Člověk (person, human)
Člověk is a compound word that was slapped together a long time ago during the Proto-Balto-Slavic period and the first half of ‘člověk’ (čeleď) is related to the English word ‘shoal’ as in a ‘shoal of fish’.
The Etymological Tree:
The Compound Word:
Člověk is a compound word that was put together a long time ago during the Proto-Balto-Slavic period, if not beforehand. *Kelawaikas has emerged in modern Czech as člověk and its core meaning of ‘man’ or ‘human’ has remained unchanged. However, at times it has been ascribed different meanings such as ‘warrior’. This compound is most commonly understood as ‘family son’, or sometimes ‘family soldier’. Let’s break the word down.
Čeleď
Čeleď forms the first half of the word and it mean ‘family’. In Western Slavic languages the first vowel was dropped which is how we get člo- instead of čelo-. Čeleď is now used to identify the family classification of plants or animals.
Věk
Věk comes from the Proto-Balto-Slavic root *wáikas which means ‘child’, ‘force’ or ‘strength’. In Lithuanian and Latvian, this root went on to mean ‘child’ and ‘boy’, respectively. In Lithuanian a variant has also gone on to mean ‘life’ or ‘power’. The ‘force’ in this word is likely connected to the stretching of time and thus where we get ‘age’.
Čeleď ↔ Shoal
Shoal is connected to čeleď via the PIE root of *(s)kelH- and back down to shoal, as in a shoal of fish. This has had military connections in the past (troop) which links to the idea of power or a group of powerful men (i.e. warriors). Fundamentally, both words held on to their original meaning of a ‘group of people or living things’, and the way each word is used today is not that dissimilar.
Derived or Related Terms:
pračlověk / caveman, prehistoric man
člověčí / human
podčeleď / subfamily
čeledín / farm worker, groom (essentially ‘someone who belongs to the family’ in some way)
věčný / eternal, perpetual
novověk / modern era
středověk / middle ages
starověk / antiquity
pravěk / prehistory
Vědět (to know) is connected both to vidět (to see) in Czech and ‘wit’ in English meaning ‘intellectual ability’ and ‘to know’; the latter verb form is now largely obsolete.