Using the Bible to Learn about Translation

While I'm not particularly religious, I do acknowledge the hugely important role religion has played in language. In fact, one of our earliest posts looked at the lasting impression of religion on language.

Some of the most impressive curse words in many languages come from the dominating religion in the country's native language. For example, it seems most, if not all, of the curse words in Spanish are blasphemes, and I'm very fond of how some of the worst words you can say in Québécois French refer to items located in a church.

However, cursing aside, religion has informed language and linguistics to a great degree. While I could go on and on about every religion in the world, today I'll be focusing on Christianity, its prayers, and its holy text, the Bible, and what it has offered to the academic discipline of academia.

The patron saint of translation, St. Jerome, was a famous translator. His work in translation focused almost entirely on translation of scripture. Of course, St. Jerome wasn't the only person translating the Bible, which was originally in Hebrew and Aramaic. It is now fully available in over 500 languages, with parts of it available in thousands of languages.

Thanks to the entire Bible being translated into hundreds of languages, it works as an instructive parallel text that allows us to better understand the differences between languages, their various families, and even the translation methods used.

When there are several different translations of the Bible in the same language, we can compare them in order to ascertain which translation method was used. In fact, the concept of equivalence in translation was devised by Eugene Nida, who had used the Bible as the object of his studies.

He used the adjectives dynamic and formal to describe different types of equivalence. In the case of formal equivalence, he described a process whereby the translator strictly follows the structure of the source text rather than rendering the text in the most natural way.

The other end of the spectrum is dynamic equivalence, whereby the translator employs more creative freedom in order to render the translation as a more authentic-sounding text in the target language. Of course, when the text is translated in this way, it runs the risk of losing some of the nuances and details that were in the source text.

You can consider these methods in the same way as recording a cover version of a song. You can either record the song exactly like the original, or you can perform it in your own style. If you imagine your own style is the target language and the original style is the source language, then you're starting to understand dynamic and formal equivalence.

A handwritten version of the Bible in Latin.

In English alone there have been plenty of different translations of the Bible. Some have used formal equivalence and others have used dynamic equivalence. Of course, no translation is fully dynamic or formal. In fact, certain parts can adhere to one strategy while other parts adhere to another. The important thing is what you are trying to communicate.

For example, if you were translating the Bible in order to ensure that all of its teachings will be followed to the letter, you would prefer a formal approach. This would mean that not a single detail would be lost. However, you could argue that speakers of the target language might find the reading unnatural, jarring, and not particularly accessible.

If your job as a translator was to ensure that the maximum number of people were exposed to Christianity and an accessible version of the Bible was available, you would look for a dynamic approach. This would mean that you probably wouldn't be able to directly quote scripture, and its teachings would be vaguer and display a degree of the translator's own interpretation.

You can hardly say which approach is correct as it all really depends on what the goal of the translation is. Nevertheless, scripture can provide a fantastic resource for understanding how you can approach translation. It's certainly more than just knowing two languages!

Good Friday and the Language of Easter

For many Christians around the world, today marks the celebration of Good Friday, the day that marks the crucifixion of Jesus. Throughout human history, religion has been an important part of life for many people, so it is unsurprising that it leaves a lasting mark on language. Today we're looking at a few of the ways Good Friday, Easter, and Christianity have left their marks on the English language.

Jesus being betrayed, with a kiss from Judas Iscariot.

Good Friday

For many English-speaking Christians, naming the day when their lord and saviour died good may seem a bit peculiar. While the meaning of Friday is uncontested, the explanation behind the term good is fairly complicated.

Some believe that the use of good may refer to the actions of Jesus, rather than some of the other events of the day, meaning that the term is being used in reference to God and holy things instead of its more common everyday usage.

Etymologically speaking, the good in Good Friday is also thought to have originated from "God's Friday", Gottes Freitag, or from the German Gute Freitag.

Ostara, the Pagan goddess of spring and fertility.

