Your Greek Word On A Sunday

Today’s word is inspired by the celestial event happening between  the 17th of November , so this coming Tuesday, and the end of the month. The Leonid meteor shower. The fast, bright meteors that seem to originate from the constellation of Leo, hence their name). Make sure you look up on the 17th as this will be the night where they will be most visible. On with our episode!(Piano music) 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!There are some inventions that very clearly belong to someone and others, that are ideas build upon ideas, upon ideas, so much so, that is very hard to pinpoint where or who indeed, started it. Which is the case with our astronomy instrument today. We know that it was invented sometime in the 1500s but 2 people claimed the patent on the same week and then a century later, documents were found of the same invention been made years before those two claims. And it gets more confusing when upgrades and alterations keep happening to this day. Inventing an instrument to see an object that is far away as if it’s closer, potentially started from the Dutch glassmaker Hans Lippershey and not Galileo Galilei, who made major improvements on it but then again as I said, improvements are still happening. The name of the object however, was given to it in 1611 by the Greek theologian, chemist and mathematician, Giovanni Demisiani. In Italy during a banquet where Galilei was presented with a membership to the Academia dei Lincei (the academy of sciences ) Demisiani combined  two Greek words Τέλε (tele) meaning ‘afar’ and the infinitive σκοπέιν (skopin) meaning ‘to see/to watch’ so, looking at something that is far away. The word came directly from Latin into English in 1619 and stayed ΤΗΛΕΣΚΟΠΙΟ/TELESCOPE Instagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]

(Piano music) 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!For those of you not living in England, this weekend bonfires are lit all over the country to burn the likeness of Guy Fawkes so, I thought I should do a fire related word for us. In Ancient Greece big fires were lit to burn the dead; yes, at the same period as burials were happening, the two practices coexisted, but the meaning of fire had a special seat on philosophy’s table. Heraclitus, was the first philosopher to assign to the element the origin of the world. Around the1st century, the Romans borrowed the Greek word for the burial ritual, Latinised it and in 1638  the word came to English intact both in spelling and meaning, in the writings of Robert Farley. The Ancient Greeks called fire Πυρ (pir) and a burial one ΠΥΡΑ/PYRE Instagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]

(Piano music) 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!Happy November everyone! Starting the month with a word that is usually mixed up with ‘freedom’, and you’d be both right and wrong to do so. Let me explain: Ancient Greece had a city-state system much like the US today. Athens would govern through all, set the laws for everyone and the city states paid taxes to it. If a city state wanted to follow its own laws, have its own elected politicians etc but still pay taxes to Athens and contribute troops in case of war, it wasn’t a free city state (because that could only happen in very few occasions and the city state would still be supervised). Εαυτός (eaftos/eautos) or αυτός (aftos/autos) means ‘the self’ and νόμος (nomos) means ‘Law’.  The combined word that travelled from Greek to Latin to French and English, and kept its political meaning well into the 17th century, developed an individual meaning starting with the Stoics and reaching Immanuel Kant and the Enlightenment. That’s when it started getting very close to the meaning of freedom. According to the stoics, a person who can follow their own rules, directed by their own morality (which better be virtuous) without denying the gods or fate was AYTONOMOΣ/AUTONOMUSInstagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]

(Piano music) 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!Happy Halloween, let the spooky words in! Today’s word is not used very often in English and it’s more likely you’ll find it written than spoken, unless you want to be very dramatic in which case Halloween is the perfect time for it! In Ancient Greece If you wanted to enter the underworld, Hades , you had to cross 5 rivers. Αχερων (Acheron) the river of death , Κωκυτός (kokitos) the river of woe ,Πυριφλεγέθων (piriflegethon) also known as simply Φλεγέθων (flegethon) the river of fire , Lethe which I’ve spoken about in its own episode , the river of memory and forgetfulness, and Styx the river of hate. There is no particular order to enter Hades but Styx and Acheron are mentioned mostly as the first two. Styx was a titan, a goddess and a river that the gods swore in. It’s mentioned in the odyssey, the Iliad and has countless literary mentions from around the world. Styx ran from the underworld to a mountain side above the ground and that was an entry point to Hades. Her story as a goddess is for another episode but the adjective in English is used to describe anything dark and abominable. In modern Greek it means ‘ruthless’ ΣΤΥΓΕΡΟ/STYGIANInstagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]

(Piano music) 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!And it’s here! Happy Halloween, let the spooky words in! Herodotus in the 5th century BC wrote about the  Egyptian writing. He was fascinated by their use of two different systems, the sacred and the common and how they wrote from right to left. If you’re wondering why ancient writing is spooky, you haven’t watched any supernatural movies and now is the season to start ! One of the Egyptian writing systems was just symbols and they were mostly found in places of worship. Herodotus combined two Greek words to describe them . Ιερό (iero) meaning ‘sacred’ and the Ancient Greek infinitive γλυφειν (glyphin) meaning ‘to carve’. Of course the latinised spelling is a little different but the word remains ΙΕΡΟΓΛΥΦΙΚΑ/HIEROGLYPHSInstagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]

