The Building Blocks: How We Name the Elements (Earth, Fire, Water)

The Four Elements

In ancient times, all cultures believed the world was made of four basic elements: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. This wasn't just philosophy—it was how people understood the physical world. Everything was made of some combination of these four fundamental substances.

These names are among the oldest words in any language because they describe the most basic aspects of existence. And across the Indo-European world, these words are remarkably similar.

EARTH

FIRE

WATER

What This Proves

These words for the most basic elements of existence—Earth, Fire, Water—are among the oldest and most stable words in any language. They describe things so fundamental that they never change, never get replaced, never get borrowed from other languages.

The fact that these words are nearly identical across the Indo-European world—from Kurdistan to Ireland, from Scandinavia to India—is proof that our ancestors stood together, looking at the same earth, burning the same fires, drinking from the same waters.

They needed words for these things, and those words have survived for 5,000 years almost unchanged.

The Ancient Roots

Earth: Proto-Indo-European er- (earth, ground)

Fire: Proto-Indo-European h₁egni- (fire, to burn) - also related to Latin "ignis"

Water: Proto-Indo-European h₂ek- (water)

These are the building blocks of existence. And when you speak Kurdish, you're using the same names for these elements that your ancestors used 5,000 years ago—the same names that speakers of English, French, German, and Sanskrit still use today.

We are all standing on the same earth, watching the same fires, drinking the same water. And we speak about them using words that connect us across five millennia.