#than indoeuropeans

[zumer-feygele]

man with phd wrong about tarim mummies on video about central asia. 1 dead 3 injured

[blood-orange-juice]

I've been musing for years now about how Childe operates on fae rules (detests lying and keeps his promises to the point of being absurd about it. also has a very interesting relationship with pride and cruelty: let's just say humans don't normally function like that but fae do), and yet there's not a single fae in the story.

Actually, there they were, in plain sight, I just didn't notice.

I rewatched Enjou's cutscenes and went "huh, that's an Abyss thing", then found this post. I completely forgot that Dain does that too!

The boy is trying to imitate Khaenri'ans then.

(understandably so)

*

Another thought.

Celestia is all about concealing the truth and some knowledge being forbidden (even if for good reasons).

So, apart from Celtic references, it would make sense for truthfulness to be the core value of anyone who has accepted the Abyss. "Whatever we do, we don't lie." "Horrible truth is more important than a beautiful illusion."

(a reminder that Lectors have "the truth will set you free" as one of their attack lines)

*

Back to Childe.

He fails to apply this principle of truthfulness where it matters to him the most: to his family.

This finally answers my question of why tf his personal quest exists.

(I wonder if someone will say to him that he's a cheap replica of the real thing. he deserves this)

there’s one thing that has been bothering me about Khaenri'ah and it’s inspirations. like obviously it’s in big part influenced by German\Nordic myths - Dainsleif, Alberich, Rhinedottir are all connected to them. and dwarves (Alberich is a dwarven king) kinda sorta make sense as an inspiration? An underground prosperous kingdom, famous for being skilled in crafting and technology, and refusing to bow to the Nordic pantheon of gods. sure.

But Khaenri'ah modus operandi doesn’t really jell with the classic steadfast nordic dwarves. Khaenri'ans even before the fall were highkey shady and obsessed with secret knowledge - we know they went into Enkanomiya as envoys, tried to steal “The Book of Sun and Moon” and pinned it on someone else. But what’s interesting -  Khaenri'ans we meet might manipulate and hide the information, but they are very adamant that they did not lie.

Dainsleif is offended at suggestion he deceived the Traveler, and insists that him not disclosing the information is not deception. Enjou, who at this point had already admitted to manipulating, betraying and is in the process of trying to kill the Traveler, nevertheless makes a point that he never lied to them. And Traveler even agrees with him. Why “not lying” is the hill Enjou is choosing to die on, when it’d be like one of the least fucked up things he did? 

This pattern of secretive and shady behavior with simultaneous insistence on “technically” not lying strongly reminded me of something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Until I realized, it’s the Irish “fair folk”, people of the hills, the fae, Tuatha Dé Danann. Like, a nation of people from the underground kingdom where time moves differently, known for their strange powers of transformation (in myths - magic, here it’s Khemia) and famous tricksters who might try to manipulate or take advantage of you, but at the same time, cannot lie or break their word if it was given.  

and then it struck me. Kaeya is a literal Changeling, right? A child from the underground kingdom secretly sent to live in the human society. But wait, speaking of Kaeya, if not lying is a prerequisite, what about him? He bullshits a lot, right? He actually doesn’t, he manipulates the information like Dain and Enjou, but also he turns the truth into metaphors and parables that you have no way of deciphering until you get the reference. The “sword from heaven” and “inherited eyepatch” reference Khaenri'ah taking control of Celestia’s needle which was confirmed in the Chasm, “owl of Dragonspine” reference lore from “Wings of the Concealing snow”, a story he told Klee about monsters who can take appearance of people reference Abysslings like Enjou being able to take human form, and so on. 

also, the patterns on Dainsleif armor look a lot like celtic knotwork, though this style is used a lot, like on the walls of the domains.

[mapsontheweb]

The indoeuropean language-family.

Is the largest language-family with 3200 million speakers (45% of population) in more than 150 languages.

by worldwide_map

[gender-jargon]

[Image ID: a redesigned Resgender flag by Gent (Gender-Jargon). The background of the flag is black, with eight central stripes, with the outer two being slightly larger than the others. The center stripes are grey, red, fuchsia, blue, green, yellow, orange and grey. In the middle of the flag is the Cengender symbol, which is made from the number "100" by centering and overlaying two ones facing away from each other and two concentric zeros positioned in the middle of the stalk of the number one. The Cengender symbol is off-white. At the very center is a brown circle. ./. End ID]

Resgender: a fluid, ever-changing gender experience that is wholly unidentifiable and nondescript, but is capable of manifesting in an extremely vast multitude of experiences of gender and/or lack of gender which may or may not be contextually based or circumstantial.

