Oral cultures have usually identified the breath with spirit or mind. In many cultures around the world, the same word is used for both. "Spirit" comes from Latin "spiritus", which means gust of wind. "Psyche" comes from Greek "psuche", which means gust of wind. Latin word "anima" comes from Greek "animos", which meant wind. "Atmosphere" comes from the Sankrit "atman", which means soul. The Indian word "prana" can mean breath, or wind, or the life force that animates living beings. The Chinese word "qi" does the same work. So do the Hebrew words "ruah" and "nephesh". Early Greeks used "pneuma" and "psyche".^[Lent, Jeremy R. The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2017.] David Abram claims that if we trace the word for "mind", "soul", or "spirit" in any language back to its oral origins, we will find that at least one of those words refers to the air, the wind, or the breath. David Abram points out that we only speak on the exhale. We use our throat and mouth to shape air. Language could not occur without air. Older cultures have seen the air as a living thing. He suggests that one reason we so readily pollute the air is that we have come to see it as a dead thing.