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80-551: According to folk etymology , Deucalion's name comes from δεῦκος , deukos , a variant of γλεῦκος , gleucos , i.e. "sweet new wine, must, sweetness" and from ἁλιεύς , haliéus , i.e. "sailor, seaman, fisher". His wife Pyrrha 's name derives from the adjective πυρρός , -ά, -όν, pyrrhós, -á, -ón , i.e. "flame-colored, orange". Of Deucalion's birth, the Argonautica (from the 3rd century BC) stated: There [in Achaea , i.e. Greece]

160-475: A chestnut horse ' . This was an allusion to a fourteenth-century French morality poem, Roman de Fauvel , about a chestnut-coloured horse who corrupts men through duplicity. The phrase was reanalyzed in early Modern English by comparison to favour as early as 1510. Words need not completely disappear before their compounds are reanalyzed. The word shamefaced was originally shamefast . The original meaning of fast 'fixed in place' still exists, as in

240-473: A corn on the foot. The word comes from Old English ang- + nægel ' anguished nail, compressed spike ' , but the spelling and pronunciation were affected by folk etymology in the seventeenth century or earlier. Thereafter, the word came to be used for a tag of skin or torn cuticle near a fingernail or toenail. Several words in Medieval Latin were subject to folk etymology. For example,

320-542: A boat), sending forth birds to test whether the waters had receded, and stowing animals of every kind on the boat. These facts were unknown to Lemprière because the Assyrian cuneiform tablets containing the Gilgamesh Epic were not discovered until in the 1850s. This was 20 years after Lemprière had published his "Bibliotheca Classica". The Gilgamesh epic is widely considered to be at least as old as Genesis, if not older. Given

400-583: A deluge. During this catastrophic flood, the rivers ran in torrents and the sea flooded the coastal plain, engulfing the foothills with spray, and washing everything clean. Deucalion, with the aid of his father Prometheus, was saved from this deluge by building a chest. Like the biblical Noah and the Mesopotamian counterpart Utnapishtim , he used this device to survive the great flood with his wife, Pyrrha. The most complete accounts are given by Ovid , in his Metamorphoses (late 1 BCE to early 1 CE), and by

480-506: A flood but instead named him as commander of those from Parnassus who drove the "sixth generation" of Pelasgians from Thessaly. One of the earliest Greek historians, Hecataeus of Miletus , was said to have written a book about Deucalion, but it no longer survived. The only extant fragment of his to mention Deucalion does not mention the flood either, but named him as the father of Orestheus, king of Aetolia . The much later geographer Pausanias , following on this tradition, named Deucalion as

560-462: A great temple in Manbij (northern Syria), on the site of the chasm that received all the waters; he further describes how pilgrims brought vessels of sea water to this place twice a year, from as far as Arabia and Mesopotamia, to commemorate this event. On the other hand, Dionysius of Halicarnassus stated Deucalion's parents to be Prometheus and Clymene, daughter of Oceanus , and mentioned nothing about

640-581: A king of Ozolian Locris and father of Orestheus. Plutarch mentioned a legend that Deucalion and Pyrrha had settled in Dodona , Epirus ; while Strabo asserted that they lived at Cynus , and that her grave was still to be found there, while his may be seen at Athens . This can be related to an account that after the deluge, Deucalion, founder and king of Lycoreia in Mt. Parnassus was said to have fled from his kingdom to Athens with his sons Hellen and Amphictyon during

720-564: A particular deity, usually dwelling in a cave or other secluded location away from urban areas, and, much as the oracles of ancient Greece, would deliver prophecies in an ecstatic state to visitors seeking advice. Two of their ancient oracles became especially famous during the pre-colonial period: the Agbala oracle at Awka and the Chukwu oracle at Arochukwu . Although the vast majority of Igbos today are Christian , many of them still use oracles. Among

800-465: A search for knowledge that was one of the founding events of western philosophy . He claimed that she was "an essential guide to personal and state development." This oracle's last recorded response was given in 362 AD, to Julian the Apostate . The oracle's powers were highly sought after and never doubted. Any inconsistencies between prophecies and events were dismissed as failure to correctly interpret