[PT: Resgender: a fluid, ever-changing gender experience that is wholly unidentifiable and nondescript, but capable of manifesting in a extremely vast multitude of experiences of gender and/or lack of gender which may or may not be contextually based or circumstantial. ./. End PT]

A synonym of Cengender.

Etymology

[PT: Etymology ./. End PT]

From Latin, "Res" meaning "Thing" + "-gender", a neologistic English suffix indicating genderedness. The Latin word "Res" draws from both Proto-Italic and Porto-Indoeuropean language families, where it originally meant "Wealth", "Goods" or even to refer to a head of cattle. The coiner does not specify further regarding the etymology of the term or how it relates to the definition. Coined by user Baaphomett in June 2014 (link) [PT: Coined by user Baaphomett in June 2014 (link) ./. End PT].

Alternative, Cengender was coined by user Small-Enby in August 2014 on MOGAI-Archive (link) [PT: Cengender was coined by user Small-Enby in August 2014 on MOGAI-Archive (link) ./. End PT]. The etymology is likely from Galacian, “Cen”, meaning “100″ + “-gender”, a neologistic English suffix indicating genderedness. The definition of Cengender is as follows:

a gender that can be summed up as an unidentifiable thing but manifests as hundreds of different genders or non at all at any given time at the same time and/or separately. Fluid and ever changing.

[PT: a gender that can be summed up as an unidentifiable thing but manifests as hundreds of different genders or non at all at any given time at the same time and/or separately. Fluid and ever changing. ./. End PT]

Resgender and Cengender appear to have been considered synonyms from at least July 2016, as seen in this post from user Pride-Color-Schemes (link) [PT: as seen in this post from user Pride-Color-Schemes (link) ./. End PT] It could be argued that both terms are different from each other, based upon each of their definitions. More information is included on this below in the Elaboration section.

Elaboration

[PT: Elaboration ./. End PT]

Resgender and Cengender were both coined independently, but close in date. According to the definition given by the coiner, Resgender:

is unidentifiable (UIN) and nondescript (GEIN) in it's nature.

embodies a vast range of gender experiences (VASIN).

...these vast experiences of gender have the capacity to be identified as, operate as and/or be attributed to being a "girl" and/or "boy".

is contextually based.

By comparison, Cengender:

is unidentifiable (UIN).

embodies a vast range of gender experiences (VASIN).

may manifest as having no gender (AGIN).

may be AGIN and VASIN separately and/or simultaneously.

is fluid (IDIN) and always changing.

Both Cengender and Resgender are UIN and VASIN. However, Resgender is also GEIN, explicitly mentions xorgenders in it's definition and can be contextually based. Cengender is AGIN and IDIN, and may be considered paradoxical (DOXIN).

Since both terms are generally considered synonyms and are often used interchangeably, I have attempted to integrate the definitions into one, but it should be noted that each are indeed different from one another based upon the wording of their respective definitions.

This is a repost from my old blog, Gender-Resource (terminated) (link) [PT: This is a repost from my old blog, Gender-Resource (terminated) (link) ./. End PT]. This post has been updated with a redesigned flag, updated definition, an elaboration and additional links.

Pride Flag

[PT: Pride Flag ./. End PT]

My Resgender flag is based up on the pride flag created by user Pride-Color-Schemes in 2016. To avoid creating a flag that is difficult to reproduce, I simplified the Cengender symbol to be of one color.

This is my redesign of my original pride flag that I posted on Gender-Resource. The background of the flag is black, with eight central stripes, with the outer two being slightly larger than the others. The center stripes are grey, red, fuchsia, blue, green, yellow, orange and grey. In the middle of the flag is the Cengender symbol, which is made from the number "100" by centering and overlaying two ones facing away from each other and two concentric zeros positioned in the middle of the stalk of the number one. The Cengender symbol is off-white. At the very center is a brown circle. The design carries the following meanings:

The black background represents vastness.

The grey stripes represent contextual/circumstantial basis and fluidity.

The red, fuchsia, blue, green, yellow and orange stripes represent the diversity of gender (or lack thereof).

The brown circle represents being unidentifiable and nondescript.

[PT: The black background represents vastness. The grey stripes represent contextual/circumstantial basis and fluidity. The red, fuchsia, blue, green, yellow and orange stripes represent the diversity of gender (or lack thereof). The brown circle represents being unidentifiable and nondescript. ./. End PT]

[elbiotipo]

We should make the world language a conlang that isn't eurocentric. I think combining the vocabulary of Mandarin, Arabic, Hindustani, Malay, Latin/English, Swahili, Nahuatl and Quechua would be the best way to go about it.

