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Hello, and welcome to Your Greek Word On A Sunday, a weekly, bite-size podcast for anyone curious on language, etymology and connections. I am your host, Emmanuela Lia and wherever you are in the world, if you want to entertain your brain for a few minutes, this is the podcast for you. Let's Go!
Following up from last week’s episode on giants and fossils here’s another word that comes with a mythical creature attached. When ancient Greeks found animal fossils that looked enormous, they called them ‘Giants’ but, when they found enormous fossils that had a hole in the middle of their scull they believed them to be a special type of giant. They named them Κύκλωπες (cyclops) meaning ‘central eye’. The last giant of his kind and son of Apollo was, Πολύφημος (Polyphemus) meaning, 'the famous one’ and in Homer’s Odyssey, he was blinded by Odysseus when the latter was kept prisoner in the giant’s island. For that ,Apollo punished Odysseus by making his journey home, much, much, much, much longer. It’s worth saying here that, many times a description of a creature from Phoenician merchants or creatures seen while fighting with foreign armies, would inspire stories and myths to explain things. Ivory in Ancient Greece wasn’t uncommon but it wasn’t for everyone. The statue of Athena inside the Parthenon was made of ivory and gold and that combination was generally used for high and religious art. Around the time of Alexander the Great the Greek name for ivory was applied, for the first time, to the animal and not just the material. The word came to Latin as ‘Elephantus’ then old French ‘olifant’, old English ‘Elpend’ and in modern English, keeping the Latin spelling, ΕLEFAS/ELEPHANT
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