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Day: July 13, 2016
Which Greek author wrote the Labours of Hercules in Greek mythology?
You know, I don’t know. Luckily, Wikipedia does: Labours of Hercules. Some ancients tells us that Peisander of Camirus wrote the official account of the labours as an epic. Some other ancients (via Clement of Alexandria) tells us that Peisander got his material from some other guy called Pisinus of Lindus. Neither of these particularly […]
Where did the names of the gods come from in Greek mythology?
Many are Greek, though they’re old and obscure enough to be headscratchers. If they aren’t Greek, they certainly aren’t going to be Hebrew or Persian (Greeks were in Greece a long time before they were anywhere near either); the origins of non-Greek names are more readily sought in old Anatolian and Middle Eastern civilisations, like […]
What is the difference between Creole and Patois?
Originally Answered: Is creole and patois the same thing? Why or why not? In a prescientific sense, of course. Patois is what French people called the corrupted gibberish that white people spoke in France, and Creole is what French people called the corrupted gibberish that brown people spoke in the colonies. Thank god for science, […]
Do the Ancient Cretans have their own Cretan mythology?
Like Niko Vasileas said, we don’t have deciphered writings from the Minoans, so we don’t know for certain much of anything. But: We know the Greeks were Indo-European, and the Minoans likely were not. We know much of Greek mythology has Indo-European content in it. We know some things about Minoan religion from their sculptures […]
Could the names for the rivers Potomac, Thames, have any etymological connection with Greek potamos (=river)?
As for Greek potamos, I’ve checked in Dictionnaire-Etymologique-Grec : Chantraine (It’s online?! Download while you can!!!) Its likeliest source is as a noun derived from e-pet-on “to fall” (so, waterfall, torrent); but the meaning means that rivers always fall, which doesn’t sound right. The alternative derivation given, proposed by Wackernagel, is a relation to German […]