Yeah, Esperanto and Interlingua are basically "all (Western) European languages together", why not add some variety? Come on.

I've tried to learn Mandarin and I'm surprised at how economic it is with its words and sounds, the verbs just make sense, it flows very well. The tones are very hard to learn to someone who isn't used to it and it's very fast paced, but I find it interesting to learn because it's very distant from Indoeuropean languages (learning English as a Spanish speaker was "easier" because of that, especially because English is perhaps the most 'latinized' Germanic language because of the Normans)

I don't really thing a conlang will ever be able to impose itself as a world language, but I'm of the theory that "World English" will eventually be shaped by second-language speakers rather than those of the "Anglosphere", eventually diverging from UK or US speaking to become a whole new language. That is, of course, if it continues to be the world language, and given that the US might eventually fall from its spot as world hegemon (IMPERIO EN DECADENCIA) other language might take its place.

Of course, I'm still saying it should be Latin. It's a shame that scientific papers aren't published in Latin anymore. Even by the mid XXth century some plants were STILL being described in Botanical Latin, and I don't mean "scientific names" I mean that the description itself, all the organs and habits of the plant, were published in Latin. They don't do that anymore, but it was so cool.

[best-non-english-word-torunament]

Statistics for round three!

The next round will begin in a couple of hours, so I thought I'd do some statistics for the remaining 16 words and 14 languages.

First off, which languages are left?

As you can see, most languages only have one words, with the exception of Finnish and Portugese. Finnish has lost no words, but Portugese has lost two during the course of the tournament.

Now, how similar are these languages to each other?

Indo-European languages are still more common, but they're a lot less overrepresented than in the beginning of the tournament. This is the corresponding graph over all words:

Now, how about areal distribution?

Sorry about the different presentation and colouring, that's just how it is. As you see, the distribution has become less over/underrepresented, but European languages are still the most common.

This was just a short summary, but I think this kind of stuff is interesting. Maybe people looking for a tournament with only non-English words are more likely to vote for non-Indoeuropean words? In any case it's interesting how things have changed in two rounds

[semi-imaginary-place]

given his stamina problems and failing eyesight, senjutsu would have really suited itachi. the eye markings would look good too

Itachi would make a good bow user. He already does a lot of fighting at long and mid range. But more than that i've been watching tsurune season 2 and he fits well with the spirit of the sport. I talking about japanese archery primarily, with kyudo being almost like a form of meditation, i think itachi would excel at it, the control, the precision, the etiquette, the mental battle. His vibe matches the nobility, poise, and refinement of the sport.

The irony being that sasuke ends up the bow user. His susanoo shoots flaming arrows in several battles and in his final fight against naruto after absorbing chakra from the tailed beasts his new susanoo has a bow. Sasuke's strongest attack ends up being a bow attack: indra's arrow. With indra being the hindu sky god (indoeuropean sky father figure compare and contrast to zeus and odin). the name Indra's Arrow in particular feels familar but I can't quite remember. Not really visible in this image but susanoo's bow is shaped like a crescent moon

[zwoelffarben]

I agree with @roach-works analysis of the suffixes, but not the analysis of the root which I think doesn't analysize the roots meaning far enough back.

The Cand in Candor and Candid comes from the latin candere or the proto-indoeuropean kand which the same root for words like candle and incandescent, meaning 'to shine'.

And while the connotation of honesty and openness have so strongly taken to the word that they've become the primary use over its semantic denotation, the idea of shining light is still there. To have candor is to project an open an honest air, as if bathed in light, and to be candid is to put every thing in the center of a well-lit room for all to see.

And that's to do with how the english literary canon has built the ideas of light and darkness: of course the light is honest and the shadows sinisteral; after all, it's easier to see in the light than the shadow. Oh, how writers forget how blinding is the sun.

Anyway, poetics thoroughly waxed, the point is that the root cand- means brightness or shining, rather than honestly, so the suffixes should act upon the root word's semantic meaning rather than them words' connotations

To whit I propose.

Candify - To cast in illumination. To turn on the light.

Candific - Inspiring the feeling of light or honesty. Shining so completely as to blind out all other sensations. Like a facefull of flashbang.

Candible - Being capable of providing illumination or being illuminated. Examples by exception: A brunt-out lightbulb and a vantablack sculpture are both, in different senses, incandible.

A classic table of accidental lexical gaps in English, from Language Log.

[fastwalker]

that's another reason why I'm critical of gimbutas' theories (that patriarchy was invented by indoeuropeans) bc like, ok if indoeuropeans are the cause of this, than why are peoples that are not indoeuropean patriarchial too?

