Notion of Freedom – Selected Points on a Timeline
The Human Perspective
The oldest known word to mean freedom comes from ancient Iraq. The Sumerian "ama-ar-gi”, found on tablets in the ruins of the city-state of Lagash, (Neo-Sumerian Empire) derived from the verb "ama-gi," which literally meant "going home to mother" and means "release from (debt)” slavery. It described the condition of emancipated servants who returned to their own free families.
Ama-ar-gi - 2200 -2100 BC
· Freedom begins with a condition/ a form of slavery to..
· A slave is subject to a will which is not his or her own
Etymology – Free-dom
o Libertas and Eleutheria
The Latin libertas and the Greek eleutheria both indicated a condition of independence - unlike a slave. (In science, eleuthero-dactylo means separate fingers or toes.)
• Liberty meant privileges of independence
• (fingers) Independent yet Together
o Free – Pri (love)
The etymological origin of the English word free has root in *Pri - the meaning of which is ‘love’. Pri was incorporated into a variety of other terms in the years to come with meanings like ‘friend’, ‘beloved,’ ‘help,’ ‘peace’ and ‘affection.’
The modern sense of ‘free’ and ‘freedom’ of not being bound by law, society, circumstances, etc., may derive from the social divide between those able to choose beloved friends as opposed to slaves and servants who could not.
• The associate roots of freedom are friends and love
o Freedom
The English word "freedom" is an Anglo-Saxon word combining the words "free" and "dom.”
In Greeks Dom refers to: house, home; to domain (kingdom); to collection of persons (officialdom), rank or status (earldom), or general condition (freedom). The word "dom" means also personal judgment or opinion.
Etymologically speaking, a free person is a noble person possessing free judgment, the attitude of being free.
• Freedom as the attitude of being free
o Hungry: cut the rope
May be interesting to note, that "freedom" in Hungarian is "szabadság" coming from "szab" (cut). So, while the deep meaning of freedom in the western worlds is love and peace, something of a natural condition, the Hungarian meaning is an action to cut away the rope, the constraints... From which derive some strong images of freedom
• Free human does not have a halter around the neck
• Freedom is the action of cutting the rope
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