If the Iliad is ‘Iliadic’, and the Odyssey is ‘Odyssean’, what is the Aeneid?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-02 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

Two ways of solving this: via Greek and via Latin.

Greek first. I don’t care if the Aeneid is in Latin.

  • Iliad: Nominative Iliás, Genitive Iliádos, so the stem is Iliad-. (The nominative in proto-Greek would be *Iliad-s.) Hence, Iliad-ic.
  • Odyssey: Nominative Odússeia, Genitive Odusseías, so the stem is Odussei-. First declension, –ikos didn’t attach to those, Latin does its own thing, mumble mumble stuff I don’t actually know, which leads to Odysse(i)-an.
  • In Greek, the Aeneid is Aineiás, by analogy with Iliás. So if Aeneid were an originally Greek word, its adjective would be Aene(i)ad-ic.
  • In Latin, for whatever reason, the Aeneid is Nominative Aenei-s, Genitive Aenei-dis (treating the word as Latin) or Aenei-dos (treating the word as Greek. So the stem is Aeneid-, not Aenead– in Latin (therefore Aeneid in English), and if we treat Aeneid as a Latin word, the adjective is Aeneid-ic.

Google: 239 hits for Aeneidic, 146 for Aeneadic, both of which look to be used by reputable sources.

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