Greek idioms derived from Origen's Hexapla ?

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IzzyCohen
Posts: 2
Joined: May 4th, 2014, 3:39 am

Greek idioms derived from Origen's Hexapla ?

Post by IzzyCohen »

The second column of Origen's Hexapla
http://jts.oxfordjournals.org/content/XXI/1/17.extract
is the Old Testament in the Hebrew language written with Greek letters. Most readers of this "second column" understood Greek and would occasionally see a Hebrew word or phrase whose transliteration had a very different meaning as a Greek word or phrase. If there was some humorous connection or if the Hebrew meaning was one that should not be said publicly in Greek, the Greek word or phrase that sounded like the Hebrew source could become a Greek idiom that had the meaning of the Hebrew source.

Someone who knows Greek should scan the 2nd column of Origen's Hexapla to look for Greek phrases that have become Greek idioms with the meaning of the Hebrew source. Some of these Greek idioms may have become translated into other languages (including English) as idioms that retain the meaning of the Hebrew source.

You can see a more complete description of this mechanism of idiom formation via transliteration at
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/203 ... terns.docx

Best regards,
Izzy

Israel A Cohen
Petah Tikva, Israel
cohen.izzy@gmail.com
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Greek idioms derived from Origen's Hexapla ?

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Well, I had a look at your one page of examples, and I have to admit I find them less than convincing. I would call these accidental similarities. Do you have any other documentation, or anyone else who has worked on this and published a peer reviewed article on the subject? It doesn't accord at all with what I know about linguistics and the way idioms arise in any language, either through borrowing or from within. Also, note the "Forum Rules" above, especially that competence in Greek is assumed. Your comment "someone who knows Greek" implies that you don't. We are glad to answer questions from beginners, but we also encourage them really to begin and study the language.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Urban myths of language.

Post by Stephen Hughes »

There are a limited set of sounds available to speakers of every language and sometimes they overlap in seemingly significant ways. In the initial stages of language learning, before one's ear has learnt to differentiate between the patterns of one language and another, these urban myths if language inevitably come up.

Modern Greeks love to find Greek etymologies for every word. You can see that caricatured in the movie, ”My Big Fat Greek Wedding." For example, in one scene, the father says that the Japanese traditional costume, the kimono is said to be derived from the Greek word for "winter", because people wear them in winter.

There is a Chinese expression for a "smooth operator" or creep (depending on one's perspective), which means pouring drinks down the (inside) wall of a glass. 卑鄙[bēi bǐ - cup wall]下流[xià liú - down flow], often just shortened to 卑鄙. The abrupt way of saying, "What are you looking at?" is 看[kàn- look]么?[ma - what]. It is said, by 14 or 15 year old boys with puerile imaginations, that the origin of the English expression, "Come on baby!" was when a bad man was leering at a pretty girl, she said, 看[kàn]么[ma]卑鄙[bēi bǐ]? ("What are you looking at, you cad?").

People travelling to Thailand are told not to use the phrase, "You know..." when speaking English, because its sound pattern is highly offensive when heard in Thai.

After a while, our ear hears the language within its own phonological system.

You are right that there may have been some avoidance of some words by Greek speakers, but as for that creating English idioms, I have given you the example of "Come on baby!" above.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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