2760: Bird Sparrow Camels Jul 11, 2024
It is a frequent occurrence, especially among natural features, that compound words that cross linguistic boundaries will pick up redundant elements, such as the famous River Avon in Wales (afon is ‘river’ in Welsh). While this is not uncommon among physical features wherein people groups move around them, occasionally it is also seen in other words, such as ‘ostrich’. It comes from the Greek στρουθίων (strouthíōn), itself shortened from στρουθιοκάμηλος (strouthiokámēlos) literally “sparrow-camel” but the O- at the beginning of ‘ostrich’ comes from an addition in Latin. When Latin adopted it as strūthiō, the word ‘avis’ (‘bird’, hence ‘avian’) was added resulting in ‘a(u)strithio’ for a sort of “bird sparrow” translation, though obviously not literally. This is true for the Spanish/Portuguese ‘avestruz’ of the same meaning, where more of Latin’s ‘avis’ is preserved.
2759: Linguistic Connections: ζεῦγος Jul 10, 2024
The concept of pairing or joining may not seem very complex, yet it is in these simplest instances that we find the greatest adaptation and variation. The Ancient Greek ζεῦγος (zeugos), meaning ‘yoke’—not in the burdensome sense but in the sense of things joined—gave rise to words like ‘zygote’ and numerous everyday terms. It was adopted into Aramaic as זוגא (zuga), meaning ‘pair’, which led to Hebrew זוג (zug), meaning ‘pair; couple’, and זיוג (zivug), meaning ‘soulmate’. Arabic also borrowed it from Aramaic, forming the root ز و ج (z w j), resulting in words like ‘marriage’ زَوْج (zawj) and ‘spouse’, as well as مزدوج (muzdawaj), meaning ‘bisexual’ in the sense of twos. Sanskrit योग (yóga), while not directly from Greek, shares the same root (also found in ‘yoke’ itself), relating to pairing, but in a religious Hindu context concerning the body and soul.
2486: Linear A & B Oct 2, 2021
The Greek alphabet was ultimately derived from Phoenician (a.k.a. Punic; a.k.a. Canaanite), but considering the shapes of the letters, the inclusion of vowels, and changing direction of the writing itself, this was not an immediate process. Two writing systems, known as Linear A and Linear B, emerged in the eastern Mediterranean. Linear A was used from about 1800–1450 BC with no decipherable texts to date, but was used by the Mycenaeans (Minoans): early Greeks based in the Aegean and especially Crete. Already Linear A switched to a left-to-right script, and in addition to containing symbols for old letters, there are new letters, grammatical symbols, whole syllables and a number system including fractions. In Linear B, also used by the Mycenaeans from about 1450 BC until the Bronze Age Collapse, seemingly for primarily official purposes. Like Linear A, some symbols were letters and others whole syllables—not unlike Egyptian hieroglyphs in that way—with about 200 overall signs. Ultimately, these, and other scripts used for early Greek language writing can help to show the transition of a once glyph-based system of representing words and sounds into a recognizable form of the alphabets it led to.