scholarly journals Once more on the origin of Semetic and Greek star names: an astromonic-etymological approach updated

2005 ◽  
Vol 09 (01) ◽  
pp. 3-43
Author(s):  
Gennadij Kurtik ◽  
Alexander Militarev

The contribution is a new version of the paper "From Mesopotamia to Greece: to the Origin of Semitic and Greek Star Names" once written by a Sumerologist (L.Bobrova) and etymologist (A. Militarev), and recently revised, updated and corrected in most part by a historian of the Mesopotamian astronomy (G. Kurtik). The present paper analyzes Sumerian and Akkadian (Babylonian) names of 34 celestial bodies, and their equivalents in other Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Syrian Aramaic, and Ge`ez, or ancient Ethiopian) and in Greek and Latin. Its main goal is to demonstrate the importance of Sumerian and Babylonian celestial body names as a source of corresponding terms in other cultures, up to the conventional inventory of modern astronomy, and to reveal four strategies by which other cultures drew ideas for name-giving from the treasury of Mesopotamia's lexicon of celestial bodies. Whereas one of these strategies -- echoing, or full translation, of a Sumero-Akkadian term -- is axiomatic, the other three -- shift of meaning or interpretation of a Sumero-Akkadian term; lexical, or "material" borrowing; and, especially, folk etymology, or misinterpretation -- are understudied and practically unnoticed. The authors do not focus on such complicated matters as a historical background of Mesopotamian influence, direct or indirect, on Greek culture; a direction and routes of inter-borrowing between different speaking areas other than Akkadian and their contacts with the Greek world; a chronology of all kinds of cultural contacts and influences; probable connections between the early pre-Islamic Arabic and Babylonian traditions; or the problem of identification of Mesopotamian constellation and stars. However, the data presented may give a certain impulse to further investigation of these matters, while feasible etymologies and relations established between names can even throw some light upon debatable identification cases.

Early China ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 1-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Allan

This article reexamines the hypotheses of Guo Moruo and H.G. Creel that Shang Di was the high god of the Shang and Tian, that of the Zhou. It proposes that Shang Di was originally the spirit of the pole star. As such, it was the one celestial body which was higher than the ten suns, with whom the Shang ancestors were identified. Tian was not a high god, but quite literally, the sky. The sky was the location of the Shang Di and the other ancestral spirits, so it came to serve as a euphemism for Shang Di or, more broadly, for Shang Di and all the celestial phenomena and spirits who were under his aegis. The primary distinction between the Shang and Zhou was not that Shang Di was particular to the Shang, but that the Shang rulers identified themselves with the ten suns. Shang Di, as the pole star, was acknowledged by both Shang and Zhou as the highest of the spirits. Tian, as the sky, was understood primarily as the celestial bodies that inhabit it. As in later time, the sky was a spiritual force associated with patterns of time, which were revealed in the movements of the celestial bodies. Thus, the originaltian ming(“celestial mandate” or “mandate of heaven”) was, quite literally, an astronomical sign, a “command” seen in the sky during the reign of Wen, whose son Wu founded the Zhou Dynasty.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marine Vekua

The main goal of this research is to determine whether the journalism education of the leading media schools inGeorgia is adequate to modern media market’s demands and challenges. The right answer to this main questionwas found after analyzing Georgian media market’s demands, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, differentaspects of journalism education in Georgia: the historical background, development trends, evaluation ofeducational programs and curricula designs, reflection of international standards in teaching methods, studyingand working conditions.


1876 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-58
Author(s):  
A. H. Sayce

Dr. Hincks once spoke of Assyrian as the Sanskrit of the Semitic languages, and the progress of cuneiform decipherment has tended to show that his words were not greatly exaggerated. It is true that Assyrian belongs to the northern branch of the Semitic family, which includes Hebrew and Aramaic, and not to the southern, which comprises Arabic and Ethiopic; it is true, also, that it bears a closer relationship to Hebrew and Phœnician than to any other Semitic idiom; but it is no less true that it has thrown an unexpected light on several of the problems of general Semitic philology. The reasons of this are clear enough. We possess contemporaneous monuments of the language from a very remote date, far beyond the antiquity which can be ascribed to any other record of Semitic speech; the language, even at that time, was already a literary one, and so stereotyped certain early grammatical forms that have been lost or obscured in the other dialects which did not become literary until at a much later period of growth; the syllabic character of the writing has preserved the vowels exactly as they were pronounced; and the monuments were inscribed while the speech of the people was still a living one, and not handed down through the doubtful channels of tradition and copyists.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Tri Indri Hardini ◽  
Philippe Grangé

When two languages come into contact, they exert a reciprocal influence, often unbalanced. A phenomenon that often occurs in case of language contact is the absorption or borrowing of lexical elements, which will enrich the vocabulary of the receiving language. In this article, we deal with words adopted from French in Indonesian and vice-versa. This research shows that most of the words of French origin in Indonesian/Malay language were borrowed through Dutch. Historical background explains why there are no direct loanwords from French language in Indonesian. Nowadays, a second batch of words originating from Old French finds their way into Indonesian through English. On the other hand, very few words from Malay-Indonesian origin were borrowed in French, and their route was not straight either: they were conveyed through Portuguese or Dutch. Phonological adaptation and shift of meaning may have happen when the words were loaned from French to Dutch language or later, when adapted from Dutch into Indonesian language. The data analysed in this article may help teachers of French as a Foreign Language in Indonesia, as well as teachers of Indonesian as a Foreign Language in French-speaking countries, to predict which words will be immediately recognized by their students, and when they should pay extra-attention to faux-amis (cognates whose meanings differ).


