Re: Olympia
in reply to a message by Rene
Proto-Hellenic obviously could have had loan words from non-Indoeuropean languages, and indeed, Olympos meaning mountain as a Pelasgian loan word has been suggested by Chantraine, but like much else, without convincing evidence. Since Pelasgian is merely a catch all term meaning pre-Hellenic, often in the sense of a substratum, it is difficult to turn this into a proper etymology. Theories linking it with words of Afroasiatic origin (meaning roof in this case) have also been proposed, but isolated sound similarities with broad semantic flexibility does not make convincing evidence of borrowing either: the probability of an enterprising person *not* being able to make up such theories is too low :-)Incidentally, noting the literary link between Olympos and Ouranos, the latter having clearly possible Indoeuropean etymologies (even though the exact meaning is in question; the phonological link with Vedic varuna being quite irregular to be completely comfortable), and since it was the abode of gods, it has indeed been glossed by Salvatore Quasimodo as Italian cielo, which has been translated into English as heaven (in the sense of sky, presumably). I do not think that was intended as an etymology, but it might have led to the original question.
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Messages

Olympia  ·  blue_belle  ·  11/5/2010, 6:36 PM
Re: Olympia  ·  SamJr  ·  11/13/2010, 9:40 AM
Re: Olympia  ·  Marija Luminitsa  ·  11/7/2010, 9:55 PM
Re: Olympia  ·  Rene  ·  11/8/2010, 4:32 AM
Re: Olympia  ·  Pavlos  ·  12/13/2010, 9:37 PM
Re: Olympia  ·  তন্ময় ভট্টাচার্য্য  ·  11/10/2010, 6:24 AM
Re: Olympia  ·  blue_belle  ·  11/14/2010, 9:59 PM
Re: Olympia  ·  H E  ·  11/6/2010, 1:58 AM
Re: Olympia  ·  Pavlos  ·  12/13/2010, 1:21 AM
Re: Olympia  ·  Rene  ·  11/6/2010, 12:48 AM