[semi-imaginary-place]

the mangekyo is classic kishimoto. he needed a cool powerup thats the explanation, you can clearly tell he was just doodling cool eye design and came up with an excuse later. the mangekyo isn't from killing someone its from the grief of someone you love dearly dying, because the uchiha are the clan of emotion (the one consistency in the manga). all sharingan upgrades are from intense emotions. and mangekyo only unlocks with the most intense emotion: grief. there's plenty of uchiha that awakened it even if they didn't directly kill their loved one. anyways the explanation is that the intense emotion causes a chakra reaction in the brain that causes their eyes to change. see the secret is that naruto is 95% bullshit like this. mangekyo sharingan is a great example of the phenomena.

i hate this explanation so much. special brain chakra... and then the mangekyo is a more extreme version requiring even stronger emotions. the sharingan doesn't normally develop over time. it requires the intense emotions to level up and it just so happens that putting child soldiers in a war in life or death situations where most of their friends and family die tends to meet those requirements.

im rotating the fire lightning sasuke chakra affinity debate in my head. Sasuke's shown talent with both making giant fireballs in like a week and a small one on his first try and lightning chidori in a month. He uses a mix of fire and lighting jutsu. So theres no strong evidence in either those two points that tilts the scales. His mangekyo sharingan is the most unique and personal of his skills and ameterasu (sun goddess) is a fire skill. This is probably the strongest evidence that he's fire affinity. His clan's specialty is fire. On the lighting side is how he's a reincarnation of indra, indra irl the hindu god of the sky (indoeuropean sky father diety thik odin or zeus) so theres a strong association with lightning there, most of the jutsu sasuke's created has been lightning too like kirin or the sword thing.

Finishing up the naruto manga and i have to say sauce-gay is the worst at thinking, truly not a single thought rattling around in there only murder. When naruto is the brains reasoning side of thia fight, you should knkw you've messed up. Im going to kill itachi -> im going to kill everyone in konoha -> im going to kill the kages just because -> save the world teehee -> jk lmao back to killing all the kages, bijuu, and ofc naruto.

One thing i find interesting about the third hokage hiruzen is how his belief in the good in others causes so many problems. Hiruzen believes so strongly in people being their best selves than he will overlook anything and everything and do nothing about problems because he thinks those problems will fix themselves. Danzo and orochimaru are great examples of this. Danzo: betrays hiruzen Hiruzen: thats ok you care about konoha Danzo: tries to throw a coup Hiruzen: thats ok you care about konoha Danzo: betrays hirizen again Hiruzen: thats ok you care about konoha Danzo: kidnaps and tortures children Hiruzen: thats ok you care about konoha Danzo: genocides the uchiha clan Hiruzen: slap on the wrist. Really the whole uchiha affair was very indicative hiruzens personality and leadership style. He makes attempts at dialogue but makes 0 policy changes to back up his words or address the grievances of the uchiha. Because he believes it will all work out in the end, the fugaku and the uchiha are good people and a part of konoha so of course hiruzen doesnt actually need to take any action or need to demonstrate that the uchiha that they are a part of konoha. I think in any other job hiruzen would have just been the kindly old man and a good person but because he was in a leadership position where his negligence and willingness to believe the best in people, he was complicit in just a lot of evil like all the torturing kids wow.

The konoha leadership or the narrative potential of it i find very interesting. But thats mostly because i like political dramas. I would happily read a political drama about all the factionalism and clan politics of konoha and probably like it better than the actual series. All the hokages and leadership end up a bit morally ambiguous. On the pretty clearly evil but does have a couple points is danzo who was right how sometimes sacrifices must be made but his vision of konoha was so tied up in his own ego. His foal was what was best for konoha but what he saw as best for konoha oh so conveniently placed him in a position of unilateral total power. And thus anything he did to advanced his own position also in his mind advanced the interest of konoha. On the other end is hashirama who did so a lot to end violence and brokered a lot of peace agreements and instead of 6 year olds he was only sending out 10 year olds to for die for their nation. Progress. And he also went and enslaved the bijuu as war weapons. And rhen theres tobirama who invented public education but also zombies, encoded factionalism into law and isolated the uchiha his clan's rival clan (and we all know how well than ended up).