Judas Iscariot

Judas Iscariot was the disciple who betrayed Jesus by delivering him to the Romans in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. Due to his betrayal, his given name, Judas, is sometimes used to refer to a traitor either by referring to them directly as Judas or even as a Judas. This is used across most varieties of English in a very similar way to how Benedict Arnold is used American English. Arnold defected from the American Continental Army to the British Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Easter

English differs from other languages in that it doesn't use a term related to the Latin word Pascha to refer to this holiday. The roots of Easter go all the way back to the Proto-Indo-European term aus, which refers to shining. This later become austron in Proto-Germanic from *aust-, referring to the East and the sunrise. This became Eastre or Eostre and then the Old English term Easterdæg before finally becoming Easter. It should be noted that the English term for the Christian holiday actually comes from the name of a pagan god of spring and fertility!

The Etymology of Our Calendar: Part 1

Since last week's extensive look at Latin, I've had Roman culture on the brain. Almost two years ago we looked at the etymology of our week (in English, at least), and we're now finally going to focus on the 12 months that make up the year, at least in the Gregorian calendar. Let's dive straight in...

January

The first month of the year, like many others, gets its name from Latin. Originally, it was called Ianarius mensis, meaning "month of Janus", the two-faced Roman god of traditions and beginnings. When I say two-faced, I mean that he actually had two faces, not that he was bitchy and gossipy. Janus used one face to look forward to the future and the other to look back into the past.

The Arch of Janus, Rome

While naming January after Janus seems more than appropriate, there is evidence suggesting that the month also belongs to Juno, the goddess of marriage and childbirth, the queen of the gods, and the mother of both Mars (the god of war, destruction, and masculinity) and Vulcan (the god of fire and volcanoes). What a terrible pair of kids!

Ianarius (without the mensis) made its way into Old French and Old North French as Genever and Jenvier respectively before it replaced an Old English term and became the commonly-used term for the month.

February

February was originally februarius mensis. The name came from februare, which means "purify". This makes February "the month of purification", though after New Year's Eve, I reckon that maybe February should be the first month of the year. In Old English, the month was known as solmonað, which meant "mud month".

Just like "January", "February" was borrowed from the Old French Feverier before its spelling was altered to February, conforming with Latin in the 15th century.

March

March is one of the few calendar months in English that sounds like an English word. However, it comes from Latin just like the others. Martius mensis was the "month of Mars",  paying homage to Juno's son and the god of war. The term made its way into English from Anglo-French and Old French marche and marz respectively.

For some goddesses, such as Venus, having a planet
named after you just isn't enough...

April

April was known as avril in Old French before it was used in English as aueril, the name of the fourth month. Like other names of the months, it was changed to be more similar to Latin at the time and became apprile towards the end of the 14th century.

In its original form, it was known as mensis Aprilis, the "month of Venus", and was the second month in the Roman calendar. This discrepancy between the orders of the months will become apparent later, so keep that in mind for the latter half of the year when we get to it.

May

May was mai in Old French and Maius mensis in Latin. This name meant little more than "month of May". Original, right? It is thought to be a reference to Maia, a Greek goddess who was the wife of Vulcan and the Roman goddess of earth. However, it may have also been a completely different Maia who happened to share the name.

June

June, like January may have been, was named after Juno. I feel that this is much more convincing as a month for Juno, basing my opinion on little more than it sounding similar. However, if you need more convincing, the Latin name of the month was Iunius mensis, with Iunius thought to be from Iuononius, meaning "sacred to Juno".

We think six months in a day is more than enough, so we'll be back on Friday with the rest of the year. We'll see you then!

Part 1 | Part 2

Day of the Finnish Language: Part 1

As today is the Day of the Finnish Language, we thought we'd celebrate some of the interesting facts surrounding this Uralic language. First of all, on this day Finns have at least two good reasons to celebrate their language. The first reason is that today is celebrates the life of Mikael Agricola, the man who helped formalise literary Finnish and is credited as its de facto founder and sometimes called the "father of literary Finnish".

Mikael Agricola was also known Michael Olaui, Mikkel Olofsson, and Mikael Olavinpoika if you are referring to him in Finnish. He was a sixteenth-century clergyman who was born in Uusimaa, Finland, though Finland was actually part of Sweden at the time. From a young age his teachers noticed he was good with languages and it is suggested that he was a bilingual child that spoke both Swedish and Finnish. Owing to his abilities with languages, his teachers decided to send him to a Latin school in Vyborg, Russia, where he also trained to become a priest.

The man himself.

During his time in academia, he took the name Agricola, meaning "farmer" after the vocation of his father, as was the style at the time. Agricola then went to Turku, Finland in 1528 where he became the scribe for the bishop there.

