I will explore in the following articles.
As for the Sumerian connection, "aguba" vessel is the same as Turkish "kap" (English cup, too) but there is another vessel word that connects to Altaic. In Sumero Altaic wiki page where Sumerian words are compared to word roots from different languages, especially to Altaic words as the name says it, the author has a keen observation: The Nostratic root *ḳVrḳV is perfectly connected to Sumerian word for vessel kur-k(ur) not only with Sumerian but with further evidence from Akkadian and indicating that this word appears in Archaic Sumerian. Read here for more info Sumeroaltaic kur-k(ur) vessel
Moreover, the word in the Nostratic database has a relevant comment:
"A good common Altaic root, denoting some kind of big vessel (used as a measure of weight in the Eastern area)."
If there is a language that connects world languages and whose roots can be found in many others, Turkish certainly would be the top candidate. And it does, as I have shown.
I will continue this series which I started with Part I: It's not only the word for earth that connects world languages. Let's talk sweet : Honey and mead in world languages

(Click to read the article and see full size image)
Origin and Spread of Languages on Eurasian Map based on Genetics Research and my books as of May 2019. The world's first known language Sumerian was favorably compared to many linguistic families in Eurasia and America. Comparing ancient Sumerian migration routes constructed from ancient genome studies to these languages will give the opportunity to trace back world languages to a common language spoken some 20000 years ago. read more


Sun Language Theory
Turkish academics say whatever the West tells them to say and there are too few people interested in history or languages in Turkey.After Ataturk's death in 1938, Western propaganda arms told people in Turkey: "Nothing to see here, go find your written history records in Asia." And everyone in Turkey obeyed because, maybe except a few people out of tens of millions, there was no real Ataturkist in Turkey back then, just like today.
About Me:


Amazon Kindle -

Amazon Kindle -

Amazon Kindle - Paperback
Discover groundbreaking revelations on the roots of modern civilization in one short book. How did we arrive to where we are? How ancient civilizations a world apart, Sumer and Maya were connected. An overview that covers a wide range of topics from human migrations 50000 years ago to Gobeklitepe, the first temple in history, the first matriarchal society with written records, Elam, and to the Sun Cult of the Hattis. Their origins and influence on other ancient civilizations including their neighbors, distant relatives: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Hurrian, Scythian, Oguz, Kassite, Gutian, Hyksos and more. (Many of my articles on this website included)
- Real Ataturkist
- Activist
- Mechanical Engineer (MSc)
- Travel Portal Owner
Writings on :
with interests in history, politics, economics, philosophy, arts and sports
Fenerbahce Sports Club fan