880-437: A similar manner include belfry (from berfrey ) by association with bell , female (from femelle ) by male , and penthouse (from apentis ) by house . The variant spelling of licorice as liquorice comes from the supposition that it has something to do with liquid. Anglo-Norman licoris (influenced by licor ' liquor ' ) and Late Latin liquirītia were respelled for similar reasons, though

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960-465: A son, no mention of the mother, Candybus who gave his name to the town of Candyba in Lycia . The flood in the time of Deucalion was caused by the anger of Zeus , ignited by the hubris of Lycaon and his sons, descendants of Pelasgus . According to this story, King Lycaon of Arcadia had sacrificed a boy to Zeus, who, appalled by this offering, decided to put an end to the "Bronze" Age by unleashing

1040-688: A specific person. Contemporarily, Theyyam or "theiyam" in Malayalam - a south Indian language - the process by which a Priest invites a Hindu god or goddess to use his or her body as a medium or channel and answer other devotees' questions, still happens. The same is called "arulvaakku" or "arulvaak" in Tamil , another south Indian language - Adhiparasakthi Siddhar Peetam is famous for arulvakku in Tamil Nadu . The people in and around Mangalore in Karnataka call

1120-632: A third, Amphictyon . Another account, adds a daughter Melanthea to the list of the couple’s progeny. This daughter, also called Melantho , became the mother of Delphus by Poseidon . Deucalion’s and Pyrrha’s children are apparently named in one of the oldest texts, Catalogue of Women , include daughters Pandora and Thyia , and at least one son, Hellen. Their descendants were said to have dwelt and ruled in Thessaly. One source mentioned three sons of Deucalion and his wife: Orestheus , Marathonios and Pronous (father of Hellen). Lastly, Deucalion sired

1200-412: A wooden fence and make a stand there. Others, Themistocles among them, said the oracle was clearly for fighting at sea, the metaphor intended to mean war ships. Others still insisted that their case was so hopeless that they should board every ship available and flee to Italy , where they would be safe beyond any doubt. In the event, variations of all three interpretations were attempted: some barricaded

1280-471: A word or other form becomes obsolete, words or phrases containing the obsolete portion may be reanalyzed and changed. Some compound words from Old English were reanalyzed in Middle or Modern English when one of the constituent words fell out of use. Examples include bridegroom from Old English brydguma ' bride-man ' . The word gome ' man ' from Old English guma fell out of use during

1360-491: Is hangmat . It was borrowed from Spanish hamaca (ultimately from Arawak amàca ) and altered by comparison with hangen and mat ' hanging mat ' . German Hängematte shares this folk etymology. Islambol , a folk etymology meaning 'Islam abounding', is one of the names of Istanbul used after the Ottoman conquest of 1453. An example from Persian is the word شطرنج shatranj 'chess', which

1440-419: Is a land encircled by lofty mountains, rich in sheep and in pasture, where Prometheus , son of Iapetus , begat goodly Deucalion, who first founded cities and reared temples to the immortal gods, and first ruled over men. This land the neighbours who dwell around call Haemonia [i.e. Thessaly ]. According to Bibliotheca , Deucalion and Pyrrha had at least two children, Hellen and Protogenea , and possibly

1520-465: Is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions , most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities . If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination . The word oracle comes from the Latin verb ōrāre , "to speak" and properly refers to the priest or priestess uttering the prediction. In extended use, oracle may also refer to

1600-408: Is a portmanteau of wani ditata (dare to be controlled), also, wanita is taken from Sanskrit वनिता vanitā (someone desired by men). In Turkey, the political Democrat Party changed its logo in 2007 to a white horse in front of a red background because many voters folk-etymologized its Turkish name Demokrat as demir kırat ' iron white-horse ' . Oracle An oracle