(Piano music) 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!From Ancient Greek and  Latin to French and English, this word has never lost its meaning. It just changed religions . Πρό (pro) is a preposition meaning ‘before’ but also ‘outwards’ φημί (fimi) in Ancient Greek meant ‘I say/I speak’ . The one that speaks on behalf of someone else or let’s a voice and in particular a divine one speak through them, was always called a ΠΡΟΦΗΤΗΣ/PROPHET Instagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]

10 years ago in a little room in Hackney, in London me and my Laptop started recording an idea . A connection. My heritage and your everyday. My culture and your language . Where I come from and where I am now. With you. This podcast has grown in quality, ambition and audience but there's one thing that's constant,  you. You have been listening non stop. From all over the world. You show up every week and that’s what keeps me going. Thank you for being here. For your comments, your reviews and for spreading the word. You made this podcast last this long so… welcome to season 10! (Piano music) 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!First word of the month and I’m going to ease our way into spooky season with a philosophical term. In 1869 English biologist T.H. Huxley put two Greek words together to describe his philosophical stance. It was in relation to religious beliefs on metaphysics that claimed they knew all about those phenomena including their belief in God. Huxley said ‘It came into my head as suggestively antithetical to the Gnostic of church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant’ . Γνώση (gnosi) in Greek means ‘knowledge’ and ‘α’ is a negation prefix. Άγνωστο (agnosto) means ‘the unknown’ and Huxley’s word put a whole belief system under it ΑΓΝΩΣΤΙΚΙΣΜΟΣ/AGNOSTICISMInstagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]

And just like that, we’re at the end of season nine! How did that happen? I want to thank everyone who stayed with me for another season, everyone new who joined us  this year and everyone who commented and reviewed the podcast. It feels great reading what you think and since this is a solo venture it’s great when I know you’re out there, listening. Thank you again and…on with our episode! (Piano music) 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!As this season comes to end I will leave you with  the queen of Greek herbs! It smells fantastic , it goes with 99.9% of any Greek dish and it was of course created by  the goddess Aphrodite! No, not really. But that’s how the myth goes! Aphrodite created this herb in her garden in mount Olympus  to bring joy to humanity. It grows on mountains and its name comes from two words, όρος (oros) meaning ‘mountain’ and γάνα (gana) meaning ‘joy’. Because of that, Ancient Greeks would make wreaths out of it for weddings and in medieval times it was considered a ward against evil. There’s another plant in the same family that exists in Greece but it's also native to the UK and it’s called Marjoram. They are incredibly similar and people have been using it exactly as the Greeks where using theirs. In America the herb arrives with the Italian immigrants but it became very popular after WW2 when soldiers returning from Europe were craving it. How do you know you’re eating greek food?  it has ΡΙΓΑΝΗ/OREGANO Instagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]

Hello Dunedin (ντανίντν) in New Zealand! Welcome to the family! A city with great architecture and history but most importantly, rent prices so affordable that artists can thrive there! From what I’m reading it’s an artistically vibrant city, Galleries, live music and theatre ! Oh I’m certainly visiting. Thank you for listening Dunedin.If you like what you hear in this podcast you can subscribe, download and review it wherever you listen. A click and a few nice words go a long way! On with our episode!(Piano music) 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!The oldest verified writing we have of this plant is in ancient Mycenaean. However, those syllables together can be found in other languages too and it’s led linguists to believe that the original name is Sumerian. Ancient Greeks used this herb as a staple. You had your salt, your pepper and this on the table and of course they used it medicinally. Digestive and respiratory problems as well as bleeding were some of the problems that plant helped with. Cultivated originally in Iran but the name in English came from the Roman version of the Greek word. The Romans also brought it in the UK. In America it arrived from the Spanish and the Portuguese and in Morocco you can still find it on the table next to salt and pepper . ΚΥΜΙΝΟ/CUMINInstagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]

Welcoming Payakumbuh in Indonesia today! The city with a long tradition of a secret negotiation for livestock trades. The Marosok Tradition: Buyers and sellers hide their hands under a cloth and communicate the price by touching. It’s a whole different language of touching and tapping and squeezing different parts of the hand and it means something different depending on which is used . Isn’t that fascinating? Thank you for listening Payakumbuh! If you like what you hear in this podcast you can subscribe, download and review it wherever you listen. A click and a few nice words go a long way! On with our episode!(Piano music) 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!Ancient Greek incense as part of sacrificial ceremonies for the gods was comprised of several herbs. The most prominent was one that got its name from the fumes it was creating when burning . Now, that’s one version, the other is that it got its name because of its resilience; and the Ancient Greeks lit it in temples to inspire courage. In medicine, its oil was used as an antibiotic and in gastronomy as an Ancient Greek wine infuser or an ancient Roman cheese herb. Speaking of the Romans, they were the first to bring it to the UK and it became incredibly popular so much so that many knights would get it as farewell present before battle and people would put it under their pillows to ward off nightmares. From the Ancient Greek verb Θύω (Theo) meaning ‘creating smoke’ and Latin ‘Thymum’ this herb can be found everywhere in Greece and it’s delicious! ΘΥΜΑΡΙ/THYMEInstagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]