After being ordained as a priest in 1531, Agricola was then sent to study in Wittenberg, Germany by the bishop of Turku. He focused his efforts on the Greek language, as the prominent language of the bible, and in 1537, he began translating the New Testament into Finnish.

He returned to Turku in 1539 and became a rector. Following the death of a bishop in 1554, Agricola was consecrated as an Ordinarius by Gustav Vasa, the king of Sweden, meaning that Agricola was effectively the bishop in all but title.

In 1557 Agricola was part of a delegation that headed to Russia to negotiate the end of the Russo-Swedish War. Though the negotiations were concluded and put into effect on 2 April 1557, on the way back Agricola fell ill and died in Uusikirkko, then part of Finland, though now part of Russia.

Since the date of Agricola's birth is unknown, the day of his death and his status as the "father of literary Finnish" is one of the reasons that today is the Day of the Finnish Language. We'll be back on Friday with the other reason. See you then!

Part 1 | Part 2

The Greek and Shakespearean Origins of Moons: Part 2

On Wednesday, we questioned a "fact" we'd heard. The fact stipulated that all moons in the Solar System were named after Greek gods, with the exception of Uranus' moons which were named after Shakespearean characters. Whilst it became clear that naming the moons after Greek gods was a fairly common practice, not every moon was named after a Greek god.

We looked at the planets from Mercury to Jupiter on Wednesday, so today we'll continue our search from Saturn onwards. Call us old-fashioned, but we'll also have a look at Pluto, as it was still considered a planet when the moons were being named so it may still follow this rule.

Saturn and its moons.

Saturn

British astronomer John Herschel suggested in 1847 that Saturn's moons be named after mythological characters associated with the Roman god Saturn and his Greek equivalent Cronus, the leader of the Titans who would overthrow his father Uranus until Zeus overthrew him.

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is of course named for the Titans themselves, which were in essence giants. However, when Christiaan Huygens discovered it, it was simply named Saturni Luna (or Luna Saturni), the Latin for "Saturn's moon". This was fortunately changed in accordance with Herschel's nomenclature as there are currently a total 62 moons with confirmed orbits, and if we followed Huygen's method they'd all have boring names.

Rhea is the second largest of Saturn's moons and is named after an actual Titan. Rhea was a daughter of Gaia and Uranus who was referred to as "the mother of the gods", though not all of them. Saturn's third largest moon Iapetus takes its name from another Titan who was the father of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius.

The fourth largest, Dione, is named for a Titaness who in one source was suggested to have been a wife of Zeus. Her name is also her title, with Dione having its etymological roots in both the ancient Greek Zeús and the Latin Deus and Diana, all meaning god or goddess.

Tethys, the fifth largest moon of Saturn was an incestuous Titanness, having ruled as an aquatic sea goddess with her brother and husband. To make their incestuous love even more disgusting, she happened to be the mother of all the major rivers of the known world of the time and to roughly three thousands daughters, known as the Oceanids. 

Rhea, Iapetus, Dione, and Thethys were all discovered by the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who named the moons Sidera Lodoicea, "the stars of Louis" in honour of the French king Louis XIV.

Enceladus shares its name with another of the Titans, the only one that had dragon scales for feet. As Enceladus was discovered and named by Herschel, it would of course follow the nomenclature that he put in place. Mimas certainly follows convention as well, as Mimas was one of Gaia's sons and a Titan. The moon was discovered by Herschel's father, William Herschel.

Whilst these main moons all follow the Greek naming convention in the fact that we are scrutinising, the majority of Saturn's other moons also follow this pattern, with the exception of a few that have boring-sounding scientifically-orientated names, such as the catchy "S/2009 S 1".

Uranus

Uranus is the only planet in the Solar System that has been said not to have moons named after Greek mythology. Instead, Uranus' moons are said to have been named after Shakespearean characters.

Just like Saturn's moon, the names for the moons of Uranus were again decided by John Herschel. Whilst Herschel was adamant that Saturn's moons were to be named for Greek mythology, he insisted that Uranus' moons be named after magical spirits in English literature, not solely Shakespearean characters. The moons Oberon and Titania were named after spirits in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, while the moons Ariel and Umbriel were from Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, though Ariel is also in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Whilst Herschel had outlined this nomenclature, only the moons Puck and Mab followed this rule. Both were sprites and Shakespearean characters. Puck appeared in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Mab, or Queen Mab, is from English folklore and was mentioned in Romeo and Juliet.

