Origins of Words, revisited. of course...

[mcgillianaire]

So yeh, 3neonangels and I were just chatting about why I would like to name a future company from Sanskrit and I explained it through my fascination for deep meanings in simple words. For example, Guru is a word most of us should be familiar with, in the Western & Indian-speaking worlds as an (enlightened or spiritual) teacher.

As it turns out, Guru literally means 'He who destroys the darkness or ignorance', from Gu - 'darkness' and ru - 'destroyer.'

In Hindu philosophy, all knowledge is thought of as something that already resides within us; so in order to become knowledgeable we must go from a state of ignorance to one of awareness. That process can to some extent be achieved by ourselves but is more effective with the help of a teacher or guru.

That isn't all however. C raised the curious origin of the English word ruin and wondered if it had any connection with the Sanskrit, ru or destroyer. As it turns out, this is its European etymology:

Middle English ruine, from Old French, from Latin runa, from ruere, to rush, collapse.
Now considering, 'ere' is just a suffix to make something an infinitive in Italian, is it purely a coincidence that ru in Sanskrit and Latin mean possibly the same or similar things? Any etymologists or philologists in the house to destroy the darkness? ;)