# Etymology of суть



## CitizenEmpty

суть means "essence" as a noun and "3rd person present plural of быть" as a verb. It looks like to me that they are etymologically similar or same. Can anyone confirm this?


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## ahvalj

Almost. _Суть_ (<PIE *_hₑsonti_) is a personal form of the verb, -_ь_<*-_i_ is the ending here, which was never followed by anything else. _Суть_ (<PIE *Nom. Sg. _hₑsontis_, Acc. Sg. *_hₑsontim_) is a former _i_-stem noun, where -_ь_<*-_i_- is etymologically a suffix, followed in the prehistoric past by a final consonant (*-_s_ in Nom. and *_-m_ in Acc.). The noun is derived from the participle, like e. g. in Greek (_οὐσία_ < PIE _*hₑsonti- _cp. _οὖσα _Part. Praes. Act. fem.).

Why is the personal form of Pl. 3 in the IE languages (except in the attested Baltic, which has the same  form for all the three numbers in the third person) related to the _nt_-Participle is another question. Most probably, the original form of Pl. 3 in earlier PIE was replaced with the _nt_-Participle or with the _nt_-form that also served as the source of this participle (compare Finnish _laulavat_ "they sing" & "singing" [Nom. Pl. Part. Praes. Act.]).


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## CitizenEmpty

Interesting.



ahvalj said:


> The noun is derived from the participle, like e. g. in Greek (_οὐσία_ < PIE _*hₑsonti- _cp. _οὖσα _Part. Praes. Act. fem.).



What kind of participle of быть would that be?


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## ahvalj

CitizenEmpty said:


> Interesting.
> 
> 
> 
> What kind of participle of быть would that be?


_Сущий_. _Щ_ comes from *_tj_ since in Balto-Slavic these participles were partly thematicized (cp. Old Church Slavonic Nom. Sg. _sy_<*_hₑsonts_, Gen. Sg. _sǫšta_ and Lithuanian _esąs_, _esančio_).


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## ahvalj

ahvalj said:


> like e. g. in Greek (_οὐσία_ < PIE _*hₑsonti- _cp. _οὖσα _Part. Praes. Act. fem.)


I've re-read this statement and thought that it requires clarification. Ancient Greek words usually remain pretty well recognizable from a PIE perspective, yet these two seem to have experienced most Greek sound shifts. So, here are the steps.

*The Participle:*
PIE *_hₑsontihₐ _(the proper PIE form was probably *_hₑsn̥tihₐ_ with a zero-grade, but since at some point Greek leveled this form after the masculine and neuter, let's assume it happened very early)

Early Proto-Greek *_esontı̯a_ — both laryngeals vocalized into short vowels according to their colors;_ ia_>_ı̯a_

Mycenaean *_ehonʦa —_ intervocalic _s_>_h_; the sequence _tı̯_ assibilated into _ʦ_

Post-Mycenaean *_eonsa —_ -_h_- disappeared; _ʦ_ simplified into _s_

Classical _ọ̄sa_ (orthographically _οὖσα_) — _n_ disappeared before _s_ and lengthened the preceding _o_; adjacent vowels contracted

Later Classical _ūsa —_ _ọ̄_>_ū_


*The noun:*
PIE *_hₑsontis _(here the _o_-grade is probably original)

Early Proto-Greek *_esontis_ — the laryngeal vocalized

Later Proto-Greek *_esontiı̯ā_ — the noun transformed from an _i_- to an_ ā_-stem

Mycenaean *_ehontiā_ — intervocalic _s_>_h;_ intervocalic _ı̯_ disappeared

Earlier Ionic-Attic *_eonʦiā_ — -_h_- disappeared; _t_ assibilated into _ʦ_ before _i_ in non-Doric dialects

Pre-Classical *_eonsiǣ_ — _ʦ_ simplified into _s_; _ā_>_ǣ_

Classical Attic _ọ̄siā_ (orthographically _οὐσία_) — _n_ disappeared before _s_ and lengthened the preceding _o_; adjacent vowels contracted; _ǣ _reverted to _ā_ in Attic (but not Ionic) after _i
_
Later Classical _ūsiā_ — _ọ̄_>_ū_


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## fdb

ousia is an inner-Greek abstract derivative in -ia from the participle m. ōn, f. ousa, n. on, exactly parallel to gerousia from gerōn. It is misguided to try to trace ousia back to proto-IE.


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> ousia is an inner-Greek abstract derivative in -ia from the participle m. ōn, f. ousa, n. on, exactly parallel to gerousia from gerōn. It is misguided to try to trace ousia back to proto-IE.


That's not impossible, but I don't see why the ancient origin should be ruled out, especially taking into consideration the Slavic counterpart that is not recent (there is no such pattern in Slavic: at least I can't recall other examples). Both scenarios seem equally possible to me for this Greek word (plus, a derivation of the noun from the participle at any stage between PIE and the attested Greek). The same is true for the entire derivational pattern in Greek: what is perceived now as an exotic derivation from the feminine Participle is as easily explained as the old model dating back to the time when -_ont- _still existed in both the masculine/neuter and feminine (i. e. pre-Mycenaean) and hence the noun was produced from the Participle as a whole.