Back to political drama. Boruto seems really bad like really really bad and i don't think it should have been made at all. But if the premises were to be salvaged i think the best way would be to make it a work comedy/political drama/midlife crisis story geared toward struggling 40 year olds. Of course this would never sell which is why they didnt do it. But you could really revel in the mess of things. Stressed out, overworked, marriage in shambles, dreams all crumbled to dust. Like naruto and hinata married at 19 and had a kid at 20. Yikes slow down. A more interesting take would have been that naruto didnt particularly want to marry hinata but wanted all the things that came with it. Naruto's a people pleaser this is canon, and hinata loves him unconditionally and fiercely in a way he has no reference for so of course he loves her back and wants her to be happy. Naruto is nice like that. He alao has little references for healthy marriages. He wants to be happy, he wants to be loved, he wants a normal family, he wants kids. And you know the hyuuga clan was putting on the pressure. Town hero and future hokage? Oh they are jumping on that. And he likes being with hinata but the pressures getting to him and the job is getting to him, he's wanted this for so long so of course he has to push himself. But he's unhappy and desperately in denial that he is unhappy because he has everything he's ever wanted what could be wrong.

... boruto (the kid) is a boomer. Like a literal post war baby boom

A lot of people were mad at that kishimoto decided to put a war in naruto and im not. The writing is bad but a lot of the writing in naruto is bad..i dont hate the concept because war is a reoccurring theme in naruto. The last continent wide war was a little over 15 years ago so all the adult characters are traumatized by it. Their society is geared towards perpetual war and the constant imminent of threat of war drives the politics of all the nations. And the 4th shinobi war does continues the main themes of Naruto. Because the contingent is caught in a cycle pain and hurt where wars are waged against each other but finally they arent fighting each other they are fighting with each other, they break that cycle. This ties in with the other theme that people cant do things alone (nagato, itachi, madara, obito), people are stronger together (naruto, the allied shinobi force). The "with all our power combined" thing is heavy handed but eh naruto isnt a good series. Ninja war had parts that were very good and them a whole lot of filler inbetween. Pacing was bad.

Contrast this with bnha (which im currently reading) which overall is a better series with better writing but unlike naruto, bnha did not have those underlying themes of war so its was arc is more out of place. In some ways bnha is more political especially in the social justice sense. The dynamic between those with and without quirks in particular i find interesting. In that when quirks first appeared those with them were heavily discriminated against. The term "quirk" itself in universe was an act of early quirk activism. And to this day those with very visually noticeable quirks or bodies that look different are discriminated against in the same society where now a quirkless kid will get bullied for not having a quirk. Those who are oppressed are not innocent of never further the oppression of others. Like irish americans becoming cops

[uiruu]

woah i just learned that the word Nazi was originally derogatory, and the Nazis never used it to refer to themselves because it was kind of an insult lol. apparently, the original meaning was like “country bumpkin” or “hillbilly” or “redneck”, deriving from a nickname for the german name “Ignatz”, which was a common name in Bavaria, which is where the Nazi Party started. like, the word in the Nazi sense does come from National Socialism, cause “Socialist” (Sozialist) was shortened to “Sozi”, and so “National Socialist” was shortened to “Nazi”... specifically because it was a pun on Sozi and the derogatory “stereotypical dumb farmer” word. the reason we call them Nazis is because political opponents of the Nazis (leftists, especially those who fled Germany and were living as expats in other countries and, i suppose, would have been primary sources for what they experienced of what was going on in Germany at the time, what they knew was building up there) called them that in order to deride them. They didn’t call themselves Nazis, as it would be like cops calling themselves “pigs”. We call them Nazis because the people who hated Nazis called them Nazis. 

it’s just wild to me how that has been completely lost, cause like even in German, that just became the standard word for those people like immediately after the war. it’s derogatory and vile for all sorts of other reasons now. in some ways, it’s nice to know that they’ll forever be known by a word originally used by opponents of Nazism in order to call them stupid, though

[eva-does-its-best]

Rule number 1 of useless fights, always beef only with people who know less than you. I'm not about to get proto indoeuropeaned in a casual match.

you pull out etymology to justify your pronunciation idiosyncrasies (and put down others’!!!!!!! <<<important bit) and i block you

cause and effect

[wickymicky]

i love when daebak is left as daebak in subtitles lol, makes me of that death note meme. you know the one

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hii,

I was wondering if you could tell me (if you know, of course) what the ancient Greeks of the Mycenaean times called themselves.

I was trying to look it up myself for a project but all the info I got was so inconclusive and one article went against the other and I'm honestly so confused.

I really wanted to answer this because I remember we talked about it in A' class in Gymnasio!! (Our History book also wrote a bit about that). We are almost sure, as we have very strong historical elements for speculation.

If you've read the Iliad and Odyssey in English, the Greeks (who came from the Mycenean culture at the time) are called "Achaeans" (Αχαιοί) and the region "Achaea" (Αχαΐα). So, that's probably how they called themselves as well.

