TheEncyclopedia of Indo-European Culture suggests that the original meaning of the term was "something that isfixed;norm,rule." The notion of "speaking" may have emerged from oral recounts of social customs and laws. The original sense of a "point fixed in place" was perhaps associated with objects from which one may determine their position and therefore gather directions. Moreover, according to the EIEC, this same concept of a "fixed point" developed—in some daughter languages—to describe general areas of land.[3]