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## ahvalj

What speaks against my assumption is the Doric form _ὠσία_: the scenario in #5 would require a Doric **_ὠντία_. Well, if it is not a remodeling in Doric under the Eastern Greek influence, then the Greek word must indeed be rather recent. In this connection it is strange that Slavs that lived in swamps possessed such an abstract word as "essence" for millennia, whereas Greeks, bearers of a higher culture, lacked it.

Update. _Суть_ itself is a rare word in Slavic: outside Russian, I was able to find it only in Ukrainian, yet its derivatives, like the Russian pair _присутствие/отсутствие_ "presence/absence" etc., are more widespread (e. g. Ukrainian _сутність _"essence" or Ukrainian _присутній_, Belarusian _прысутны_, Serbo-Croatian _prisutan_, Slovene _prisoten_ "present", which can't be Russian calques since these words are absent in Russian).


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## fdb

The original meaning of οὐσία is “that which is one’s own; property”, attested since Herodotus. In the philosophers (Plato, Aristotle and perhaps already Democritus) it takes on the sense “true nature of something” as opposed to πάθη. Latin essentia is a calque on οὐσία and is not attested before the imperial period, though Seneca says that he thinks it was coined by Cicero ("Ciceronem auctorem hujus verbi habeo").


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## ahvalj

Thanks. I have to check whether counterparts exist across other IE languages. Latin _essentia_ is an obvious calque, even for morphological reasons, therefore I didn't mention it.

In Russian _суть_/_sutʲ_ is an ordinary everyday word, without any bookish flavor, e. g. _по су́ти / po súti_ "in essence, actually", and is opposed to the more formal _существо́/suɕɕestvó_ (_по существу́ / po suɕɕestvú_ "in essence, actually" is also possible), and, as I have written, bears no signs of recent origin. In addition, a totally bookish word _естество́/jestestvó_ "nature, essence" exists as well. Both latter words are found in Old Church Slavonic as _сѫщьство/sǫštьstvo_ (formed from the Participle at the stage when its *_tj_ had already yotated, most probably by the first translators of Christian texts in the 9th century) and _ѥстьство/jestьstvo_ (artificially formed from the Sg. 3, probably at the same time) and are considered Greek calques, whereas *_сѫть/*sǫtь_ is not attested in the older Slavic texts.


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## OBrasilo

There is also no derivative of _sǫtĭ_ in Slovenian, for example (by the known shifts, it would become _sot_). Our word for essence is _bistvo_, which is derived from _biti_, most probably a calque from Latin. Our 3rd person plural of _biti_ is _so_. However, the Serbs (and Croats and Bosnians) have _suština_. The Bulgarians have _същност_ and _същина_, and _suštinata_ in Macedonian. The Croats also have _srž_ from who knows what origin which I've seen used in Slovenian too. The Czechs and Slovaks say _podstata_. The Ples say _esencja_, _istota_, or *sedno* (could possibly be related). Ukrainian has _sut'_ and _sutnist'_, and Belarussian has _sutnasc'_ and _suc'_.
Outside the Slavic languages, we have German with _das Sein_ which seems obviously related to me, as well as _das Wesen_ which is from another verb for to be. Dutch only has _wezen_ (and by derivation, Afrikaans _wese_). Of the North Germanic languages, Sweden has _väsen_ (akin to German _das Wesen_), while Danish and Norwegian use the latin word and Icelandic has a completely different word.
Latvian, Irish, and Armenian derive their words for essence from the form of to be ultimately going back to PIE *bhu-.
Albanian has _thelb_, but now I'm not sure what that's derived from. Certainly doesn't seem related. Farsi uses an Arabic loanword (_jowhar_ < _jawhar_).

So it seems there's matches only in Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, possibly Polish, and German. However, I haven't been able to find anything for Sanskrit, Avestan, Tocharian A and B, Anatolian, etc. Or other Italic and Celtic languages, for that matter, as well as Gothic. Would be interesting to see what could be found there.

Right now the word seems to be confined to languages spoken by ethnicities professing Orthodox Christianity, with two exceptions (Croatian and German) and one possible exception (Polish). However, the Polish word could be a Germanism, and the Croatian (and Bosnian) word could be of Serbian stock. Which would make German the only real exception, but it could be in turn a calque on Latin _essentia_.


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## ahvalj

I still feel necessary to distinguish between Slavic words with *_sǫt_-, going back to the original non-yotated Present Active Participle and hence pretty old, and those with reflexes of *_sǫtj_-, formed from the actual Slavic participle forms. In this connection, the Ukrainian _сутність/sutnʲistʲ_ seems older than the Russian _сущность/suɕnostʲ_ and hence more relevant to the etymology of _суть_. I just wanted to illustrate that _суть_ as a noun "essence" is not a recent formation as sometimes postulated: we find occasional remnants of it here and there across Slavic (also Slovene _pri*sot*en_ from #8).