When Gerard Kuiper, who had the Kuiper Belt named after him, discovered Uranus' fifth moon, he named it Miranda, a character from Shakespeare's The Tempest, rather than following Herschel's rules. However, the International Astronomical Union later agreed that the moons all be named after characters from Shakespeare.

Neptune

The moons of Neptune were decided to all be named after characters in Greek and Roman mythology. Triton, Proteus, Despina, and Thalassa were all children of Poseidon, the Greek equivalent to the Roman Neptune. Other Neptunian moons were named after varieties of Greek water nymphs as Neptune (or Poseidon) was the god of the sea.



An artistic representation of Pluto as seen
from Charon.

Pluto

Though Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet, it still has moons. The names of Pluto's moons have their roots in Greek mythology, albeit the darker side of Greek mythology.

Charon is the ferryman of Hades and the largest of Pluto's moons. Charon is so large in comparison to Pluto that it may be under consideration for dwarf planet status, which would make Pluto and Charon a binary system. Pluto's second moon, Nix is named after the goddess of night who also happened to be the mother of Charon. 

Pluto's third moon, Hydra, is clearly named for the reptilian creature with multiple heads, and Kerberos in Greek mythology is also known as Cerberus, the three-headed dog or "hellhound", the namesake of Pluto's fourth moon. 

Pluto's fifth and final moon, Styx, is named after the river in Greek mythology that separated the realm of the living from that of the dead.

Having looked at all the planets in the Solar System, it's clear that not all moons are named after Greek gods and Shakespearean characters, though many of them are.

The Greek and Shakespearean Origins of Moons: Part 1

Some time ago we had a look at the the astronomical nomenclature and the etymology of the Solar System. However, we came across a piece of trivia that stated that all the moons in the solar system are named after Greek gods, with the exception of Uranus' moons, which are named in accordance with characters from Shakespeare.

We decided to investigate and see just how true this trivia was:

A false-colour image of Mercury

Mercury

The first planet in the solar system has no natural satellites. As a result, is not worthy of our attention today. 

Venus

Like Mercury, Venus doesn't have any natural satellites either, with the exception of 2002 VE68, an asteroid that follows a quasi-orbit around the planet. In the 17th Century, it was reported that Venus did have a moon, which was "discovered" by the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini. He named this "moon" Neith, after the Egyptian god. Has this discovery held water, the naming convention and our trivia tidbit would have been disproven after only two planets. However, it was not, and as a result, we may be on to something.

Earth

Our home planet, as many people should know. Has one natural satellite, the Moon, which came from Moone,  from the Old English word, mone. This word came from the Old English mōna, which has its origins in the Proto-Germanic  mǣnōn. Whilst none of these are the name of a Greek god, the term Lunar comes from the Latin word Luna, named for a Roman god, and the satellite was at one point even named for Selene, a Greek god.

Whilst this is a tenuous link and hardly seems definitive that all moons in the Solar System are named for Greek gods, we will soldier on regardless to see if our moon was just an exception.

Mars

The Red Planet has only two moons, Phobos and Deimos. Phobos, written in Greek as Φόβος, was indeed a Greek god. Phobos is in fact the Greek god of horror and the embodiment and personification of fear. This is, of course, is the origin of the word phobia.

Deimos, or Δεῖμος, is the Greek god of terror, Phobos' twin, and the second of Mars' moons. Even though both moons are named after twins, the actual satellites are not particularly similar.

Jupiter and the Galilean moons.

Jupiter

The red giant has 67 natural satellites. We covered the Galilean moons in our previous post on the Solar System. The Galilean moons are evidently named after their discoverer Galileo Galilei. Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are certainly Greek names. It is whether they are Greek gods or not. Io was a priestess of Hera and nymph. Europa, was a god and as you can guess, is the namesake of both the moon and continent. Ganymede was a mortal who was abducted by Zeus, which appeared to be a hobby of his, and became the cupbearer for the gods. He was granted immortality so was sort of a god, despite Homer referring to him as the most beautiful of the mortals. Callisto was also a nymph abducted by Zeus.