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Raissa De Gruttola

Abstract Christian missionaries play an important role in the history of the relationship between China and Europe. Their presence in China has been widely explored, but little attention has been paid to the role played by the Bible in their preaching. From 13th to 19th century, although they did not translate the Bible, Catholic missionaries preached the Gospel orally or with catechisms. On the other hand, the Protestant missionaries had published many version of the Chinese Bible throughout the 19th century. It was only in the 20th century that the Franciscan friar Gabriele Allegra decided to go to China as a missionary to translate the Holy Scriptures into Chinese. He arrived in China in 1931 and translated from 1935 to 1961. He also founded a biblical study centre to prepare expert scholars to collaborate in the Bible translation. Allegra and his colleagues completed the translation in 1961, and the first complete single-volume Catholic Bible in Chinese was published in 1968. After presenting the historical background of Allegra’s activity, a textual analysis of some passages of his translation will be presented, emphasizing the meanings of the Chinese words he chose to use to translate particular elements of Christian terminology. This study will verify the closeness of the work by Allegra to the original Greek text and the validity of some particular translation choices.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-54
Author(s):  
Brian Micallef

Up to a few years ago, the private rental market in Malta was a classic example of the dysfunction created by two diametrically opposed regimes – a rigidly-controlled one and a completely liberal one – co-existing side by side. Two recent reforms have sought to address this situation. The objective of this paper is to describe the state-of-play in the private rental market in Malta by providing a historical background to these recent developments. In addition to the distortions in the housing market that rent controls introduce, controls also contributed to the deterioration of the statistical infrastructure to collect data on this sector. From this perspective, the introduction of the 2020 rent reform for the post-1995 sector, in addition to providing a set of minimum standards to professionalize the market, also facilitated data collection efforts through the introduction of a rent register. This information provided an alternative source of information to complement the other data sources, which tend to be outdated, inadequate, or focus solely on specific segments of the market, thus allowing for a more detailed and complete view of the private rental market in Malta.


2021 ◽  
pp. 186-196
Author(s):  
Mario C. D. Paganini

This chapter focuses on the treatment of outsiders and on the possible procedures for inclusion in the gymnasia of Hellenistic Egypt: attention is devoted in particular to Egyptians, Judaeans, and the possible role of women in gymnasia. The gymnasium was the place for the assertion of specific aspects of Greek identity and those who took part in its life, including visiting guests, were admitted on the understanding that they shared and were willing to perform specific features of Greek culture. It is shown how Egyptians and Judaeans could be welcomed into the gymnasia of Egypt but how they could not and did not advertise or express themselves in them as anything other than ‘Greeks’, adopting or at any rate coming to terms with practices (including nudity) that at times clashed with traditional Egyptian or Judaean values. Women, on the other hand, found no room in the gymnasia of Ptolemaic Egypt: the gymnasium was essentially an institution built by and for men and so it basically remained from the beginning until the end of its days.


2020 ◽  
pp. 159-180
Author(s):  
Ian Worthington

Increasing warfare in Greece involved the Athenians, who sided with Rome in their best interests. But in Macedonia, Philip V’s death led to his son Perseus becoming king. Eventually he and Rome went to war—the Third Macedonian War. It ended in Rome’s victory in a battle at the hands of Aemilius Paullus, after which Rome ended the Antigonid dynasty and split up the Macedonian kingdom to bring to an end the Macedonian state. Importantly for Athens, Rome granted the city the island of Delos, which had a profound effect on the Athenian economy because of its prosperity. An Athenian embassy to Rome—the so-called philosophers embassy—also introduced the Romans to the three major types of philosophy studied at Athens, and Romans began to take a serious interest in them, and by extension Greek culture. But increasing warfare in Greece and the belligerence of the Achaean League forced Rome to intervene, and to annex Greece formally into its empire: a watershed year for Greece. Athens did not suffer, and the chapter ends considering its position in the Greek world, and diplomatic dealings with Hellenistic kings like the Ptolemies and Seleucids.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-188
Author(s):  
Eva Smolka ◽  
Dorit Ravid

Abstract Verbs constitute one of the basic building blocks of a clause, setting the structure of arguments and expressing the relationships among nouns in various thematic roles. In general terms, verbs are lexical items expressing verb-oriented notions such as activities, processes, and states. In morphology-rich languages, the syntactic and lexical roles of verbs are mediated by typologically-oriented morphological means. The current Special Issue contrasts the structure and functions of verbs in languages from two morphologically rich, yet typologically different families. The articles in the Special Issue present spoken and written aspects of verbs in usage and development in German (a Germanic language) on the one hand, in Hebrew, Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic (Semitic languages), on the other. From a theoretical linguistic perspective, we ask how the different typological features of these languages affect the function of verbs in sentences, and from a psycholinguistic perspective, we ask how typological differences affect the processing of verbs in the mature minds of adults and in the developing minds of children.


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