1680-678: Is derived from the Sanskrit चतुरङ्ग chatur-anga ("four-army [game]"; 2nd century BCE), and after losing the u to syncope , became چترنگ chatrang in Middle Persian (6th century CE). Today it is sometimes factorized as sad ' hundred ' + ranj ' worry, mood ' , or ' a hundred worries ' . Some Indonesian feminists discourage usage of the term wanita ('woman') and replacing it with perempuan , since wanita itself has misogynistic roots. First, in Javanese , wanita

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1760-432: Is frequently seen in relation to loanwords or words that have become archaic or obsolete. Folk/popular etymology may also refer to a popular false belief about the etymology of a word or phrase that does not lead to a change in the form or meaning. To disambiguate the usage of the term "folk/popular etymology", Ghil'ad Zuckermann proposes a clear-cut distinction between the derivational-only popular etymology (DOPE) and

1840-474: Is that Kamsa (or Kansa), the evil uncle of Krishna , was informed by an oracle that the eighth son of his sister Devaki would kill him. The opening verse of the Tiruvalluva Maalai , a medieval Tamil anthology usually dated by modern scholars to between c. 7th and 10th centuries CE, is attributed to an asariri or oracle. However, there are no references in any Indian literature of the oracle being

1920-453: Is uncertain. By the late Middle Ages its meaning was extended to the holder of a university degree inferior to master or doctor. This was later re-spelled baccalaureus , probably reflecting a false derivation from bacca laurea ' laurel berry ' , alluding to the possible laurel crown of a poet or conqueror. In the fourteenth or fifteenth century, French scholars began to spell the verb savoir ' to know ' as sçavoir on

2000-455: Is unknown, but presumably humorous, since the dish contains no rabbit. In 1785 Francis Grose suggested in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue that the dish is "a Welch rare bit", though the word rarebit was not common prior to Grose's dictionary. Both versions of the name are in current use; individuals sometimes express strong opinions concerning which version is correct. When

2080-558: The Sibylline Books acquired and consulted in emergencies by Rome wherein her prophecies were transcribed. The Cumaean Sibyl was called "Herophile" by Pausanias and Lactantius , "Deiphobe, daughter of Glaucus" by Virgil , as well as "Amaltheia", "Demophile", or "Taraxandra" by others. Sibyl's prophecies became popular with Christians as they were thought to predict the birth of Jesus Christ . Didyma near Ionia in Asia Minor in

2160-597: The Urim and Thummim breastplate, and in general any utterance considered prophetic . In Celtic polytheism , divination was performed by the priestly caste, either the druids or the vates . This is reflected in the role of "seers" in Dark Age Wales ( dryw ) and Ireland ( fáith ). In China, oracle bones were used for divination in the late Shang dynasty , (c. 1600–1046 BC). Diviners applied heat to these bones, usually ox scapulae or tortoise plastrons, and interpreted

2240-518: The sacrifice of Odin for the oracular runes whereby he lost an eye (external sight) and won wisdom (internal sight; insight ). In the migration myth of the Mexitin, i.e., the early Aztecs , a mummy -bundle (perhaps an effigy ) carried by four priests directed the trek away from the cave of origins by giving oracles. An oracle led to the foundation of Mexico-Tenochtitlan . The Yucatec Mayas knew oracle priests or chilanes , literally 'mouthpieces' of

2320-517: The site of the oracle , and the oracular utterances themselves, are called khrēsmoí (χρησμοί) in Greek. Oracles were thought to be portals through which the gods spoke directly to people. In this sense, they were different from seers ( manteis , μάντεις) who interpreted signs sent by the gods through bird signs, animal entrails , and other various methods. The most important oracles of Greek antiquity were Pythia (priestess to Apollo at Delphi ), and

2400-400: The " Minoan Snake Goddess ". At the oracle of Dodona she is called Diōnē (the feminine form of Diós , genitive of Zeus ; or of dīos , "godly", literally "heavenly"), who represents the earth-fertile soil, probably the chief female goddess of the proto-Indo-European pantheon . Python , daughter (or son) of Gaia was the earth dragon of Delphi represented as a serpent and became