Just from the Galilean moons we can see that whilst the names of the moons are all of Greek origin, they are not all technically gods. The next moons were named with Roman numerals until the International Astronomical Union attributed names to the moons V to VIII and established the nomenclature that future moons were to be named after lovers and favourites of the god Jupiter, or Zeus as he was known in Greek mythology. Once it became somewhat clear that Jupiter had a lot of moons, the IAU decided that all moons after XXXIV were to be named after sons and daughters of Zeus or Jupiter.

Closer inspection at each of Jupiter's moons show that even with this nomenclature, not every moon is named after a Greek god or a character from Greek mythology. Take the catchy "S/2000 J 11", which wouldn't take a Greek specialist to realise that it's neither a god nor from mythology.

Clearly our daily trivia doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Despite this, we'll be back on Friday seeing if Saturn has any Greek gods and whether or not Uranus' moons are indeed named after Shakespearean characters.

Esperanto: The World's Most Popular Constructed Language, Part 2

Yesterday we began discussing the history of Esperanto, a constructed language or conlang that was created by L. L. Zamenhof. We left off yesterday  mentioning how the US army used Esperanto in their training exercises and drills.

The main reason that the US army made this decision was that Esperanto has no nation of its own, so it would be very difficult for any other nation to take offence at the military practices in the US. It was also useful as it was fairly unlikely that any of the troops taking part in the drills would have learned Esperanto before.

A map of European Esperanto groups in 1905.

It would seem that given its political neutrality, Esperanto would be the ideal language for everybody to learn, wouldn't it? It turns out that the ideal of the language of peace wouldn't be as readily adopted as Zamenhof would have liked.

Though UNESCO recognised Esperanto in 1954, to date no country has recognised it as an official language. Esperanto has an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 speakers, though some estimates reach as high as 2 million. Esperanto also has around 1,000 native speakers. The lion's share of these are children born to parents who met through Esperanto and as result their children were born into an Esperanto-speaking household. Almost all of these children are raised bilingual due to most of the outside world speaking a language other than Esperanto.

Since we've looked at the history and use of Esperanto, tomorrow we'll be continuing our look at the language with an analysis of its linguistic construction.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Esperanto: The World's Most Popular Constructed Language, Part 1

For those of you who don't know about it, Esperanto is a language, but not like you would think of in the traditional sense. Esperanto was the brainchild of L. L. Zamenhof, a linguist and doctor in the 19th century who had the idea of creating a language that could unite the world.

In its simplest form, Esperanto is a tool that was intended to transcend political boundaries, nationalities, and ultimately, foster peace throughout the world. The idea was that if everybody had the same language, one that was easy enough to learn, then people would eventually stop fighting. You certainly couldn't doubt Zamenhof's ambition.

Esperanto has its own flag but not its own country.

Zamenhof went ahead and created his language, which is known as a constructed language or conlang. Though phonemically-inspired by Slavic languages, the lexicon takes inspiration from mainly Romance languages, and to a lesser extent Germanic languages. Esperanto uses the Latin alphabet and the same diacritics as several other Slavic languages.

In Nazi Germany, the language was singled out as being a tool for Jewish conspirators. Since Zamenhof was Jewish, this led to the language not only being mentioned in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, but also led to Zamenhof's family being targeted.

Fascist Italy was not particularly against Esperanto though, as it shared a lot of phonetic similarities with Italian and was even permitted at the time. However, this was a rare case as Esperanto was viewed by most as the language of spies since Esperanto doesn't hold official language status in any country and could easily be used as a tool to secretly communicate.

The American army even used Esperanto in war games and training exercises in the 50s and 60s, though we'll have more on that tomorrow.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

The Effect Of Latin On The English Language: Part 4

So far in our evaluation of the effect of Latin on the English language, we've seen the paltry linguistic influence of the Romans, the invasions of Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, and finally, the Norman Conquest, which had perhaps the most influential effect on Latin's arrival into the English language.

That said, the conquest isn't the end of our tale. We can't ignore the cultural and linguistic influence of the Catholic Church. From the 6th century, the Church was present in England and would stay as the country's prominent religious organisation for about a millennium. Latin had already begun to take root in the then developing English language through its use in churches across the country.

The title page of Newton's Principia.

Although King Henry VIII would later revoke the Pope's power in the Church in England following a spat with the Catholic Church regarding the denial of the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Latin Mass remained prominent in England up until the twentieth century. Due to the Church and the Norman Conquest, most of the polysyllabic words in English are of Latin or Old French origin.