The Hettites called the Myceneans "Ahiyawa" (Acheans) and wrote that they were a strong seafaring power. The Egyptians called them "Aqwavasa" or "Eqwesh". You might read the Indoeuropean "aqw-" sound/root hidden somewhere there, which means "water" (see the latin "aqua", the greek "acheron" etc). It is possible that the name "Achaeans" meant "those who come from the sea places". I don't have the time to research more on that but you can do some more reading on that if you want to see if it checks out.

In the Epics other collective names were also used, the most common being Danaans ("Δαναοί" is the Greek term) and Argeans / Argites / Argives / Argeioi. ("Αργείοι" is the Greek term).

Danaans were an earlier, different tribe than Achaeans, and when Achaeans came to the Peloponnese circa 2.000 BCE, they mixed. Danaans came to the region - possible Argos on the mainland the islands - after the "Pelasgoi" (Πελασγοί) the first inhabitants of the region. "Pelasgos" means "one from the open sea" so it's possible the Danaans had mostly gathered in the islands and other places near the sea. Danaans built Argos. But after their mix, Danaans and Achaeans were mostly the same, so the identifications came to be synonyms and used interchangeably by foreigners.

Egyptians called the Danaans "Denyen" and "Tanaju". Moreover, a list of the cities and regions of the Tanaju is also mentioned in this inscription; among the cities listed are Mycenae, Nauplion, Kythera, Messenia, and the Thebaid (region of Thebes).

Argos was a great power at the time and that's why you also see the Argeioi in the ancient texts. Before the Trojan war, they all gathered in Argos and sailed from there. It's possible the city was so powerful back then that it also became representative of the Greeks sometimes in the eyes of foreigners.

For the names of Achaeans these are two prominent sources: 1) Beckman Gary Michael, Cline Eric H., Bryce, R Trevor. (2012). «The Ahhiyawa Texts». Writings from the ancient world / Society of Biblical Literature, (28): 5. ISSN 1570-7008. 2) Jorrit Kelder. Ahhiyawa and the World of the Great Kings. A Re-evaluation of Mycenaean Political Structures, Talanta XLVI, 2012, X-X, σελ. 1.

Of course not all Achaeans lived in Argos, so they didn't have to self-identify as Argeioi. They could remember their Danaan origin and identify with that + the name of their town. Or they were just living in a smaller town and they self-identified with their Achaean origin + the name of their town. And it's possible that many Danaans lived in Argos. I don't recall any ancient texts talking about tensions between Danaans and Achaeans, or any discrimination like "Their family is Danaan and we are Achaeans so our children shouldn't marry." I think they just co-existed and merged without much fuss :P

For the origin story of Danaans in the region, you can read more by seeing the myth of Danaos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danaus

Greek "nations" and genera across the ages, the origins of the Danaans

This entry in wikipedia has very well concentrated all the genealogies and how the Greeks saw the creation of nations and lines across the ages.

**"Ethne" ("Ethnoi") are what I call in English "tribes" for better understanding. ("Ethnos" is singular.) It could also be translated as "ethnicities" (yes "ethnicity" comes from Greek) but in English this shows a bigger difference in cultural backgrounds than a "tribe". The ancient "ethnos" between the Greeks is more akin to the relationship different tribes of the same nation and ethnicity have. In modern times we call them "phylles" lit. "leaves" from different branches of the same tree or "genoi" (you'll know the English word genealogy from Greek). We rarely use the "ethnoi" word today but the ancients saw more differences between them than we see in them today so they kept a wider distinction.

In Greek mythology, the perceived cultural divisions among the Hellenes were represented as legendary lines of descent that identified kinship groups, with each line being derived from an eponymous ancestor. Each of the Greek ethne were said to be named in honor of their respective ancestors: Achaeus of the Achaeans, Danaus of the Danaans, Cadmus of the Cadmeans (the Thebans), Hellen of the Hellenes (not to be confused with Helen of Troy), Aeolus of the Aeolians, Ion of the Ionians, and Dorus of the Dorians.

Cadmus from Phoenicia, Danaus from Egypt, and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized. Hellen, Graikos, Magnes, and Macedon were sons of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only people who survived the Great Flood; the ethne were said to have originally been named Graikoi after the elder son but later renamed Hellenes after Hellen who was proved to be the strongest. Sons of Hellen and the nymph Orseis were Dorus, Xuthos, and Aeolus. Sons of Xuthos and Kreousa, daughter of Erechthea, were Ion and Achaeus.