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## fdb

OBrasilo said:


> There is also no derivative of _sǫtĭ_ in Slovenian, for example (by the known shifts, it would become _sot_). Our word for essence is _bistvo_, which is derived from _biti_, most probably a calque from Latin. Our 3rd person plural of _biti_ is _so_. However, the Serbs (and Croats and Bosnians) have _suština_. The Bulgarians have _същност_ and _същина_, and _suštinata_ in Macedonian. The Croats also have _srž_ from who knows what origin which I've seen used in Slovenian too. The Czechs and Slovaks say _podstata_. The Ples say _esencja_, _istota_, or *sedno* (could possibly be related). Ukrainian has _sut'_ and _sutnist'_, and Belarussian has _sutnasc'_ and _suc'_.
> Outside the Slavic languages, we have German with _das Sein_ which seems obviously related to me, as well as _das Wesen_ which is from another verb for to be. Dutch only has _wezen_ (and by derivation, Afrikaans _wese_). Of the North Germanic languages, Sweden has _väsen_ (akin to German _das Wesen_), while Danish and Norwegian use the latin word and Icelandic has a completely different word.
> Latvian, Irish, and Armenian derive their words for essence from the form of to be ultimately going back to PIE *bhu-.
> Albanian has _thelb_, but now I'm not sure what that's derived from. Certainly doesn't seem related. Farsi uses an Arabic loanword (_jowhar_ < _jawhar_).
> 
> So it seems there's matches only in Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, possibly Polish, and German. However, I haven't been able to find anything for Sanskrit, Avestan, Tocharian A and B, Anatolian, etc. Or other Italic and Celtic languages, for that matter, as well as Gothic. Would be interesting to see what could be found there.
> 
> Right now the word seems to be confined to languages spoken by ethnicities professing Orthodox Christianity, with two exceptions (Croatian and German) and one possible exception (Polish). However, the Polish word could be a Germanism, and the Croatian (and Bosnian) word could be of Serbian stock. Which would make German the only real exception, but it could be in turn a calque on Latin _essentia_.




I think there are better ways to investigate philosophical vocabulary than to call up the list of “translations” for “essence” in Wiktionary. Actually there are lots of different concepts at play here. Aristotle distinguishes between to on, to einai, to ti ēn einai, hē ousia, to hypokeimenon, etc., and mediaeval Latin distinguishes (largely calquing Aristotle’s terminology) between esse, ens, substantia, essentia, etc. Heidegger said “Das Sein ist kein Seiendes” (try saying that in English or Russian).

By the way, it is true that New Persian jawhar is borrowed from Arabic, but the Arabic word is itself borrowed from Middle Persian gōhr. As I said, it is all not so simple.


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## apmoy70

fdb said:


> I think there are better ways to investigate philosophical vocabulary than to call up the list of “translations” for “essence” in Wiktionary. Actually there are lots of different concepts at play here. Aristotle distinguishes between to on, to einai, to ti ēn einai, hē ousia, to hypokeimenon, etc., and mediaeval Latin distinguishes (largely calquing Aristotle’s terminology) between esse, ens, substantia, essentia, etc.


Mediaeval philosophy distinguishes between essentia and substantia at least since 325 CE; the two cannot be confused, they describe different concepts: the former is _ousia_ (real nature), the latter is _hypostasis_ (the essence actualised i.e. personhood). Mediaeval Greek further distinguishes between ὁμοούσιον and ὁμ_οι_ούσιον.



fdb said:


> Heidegger said “Das Sein ist kein Seiendes” (try saying that in English or Russian).


I think Heidegger used _Da-sein_, therefore it's "Da-sein ist kein Seiendes" in Greek: *«Το εδωνά-είναι δεν είναι»* (or *«...δεν είναι ον»*)


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## fdb

The precise quotation is: „Das Sein des Seienden 'ist' nicht selbst ein Seiendes.“ (Sein und Zeit, p. 7).


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## apmoy70

fdb said:


> The precise quotation is: „Das Sein des Seienden 'ist' nicht selbst ein Seiendes.“ (Sein und Zeit, p. 7).


Thanks for the quotation, I was 99% sure he used his neologism in it. In that case it becomes in Gr. *«Το είναι δεν είναι ον»*.
(Apologies for the OT)


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## berndf

fdb said:


> Heidegger said “Das Sein ist kein Seiendes” (try saying that in English or Russian).





fdb said:


> The precise quotation is: „Das Sein des Seienden 'ist' nicht selbst ein Seiendes.“ (Sein und Zeit, p. 7).


English has the added ambiguity that the abstract verbal noun and the nominalized present participle are morphologically and to some extend also semantically merged. Yet the literal translation of his statement
_The being of the being is not itself a being._​is surprisingly close to intelligibility for a Heidegger quotation. This is probably so because the statement is meaningful even without diving into his _Fundamentalontologie_ as it is equivalent to Kant's observation that_ existence is not a predicate_.


apmoy70 said:


> I think Heidegger used _Da-sein_, therefore it's "Da-sein ist kein Seiendes" in Greek: *«Το εδωνά-είναι δεν είναι»* (or *«...δεν είναι ον»*)


That is something else in Heidegger's terminology. A _Daseinendes_ a being that is aware of its existence.


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