However, it wasn't just religion that allowed Latin to creep its way into the English language. The sciences and the wealth of Roman technology that was introduced across Europe and parts of Africa led to Latin phraseology entering many languages, not just English.

As we have already mentioned in our previous posts about nomenclature, science, from the Latin word scientia meaning "knowledge", is heavily influenced by Latin. Even by the 17th century, scientists would work and publish their findings in Latin, despite, more often than not, being able to converse with one another in English. It's no surprise that Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was originally published in Latin in 1687, while it would be another 41 years before it would be published in English, in 1728.

So there we have it. We hope you've enjoyed nearly 2000 years of Latin's effect on the English language. It's difficult to keep it all to just four posts, so if you have anything you think we may have missed, tell us about it in the comments below.

Part 1: The Roman Occupation

Part 2: Anglo-Saxons and Vikings

Part 3: The Norman Conquest

An Etymological Voyage Through The Solar System: Part 2

Following the first part of our etymological voyage through the Solar System yesterday, we're continuing our trip through the remaining planets.

Mars

The fourth planet from the sun and our best hope for survival after we've destroyed our current planet. Mars is named after the Roman god of war and protector of agriculture. Though Mars was based on the Greek god Ares, the more popular Latin name would make its way throughout history as the name of the planet. In many Romance languages such as French, Italian, and Spanish, Tuesday is Mars' day.

Jupiter

The largest planet in the Solar System takes its name from the king of the Roman gods. Iuppiter, as the Romans would have us spell it, was in charge of all the other gods and a sky god. The Romans considered him the equivalent to the Greek god Zeus.

Jupiter and its Galilean moons.

Jupiter's Galilean Moons

Jupiter has four moons with interesting names. Though astronomers initally attempted to develop a nomenclature for the moons using Roman numerals by calling them Jupiter I, Jupiter II, Jupiter III, etc, they ended up preferring to name them all after lovers of the Greek god Zeus.

Europa was a woman who would later become the Queen of Crete, Callisto was a nymph and Io was priestess who fell in love with Zeus.

 

Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, which is larger than both the Moon and Mercury, was named for the son of King Tros who was transported to heaven by Jupiter having taken on the form of an eagle. Ganymede is the only of Zeus' lovers to have not been female.

Saturn

Saturn, or Saturnus in Latin, has both a planet and a day named after him. Saturn was the god of the Capitol, and some even considered Jupiter to be the son of Saturn.

Uranus

The unfortunately named Uranus was originally called George's Star, or the Latin name Georgium Sidus after the then king of England, King George III. Several other names were proposed including Neptune, Neptune George III and Neptune Great Britain which were all ignored in favour of naming the planet after the Greek god Οὐρανός (Ouranus), adopting the Latin form, Uranus. We bet you didn't know that the Greeks worshipped Uranus!

Neptune loved a good trident, not to be
confused with a fork, which has 4 tines.

Neptune

Neptune's discoverer, Urbain le Verrier, wished to name the planet after himself. Janus, the two-faced Roman god who had the month of January named after him, and Oceanus, the personification of the World Ocean, a river that surrounded the entire world, were also considered. Both of these names were rejected in favour of the name Neptune, after the Roman god of the seas and brother to both Jupiter and Pluto.

Pluto

Though no longer a planet, as much as we want it to be, Pluto is the last destination on our trip. Once the smallest planet, Pluto is now classified as a dwarf planet and is named after the Greek god of the underworld, Πλούτων (Ploutos). Pluto was sometimes Hades and sometimes used as a nicer version of Hades since the ancient Greeks weren't too fond of him.

If you're wondering about the very odd family ties amongst some of the gods, it should be noted that the Ancient Greeks and Romans would often share gods or even assume that Greek gods exerted their power over Greece whilst the Roman gods would exert their power over Rome.

An Etymological Voyage Through The Solar System: Part 1

If you remember our post on polytheism and the days of the week, then you know that our day-to-day lives are dominated by Latin, Greek and Norse mythology. The same can be said for the night sky.

The route of our linguistic trip.

Traditionally, the shining objects in the night sky were so bright and wondrous that the only thing they could be were deities. Thus several of the brightest objects, which also tend to be the closest, were named as gods, which has stuck with us to this day. Today and tomorrow we'll be travelling through the linguistic past and etymology of the Solar System and the gods who share their names. Let's start at the centre with...