Obviously, one nation cannot come just from one man, and we don't have evidence that Danaans came from Egypt (only some vague linguistic traces because of their name). But it's not impossible. It's very likely that other ethne came from different regions (Egypt, Phoenicia, Anatolia) and slowly mixed with each other to create a more homogenized identity, as people settled more and more in agricultural environments. This early Hellenic identity of "Achaeans" we see for the first time in the Iliad when people from all these kingdoms with similar cultures united under a common cause.

It's important to not call "Danaans" Egyptians, though. At the point we see the peoples called "Danaans", they have developed the early Hellenized culture, distinct from the Egyptian culture of the time. They could potentially have been "Egyptians" a hundred generations back (if we believe their mythological origin story) but when we see them they are interchangeable with Achaeans. They didn't consider themselves Egyptians, and other locals didn't consider them Egyptians (or foreigners) either.

Egyptians don't "claim" the "Danaans" either. I think I should comment on that before any Americans go "Greeks came from Egypt, actually!" In fact, as I mentioned above, Egyptians named them "Denyen" or "Tanaju", like separate peoples from them, and mentioned the Greek cities they lived in.

Achaeans themselves were said to come from the north in 2.000 BCE, Dorians came from the North as well. (We don't know what North™ exactly 😂) Peloponnesians were Dorians but Macedonians were partly Dorians, too.

Achaea (Ἀχαΐα) still exists, btw! I mean... most of our ancient regions and cities still exist but it's nice to see the region kept such an old, really old name! Locator map of Achaia prefecture (Νομός Αχαΐας) in Hellas:

[gemsofgreece]

Hello, I hope you haven't already answered to a question like this already, if so feel free to ignore, but I couldn't find anything about it on your blog and I was wondering: is ancient Greek on the same level of intelligibility for speakers of modern Greek as Latin is for Italian speakers? Or is it higher?

Because already the fact that ancient and modern Greek are still called Greek (at least in English and Italian, I don't really know about other languages), while Latin became another thing entirely makes me wonder if they're more similar than I thought. And are they considered two different languages? Maybe ancient Greek is too general of a term to be classified? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I'm not very informed. I was just curious.

By the way, your blog is a joy to scroll through! Thank you so much for sharing all this insight into Greece and its people, it's truly a wonderful culture.

Thank you so much for your very nice words! 💙🤍 Don't worry, even if I had anwered before, I would link the previous answer, no biggie :) I feel like I had answered something similar a lot of time ago but I can't find it either, I don't know what's up.

Greek is considered one language and a particularly well preserved one. I don't know at all how Latin and Italian compare to this but it might be that Greek is more preserved and / or that many languages spoken by different nations have derived from Latin while only Greek has derived from Greek. So it's treated as natural process of time rather than a decisive change to create another language. And then again, it resisted change a lot. Besides, it should be noted that Classical Latin (the one usually taught) is the contemporary of Koine Greek and not Ancient Greek (Classical Greek, the one usually taught). Koine and Modern Greek are very distinctly the same language.

Here I must say that the Hellenic (Greek) branch sometimes includes other languages that however linguists can't decide whether they are different Greek languages or simply Greek dialects (some examples: Tsakonian, Cappadocian Greek, Pontic Greek, Griko in Italy etc). They are officially treated as dialects maybe because their native speakers belong to the same ethnic group. Or maybe because they aren't that different. Or maybe because they are endangered and spoken by too few. I don't know, I just felt like I should mention it.

Considering the distinction between Ancient and Modern Greek, it refers to different time periods and is technically rather random and generic. The periods of the Greek language are roughly the following (below the cut):

Proto-Greek (2200 - c. 1800 BC) No written records, there are only attempts at reconstructing it very vaguely by linguists specializing in reconstructing the Proto-Indoeuropean language and its derivatives.

Mycenaean Greek (c. 1700 - 1100 BC) Written in a type of script called Linear B, it is obviously completely indecipherable to all of us but according to linguists, it is recognizably Greek because, quoting, "Mycenaean had already undergone the sound changes peculiar to the Greek language and so is considered to be Greek".

Ancient Greek (c. 1100 - 300 BC) Around 800 BC, the Greek alphabet is created and it gives Greek its classic and prevalent form. Ancient Greek is the last period Greek shows a lot of variety because it is spoken by people who live in autonomous states or kingdoms so there are several dialects. Also, time subcategories like Homeric and Archaic differ somewhat from the following Classical (the one usually taught) but they altogether are treated as one language because they were mutually mostly intelligible. To a modern Greek of average education, a script from that era is distinctly Greek but hard to understand without training. In a Homeric text, you easily spot unchanged words and familiar grammar but the overall meaning will almost certainly escape you. A very simple basic Archaic text can be comprehensible. A classical text can be comprehensible even if it's more advanced, but you'll have a generic understanding of it and you would still need some training to understand more. The training is just learning words or difficult grammar rules that have fallen out of use since then. Not something very different really, just something additional.

