PROTO-GERMANIC ORIGINS OF THE WORD “SOUL”
In the Old English (OE), the sawol (from saiwalō; Proto-Germanic origins) or soul meant life, animate existence, living being, or the spiritual and emotional part of a being. Though pre-Christian soul concepts on multiple “souls” or life-forces in Germanic tradition (sāwol, gāst/ǫnd breath/spirit, hugr/hyge mind, etc) exist, Christianization (Bible translations, Alfred’s Boethius) adapted sāwol for Latin anima/spiritus, contributing to the modern overlap of the terms “soul” and “spirit” overlap despite their distinct roots (saiwalō vs. breath/wind terms derived from Proto-Indo-European). Sāwol coexisted or overlapped with gāst (ghost/spirit/breath) and other psyche terms, and this syncretism shaped later English usage.
Around 971, with early examples around the late 10ᵗʰ century, the term saiwolo in Old English also referred to the “spirit” of a deceased person. After 971, “living soul” referred to the person. Germanic saiwalō (if water-derived) is distinctive and may reflect a northern European animistic worldview where landscape features (lakes, bogs, wells) were animated and liminal. The sound and tones of saiwaz and saiwalo evoke a sense of the surface of a sea, pool or lake, and philosophically, saiwalo is the quality of something both full and empty. The ai diphthong + w + l in saiwalō and might have sounded “wave-like” or fluid to its speakers connecting to broader Indo-European symbolic use of water for the unconscious, primordial chaos-to-cosmos transition, or the maternal matrix.
The Proto-Germanic term variant saiwaz (source of Old English sæ ‘sheet of water, sea, lake, pool’) is of uncertain etymology and may reflect a pre-Indo-European (PIE) substrate word common in the North Sea/Baltic region. It developed in parallel with saiwalō in one prominent etymological theory. One prominent etymological theory derives Proto-Germanic (PGmc) saiwalō (Old English sāwol/sāwel ‘soul, life, animate existence, spiritual/emotional part of a being’) from saiwaz ‘sea, lake’ + -alō (possibly a diminutive or relational suffix), evoking souls as ‘coming from or belonging to’ sacred waters — the supposed pre- or post-birth dwelling of the soul. Other theories link it to a Proto-Indo-European root for ‘strength/force’ or ‘self + will/choice,’ with some scholars like Guus J. Kroonen favoring a Balto-Slavic cognate connection.
As to attested ancient Germanic doctrine, water/sea does symbolize flux, depth/surface duality, birth/death, and the boundless in many Indo-European and Eurasian traditions. In later esoteric and symbolic interpretations drawing on this etymology as a modern intuitive recovery of ancient symbolic logic rather than strict philology, the sea/lake evokes the dual, protean nature of primordial substance or life-force — surface and depth, presence and absence — mirroring many ancient associations of water with the sacred, the maternal, and the otherworld. Spirit in these esoteric traditions, including German occultism, had been described as the PROTEAN SUBSTANCE, spirit-matter, LIFE, or the “Spirit of the Universe,” or the ONE REALITY represented by a sea, ocean, i.e., water. In old pagan Germanic culture sacred lakes and wells become portals to the otherworld through offerings in bogs, and ritual deposits in later folklore. Wells like Urd’s lie at the roots of Yggdrasil.
Language once possessed an enchanted quality, invoking remembrance of the Gods and ELEMENTS.