2480-543: The Acropolis, the civilian population was evacuated over sea to nearby Salamis Island and to Troizen , and the war fleet fought victoriously at Salamis Bay . Should utter destruction have happened, it could always be claimed that the oracle had called for fleeing to Italy after all. Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy, near Naples , dating back to the 8th century BC. The sibylla or prophetess at Cumae became famous because of her proximity to Rome and

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2560-705: The God speaks" are recorded in the Near East as in Mari in the second millennium BC and in Assyria in the first millennium BC. In Egypt, the goddess Wadjet (eye of the moon) was depicted as a snake-headed woman or a woman with two snake-heads. Her oracle was in the renowned temple in Per-Wadjet (Greek name Buto ). The oracle of Wadjet may have been the source for the oracular tradition which spread from Egypt to Greece. Evans linked Wadjet with

2640-636: The Zhou period. According to the Ancient Egyptian religion , some ancient Egyptian gods (and rarely deified humans), acted as intermediaries between humans and the divine. This was exemplified by the Ancient Egyptian title " Reporter/Herald " ( wḥmw ), whom in the religious context, reports requests and petitions to the local gods. In Hawaii , oracles were found at certain heiau , Hawaiian temples. These oracles were found in towers covered in white kapa cloth made from plant fibres. In here, priests received

2720-417: The alteration of an unfamiliar word is limited to a single person, it is known as an eggcorn . The technical term "folk etymology" refers to a change in the form of a word caused by erroneous popular suppositions about its etymology . Until the academic development of comparative linguistics and description of laws underlying sound changes , the derivation of a word was mostly guess-work. Speculation about

2800-676: The chthonian Zeus Trophonius. Trophonius was a Greek hero nursed by Europa . Near the Menestheus's port or Menesthei Portus ( Greek : Μενεσθέως λιμήν ), modern El Puerto de Santa María , Spain , was the Oracle of Menestheus ( Greek : Μαντεῖον τοῦ Μενεσθέως ), to whom also the inhabitants of Gades offered sacrifices. At the Ikaros island in the Persian Gulf (modern Failaka Island in Kuwait ), there

2880-551: The chthonic deity, enemy of Apollo , who slew her and possessed the oracle. When the Prytanies' seat shines white in the island of Siphnos, White-browed all the forum—need then of a true seer's wisdom— Danger will threat from a wooden boat, and a herald in scarlet. The Pythia was the mouthpiece of the oracles of the god Apollo , and was also known as the Oracle of Delphi. The Delphic Oracle exerted considerable influence throughout Hellenic culture. Distinctively, this woman

2960-462: The compound becomes obsolete. There are many examples of words borrowed from foreign languages, and subsequently changed by folk etymology. The spelling of many borrowed words reflects folk etymology. For example, andiron borrowed from Old French was variously spelled aundyre or aundiren in Middle English, but was altered by association with iron . Other Old French loans altered in

3040-625: The compounded words steadfast and colorfast , but by itself mainly in frozen expressions such as stuck fast , hold fast , and play fast and loose . The songbird wheatear or white-ear is a back-formation from Middle English whit-ers ' white arse ' , referring to the prominent white rump found in most species. Although both white and arse are common in Modern English, the folk etymology may be euphemism . Reanalysis of archaic or obsolete forms can lead to changes in meaning as well. The original meaning of hangnail referred to

3120-664: The dead", such as in Argolis , Cumae , Herakleia in Pontos , in the Temple of Poseidon in Taenaron , but the most important was the Necromanteion of Acheron . The term "oracle" is also applied in modern English to parallel institutions of divination in other cultures. Specifically, it is used in the context of Christianity for the concept of divine revelation , and in the context of Judaism for

3200-564: The deity. Their written repositories of traditional knowledge , the Books of Chilam Balam , were all ascribed to one famous oracle priest who had correctly predicted the coming of the Spaniards and its associated disasters. In Tibet , oracles (Chinese: 护法) have played, and continue to play, an important part in religion and government. The word "oracle" is used by Tibetans to refer to the spirit that enters those men and women who act as media between