The Sun

The name for the brightest star in our sky, at least during the day, came from the Old English Sunne via the Germanic Pagan god, Sól or Sunna. The Latin name for the sun, Sol, is where we get the name Solar System.

Mercury

The first planet in our solar system is named for the Roman god of the same name. Though Mercurius, to use his Latin name, was the guide for souls on their way to the underworld, he also dabbled in being the god of financial gain, poetry, eloquence, luck, fortune and thievery. A real jack-of-all-trades. Just watch him whizzing around the night sky. He certainly keeps himself busy.

There's a reason Venus is the goddess of beauty.

Venus

The goddess of love and the brightest object in the night sky, Venus was the epitome of beauty and pretty much the most powerful sex symbol in human history. She also represented fertility and prosperity, which anyone who has children will tell you are complete opposites.

Earth

Our home planet, also known as Terra and Gaia. The word earth in reference to the soil and ground is lower case but should remain capitalised as Earth when referring to the planet, at least in English. Terra, the Latin name for the planet, gives us derivatives such as terrestrial, which most of us should be, and extraterrestrial for those not from earth, as in our short mate with the glowing finger, E.T.

The name Gaia refers to the Greek goddess of the Earth and is often used when referring to the planet as a spiritual living being. If you're thinking about leaving the office, growing your hair and making flower necklaces, get ready to start hearing your new friends call the planet Gaia.

Selenic...

The Moon

A moon is technically a natural satellite, something that orbits a planet but wasn't put up there by us. The Moon is the closest object to Earth and thus, follows the same rules on capitalisation as Earth. In lower case, moon should refer to a natural satellite, while upper case Moon should refer to our moon, or Luna, as she is also called.

The word moon came from moone, which has its roots in the Old English word mōna. Its Latin name, Luna, gives us, much like the Sun and the Earth, the adjective lunar. The less common Ancient Greek word selenic, another adjective, may also be used. Selenic comes from the Ancient Greek name for the Moon, Selene, or Σελήνη when using the Greek alphabet.

Tomorrow we'll pick up where we left off as it's time for a rest stop. We've covered almost 250,000,000 km and we need to use the bathroom. Next stop, Mars!

Irish and Saint Patrick's Day

Dia duit! Although we have a language profile once each week, we decided that the best way to select languages would be by starting with the language with the most native speakers and working our way down the list. This means that we may never get to some minority languages and that's just wrong!

Since today is St. Patrick's Day, one of the most popular, if not the most popular saint's day in the world, we're going to take a brief look at the holiday itself as well as the Irish language. Thanks to Guinness and the popularity of being Irish, the day is celebrated worldwide and, in particular, in the US.

In Chicago they go so far as to dye the Chicago River green!

It's clear Americans are very fond of their heritage and those who have the tiniest bit of "Irish blood" in them love to use this fact as an excuse for alcoholism on the 17th of March each year, though celebrations are often moved to another day when it falls on Sunday, such as this year.

Though St. Patrick's Day is technically a religious holiday, it has long since been observed thus and most consider it an excuse to pretend to be Irish and get drunk on Guinness or anything they than colour green, the Chicago River included.

Something that isn't too often observed, much to our disappointment, is the promotion of the Irish language! Many Irish descendants are happy to drink their Guinness, wear green and generally make a mess of things. They are not, however, very interested in celebrating a huge part of Irish culture, the language.

Irish is one of the oldest languages in Europe and has around 133,000 native speakers, most of which, unsurprisingly, live in Ireland. It's the official language of Ireland and is recognised as a minority language in the UK, mainly thanks to Northern Ireland's inclusion as part of the union.

Despite its small number of native speakers, Irish is also recognised as an official language of the EU. The translation of EU documentation into Irish has an estimated cost of €3.5 million which we would imagine is probably the most expensive per capita.

So today or tomorrow when you don your green attire and raise your glass to celebrate Irish culture and heritage, don't forget the language! Sláinte!

The Divine Language

Yesterday we spoke about Adamic, the language handed to Adam by God. It has been suggested that Adamic is the Divine Language, but since this is not a certainty and it's much worse to piss off God than Adam, we decided that we needed to look at the Divine Language on its own.

