Thus, the Taung district (‘taung’ means ‘place of the lion’) in the predominantly Setswana-speaking province of North West in South Africa – where the revered Tiger Kloof boarding school is situated – entails the name Podumong. This name itself can be unbundled as comprised of poo (literally meaning ‘bull’ in today’s terms, but originally meaning ‘boss’ or ‘ruler’) and dumo (noisy) – thus ‘noisy king’ – alluding, of course, to the lion’s intimidating roar.
The primordial etymology of the term ‘leo’ – as meaning ‘lion’ – is itself better unearthed through Setswana. The original term was evidently ‘le-One’ (‘the king’: lyon in French) – a term befitting the ‘king of the jungle’! Those who follow my column religiously will not be surprised about the association of ‘One’ with ‘king’. Last week I unbundled the real meaning of ene (‘himself’) as having meant ‘lord’ in Sumerian. Thus, ‘Enki’ (EN.KI) was ‘Lord of Earth’ and ‘Enlil’ (EN.L’ILLU, or Ene-le-Illu) was ‘Lord of the Gods’. But I also showed in previous articles that ene and one mean exactly the same in Setswana, thus the Egyptian god ‘At-en’ (ata means ‘multiply’ in Setswana) was the same entity as the Greek/Hebrew god ‘Ad-on’ (‘add’ means multiply in English, and it has the same root as ata). In fact ‘Adonai’ (Hebrew) and ‘Adonis’ (Greek) differed only in the appendage ai/is but both mean ‘multiplying (fertile) lord’. Just to rub it in, you may google the meaning of the Sumerian god’s name ‘Su-en’. It means ‘multiplying (fertile) lord’! In Hebrew, he was thus called ‘Sinai’, after whom the ‘sacred’ Canaanite area was eponymously named (see Joshua 15:1). We are indeed talking about a single god here!
