Re: Where does the name come from?


Dusan Vukotic wrote:

heliogabalus wrote:

ranjit_mathews@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
heliogabalus wrote:
from The Metamorphoses by Ovid and related to "The Creation
of the Earth and the Great Flood":
Before there was earth or sea or heaven, there existed only chaos:
shapeless, unorganized, lifeless matter.

How was "chaos" pronounced by Romans and by Greeks before that?


Before Ovid? I'm not sure I understood your question. I can copy
and paste from the Web some piece of information about old words and
concepts related to 'chaos', but my skills on 'pronunciation' are next
to zero. The Roman writer Ovid gave Chaos its modern meaning; that of an
unordered and formless primordial mass.
But
'The word χάος did not mean "disorder" in classical-period ancient
Greece. It meant "the primal emptiness, space". It is derived from the
Proto-Indo-European root ghn or ghen meaning "gape, be wide open":
compare "chasm" (from Greek χάσμα), and Anglo-Saxon gānian ("yawn"),
geanian, ginian ("gape wide"); see also Old Norse Ginnungagap. Due to
people misunderstanding early Christian uses of the word, the meaning of
the word changed to "disorder". (The Ancient Greek for "disorder" is
ταραχή.).'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_%28mythology%29
and
'c.1440, "gaping void," from L. chaos, from Gk. khaos "abyss, that which
gapes wide open, is vast and empty," from *khnwos, from PIE base *gheu-,
*gh(e)i- "to gape" (cf. Gk khaino "I yawn," O.E. ginian, O.N.
ginnunga-gap; see yawn). Meaning "utter confusion" (1606) is extended
from theological use of chaos for "the void at the beginning of
creation" in Vulgate version of Genesis. The Gk. for "disorder" was
tarakhe, however the use of chaos here was rooted in Hesiod
("Theogony"), who describes khaos as the primeval emptiness of the
Universe, begetter of Erebus and Nyx ("Night"), and in Ovid
("Metamorphoses"), who opposes Khaos to Kosmos, "the ordered Universe."
Chaotic is from 1713.'
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=chaos


Gr. khaos, Ger, Gasse (backstreet), Eng. gas, goose; gouache -
watercolor, guess, quash

Compare the following Serbian words: gaženje (wade, trample, stamp,
walk heavily), gaz (ford), gašenje (extinguish, extinction), gasiti
(slake, smother), gas (gas), gušenje (suffocation), kužan
(contaminated, pestilential), kuga (plague), guša (goitre), guzanje
(waddle, totter), gusan (goose), guzica(buttocks);

Above is the small example of the "internal logic" and
"back-to-the-roots transparency" of the Slavic (this time Serbian)
languages I mentioned earlier.
All these words sprang from the same source - reduplicated ur-syllable
'gon' - GON-GON.
I suppose there is no need to explain relation between 'gaženje' (walk
heavily) and 'gaz' (ford), because it is quite understandable that the
walk through the water must be heavier then the one we have undertaken
on the solid terrain. On the other side, 'gaz' (ford) is the
"water-pedestrian-way", i.e. it is a shallow area in a stream that can
be crossed.

The easiest and quickest way to put out the fire is a method of the
simple stumping (Serb. gaženje). Man has been used such a method for
millenniums; even today, if you poured the water over the fire, you
must stump (Serb. ugaziti) the remnants of the embers, to ensure that
fire would not start later again.

Now we are seeing exactly why the Serbian word 'gaženje' (stump, walk
heavily) is almost the same as 'gašenje' (extinguish*). During the
process of fire extinction smoke (Serb. gas) is the regular
"by-product".

The Serbian word 'gaženje' (walk heavily, stump) was derived from the
older 'geganje' (shamble, waddle); hence the name of the aquatic bird
goose (Serb. gusan) according to his peculiar waddling pace. The walk
of the goose is denoted in Serbian with the word 'guzanje' (strange
movement of the buttocks and hips). Finally, Serbian 'guzica' (behind,
buttocks) was named like that as a central "motor" area of any movement
of man (geganje / shamble, gaženje / stamp, guzanje / waddle, shamble,
guzica / buttocks).

If you read this carefully, I hope, you would be able to understand
that what I was talking about last time (internal logic and
transparency) is not as nonsensical as it seemed to you at first sight.


DV

I forgot to say that Serb. 'gušenje' (suffocation) is in relation with
'gas' (gas); i.e. with the smoke, which is a faithful "satellite" of
any fire; Serb. 'guša' (struma) was named like that because it
suffocates ('guši') the patient.

DV

.