The Divine Language is considered a proto-language despite the possibility that it doesn't exist. Classifying it further would be fairly redundant, although we have seen people do weirder things when encouraged by their beliefs. It would be fair to say that the Divine Language is definitely a language isolate since it can't possibly have any earthly relations. That is, assuming that heaven or any other godly realm is monolingual.

Mytikas, the highest point of Mount Olympus.

Many cultures have an idea of a divine language. It is usually required because in many religions God, or the gods, do not live on their own. Within Judaism and Christianity, God hangs out in heaven with angels, archangels and a whole host of staff, for lack of a better word. In Ancient Greek mythology there were several gods that would spend their time on Mount Olympus chatting to one another and occasionally mocking Hades who, despite modern depictions, wasn't all that bad. He was merely annoyed at his job as the manager of the underworld, which is far worse than any job in an office.

If we ignore the issue of whether or not God or gods exist, the idea of a divine language becomes even less likely if we consider that immortal omnipotent deities would have little to no need for using their mouths, tongues and vocal chords, if they even have any, to communicate. They would probably use a form of communication far beyond our comprehension.

Adamic: The Original Language

When we discussed a few theories on The Origin of Language, we only mentioned scientific theories proposed by scholars and linguists. Just as parents love their children, we love all languages, albeit not equally, and thought it would be interesting to discuss what we'll call a historical or mythological language.

There are no words to describe it.
At least there were no words.

Adamic is the language handed to Adam (from the Bible and Torah) from God. There are uncertainties as to whether or not Adamic is the same as God's language, known as the Divine Language. The Adamic language, obviously named after Adam, was the language used by Adam to name things in the Garden of Eden. Thanks to some fairly sexist content in ancient scripture, it is unknown whether Eve spoke this language.

Scholars are not certain as to whether or not the Adamic language was Hebrew, due to the names he gave Eve. We do know that Adam used his language to name Eve. It is prudent to note at this point that his female companion was not originally called Eve. The scripture was not in English, and she was in fact called Isha or Chava. As these names apparently only make sense in Hebrew, some assume that this was the language Adam was speaking.

Other groups, such as the Latter-day Saints (Mormons), believe that the Adamic language came directly from God and is a pure language not subject to change, as this would make it impure. Obviously humans cannot modify things from God since they are always considered pure and perfect. That said, God clearly had no idea of how amazing apple pies are. Given the option between an apple and an apple pie, anyone with their head screwed on knows that pies are probably worth eternal damnation.

Religion And The Spread Of Language

Some people believe one thing. Some people believe another. When groups of people believe the same thing, they suddenly start speaking the same language.

This isn't some miracle. If you have organised religion, you usually end up reading from the scripture in the language it's written in. There are translations of course, but what really gets languages spreading is when they're adopted as an official language of the religion.

Funnily enough, having a different religion has been as good a reason as any for invading new places throughout history. The invaders teach them about their religion, and in turn help make a language official, since oppressors rarely decide to let the natives speak their own language.

Judaism and Hebrew, Catholicism and Latin, and Islam and Arabic. Each of these religions has a strong affiliation with a particular language. The Torah being in Hebrew helped Jews spread Hebrew across the world. Yiddish (a Germanic language with Hebrew influences) was once primarily used by Jews in Germany, but has spread across the Atlantic to North America, where some of its words have made their way into standard usage in American English. It took a lot of chutzpah to pull that off!

They don't fit so well into hotel drawers.

Catholicism had Mass in Latin for many centuries. Rome's conquest of most of the known world helped spread the language, and it continued to live long after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Why? Every priest across the world was conducting Mass in Latin. It's considered a dead language now, but it's still spoken in the Vatican and the Pope has even taken measures to promote it.

Look at the spread of Arabic from the Middle East to Africa. An empire helped this on its way, but convincing people that this was the right way to live your life certainly helped Arabic, the language of the Qur'an, get a foothold in Muslim areas of the world. Now Arabic spreads across such a large area that from one end to another the language is not mutually intelligible. The one thing in common is the Arabic used in the Qur'an.

The Latin alphabet is starting to look pretty boring now.

Whether you love or hate religion, it can spread languages and bring groups of people together. Religions can help certain languages to survive or even thrive. They're fine by us as long as they're not spreading hatred and prejudice, but encouraging linguistic awesomeness instead.