Koine (Common) - Medieval Greek (300 BC - c. 1200 AD) At this point, Greek just stopped changing lol, I mean, compared to other languages at least. The explanation is simple: it became the lingua franca (the official language) of three empires one after the other and thus was spoken by non-Greeks widely, so the language started getting simplified and also resistant to change. Think of English and Spanish, they are easy widespoken languages that are unlikely to change decisively anytime soon. Also, Greek became the official language of early Christianity and thus well preserved by the Church itself. A modern Greek of average education usually has no problem understanding any of it often in detail and without training, if with some reasonable hesitance for the earlier texts. In fact, it is generally agreed that Koine Greek is closer to Modern than Ancient.

Modern Greek (c. 1200 - now) The characterization "modern" makes it seem like the current form of Greek is a lot younger than it actually is. Some place the transition from Medieval to Modern in 1453 which is silly and inaccurate. Just because Constantinople and the Byzantine empire fell, it doesn't mean Greeks forgot how to speak within a year from the shock 😂. No, the change was already happening gradually actually before the 10th century. For more on this transition check this post. Of course, everything from that era comes naturally to a Greek. It's just that the further back you go, the posher the texts seem. Post-14th century Greek has been influenced by Latin, Turkish and Slavic words, which is mostly why some Ancient Greek words fell out of use. It's not that they don't exist in Modern Greek, they do but people opt for a more common foreign one and the ancient becomes obscure or it is considered posh / pretentious. As a rule of thumb, the richer Modern Greek you speak, the better is your understanding of Ancient Greek.

To put it simply: Modern and Koine Greek are too similar to be considered different languages. However, at the same time Koine is considered too similar to Ancient too. Therefore, there is not a decisive change between Ancient and Modern that can mark the beginning of a new language. The most critical change in the language happened between late Mycenaean and early Ancient with the change of script but Mycenaean left no other descendant before disappearing except for Ancient Greek so there is really no point in calling it a different language either.

[nysus-temple]

There are mixed dregrees with things like Classics and History, though. But most people I know have quit them and focused only in one part of them, they're quite the torture. As for myself, I am enjoying the degree ! With its ups and downs, as well. I had the bad luck of starting the first year when I was having some personal issues regarding my family and now I'll have to do more years than it was planned, but I don't mind it, I prefer going slow and little by little.

The degree is basically translating and memorizing, both Latin and Ancient Greek. Each year is divided into two halves, the first half with authors writing in prose and the second one with authors writing lyric. For example, this year on the prose side, I work with Herodotus and Cicero, and on the lyric side, with Vergil and a selection of Greek authors. There are short exams in which you translate from memory, and a final, longer one in which you have the dictionary's help.

Then there are all the 'optional' subjects, you have to choose between a group of them. There are literature ones (separated by periods, Archaic & Classical / Hellenistic and Imperial), linguistic ones (dialectology, syntax) and a third group that is more ambiguous (Indoeuropean, Mycenology). During the first year we also got to choose a modern language as a subject, I picked Modern Greek and English, to no one's surprise.

The degree is not perfect, unfortunately, and there are many things that aren't really useful and should be taken out of it due to the amount of time that is lost, and people quitting due to it. But we are making progress after years of complaining ! This year has become the first year with a change in the subjects schedule, and now first year students will be taught the grammar of Latin and Ancient Greek from 0, which helps a lot more than it being taught in the second year.

Have you heard the Wisdom saga, which came out a couple of hours ago? I think you would love the song 'Love in Paradise'. Also, I am legitimately terrified of Calypso from this song; she's horrifying.

i didn't pay much attention to the musical lately, since the Circe saga was a bit "eh" for me. in terms of the musical's story, not the actual Odyssey ( a lot of things differ, as we know). but i did hear a few fragments of this song specifically before looking it up and giving it a listen. it's not that catchy as others for me, lines like "bow down now to the inmortal Calypso" don't fit the rythm the song has. though, to be fair, the song has a lot of dialogue compared to others, so it could be that.

they did a good job with making Calypso scary, because she is !! like any goddess. she's horrifying and that's her whole point, goddesses have the same scary power as gods, and i liked how that was shown ! specially the fear in Odysseus' voice.

a pity they didn't go the same way with Circe. they made her scary too, yeah, sure, but they tried to make her appealing to the public in a certain way. hilarious taking the fact that Odysseus himself describes her as "terrible" in the Odyssey