3280-479: The domain of the famous city of Miletus . Dodona in northwestern Greece was another oracle devoted to the Mother Goddess identified at other sites with Rhea or Gaia , but here called Dione . The shrine of Dodona, set in a grove of oak trees, was the oldest Hellenic oracle, according to the fifth-century historian Herodotus, and dated from pre-Hellenic times, perhaps as early as the second millennium BC, when

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3360-467: The false belief it was derived from Latin scire ' to know ' . In fact it comes from sapere ' to be wise ' . The Italian word liocorno , meaning 'unicorn' derives from 13th-century lunicorno ( lo 'the' + unicorno 'unicorn'). Folk etymology based on lione 'lion' altered the spelling and pronunciation. Dialectal liofante 'elephant' was likewise altered from elefante by association with lione . The Dutch word for ' hammock '

3440-574: The generative popular etymology (GPE): the DOPE refers to a popular false etymology involving no neologization , and the GPE refers to neologization generated by a popular false etymology. Examples of words created or changed through folk etymology include the English dialectal form sparrowgrass , originally from Greek ἀσπάραγος (" asparagus ") remade by analogy to the more familiar words sparrow and grass . When

3520-471: The letter s is the result of comparison with the synonym isle from Old French and ultimately as a Latinist borrowing of insula , though the Old French and Old English words are not historically related. In a similar way, the spelling of wormwood was likely affected by comparison with wood . The phrase curry favour , meaning to flatter, comes from Middle English curry favel ' groom

3600-578: The marriage-bed they founded a unified race of stone offspring, and the stones gave the people their name." The 2nd-century AD writer Lucian gave an account of the Greek Deucalion in De Dea Syria that seems to refer more to the Near Eastern flood legends: in his version, Deucalion (whom he also calls Sisythus ) took his children, their wives, and pairs of animals with him on the ark, and later built

3680-477: The meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or morphemes . The term folk etymology is a loan translation from German Volksetymologie , coined by Ernst Förstemann in 1852. Folk etymology is a productive process in historical linguistics , language change , and social interaction . Reanalysis of a word's history or original form can affect its spelling, pronunciation, or meaning. This

3760-695: The mythographer Apollodorus (1st or 2nd century CE). Deucalion, who reigned over the region of Phthia , had been forewarned of the flood by his father Prometheus. Deucalion was to build a chest and provision it carefully (no animals are rescued in this version of the flood myth), so that when the waters receded after nine days, he and his wife Pyrrha , daughter of Epimetheus , were the one surviving pair of humans. Their chest touched solid ground on Mount Parnassus , or Mount Etna in Sicily , or Mount Athos in Chalkidiki , or Mount Othrys in Thessaly. Hyginus mentioned

3840-444: The name comes from the fact that the trees bloom in spring, a time when circuit-riding preachers resume church services or when funeral services are carried out for people who died during the winter. A seemingly plausible but no less speculative etymology accounts for the form of Welsh rarebit , a dish made of cheese and toasted bread. The earliest known reference to the dish in 1725 called it Welsh rabbit . The origin of that name

3920-552: The natural and the spiritual realms. The media are, therefore, known as kuten , which literally means, "the physical basis". In the 29-Article Ordinance for the More Effective Governing of Tibet ( Chinese : 欽定藏內善後章程二十九條 ), an imperial decree published in 1793 by the Qianlong Emperor , article 1 states that the creation of Golden Urn is to ensure prosperity of Gelug , and to eliminate cheating and corruption in

4000-559: The only primary oracle. Another oracle the Dalai Lama consults is the Tenma Oracle , for which a young Tibetan woman by the name of Khandro La is the medium for the mountain goddesses Tseringma along with the other 11 goddesses. The Dalai Lama gives a complete description of the process of trance and spirit possession in his book Freedom in Exile . Dorje Shugden oracles were once consulted by

4080-400: The opinion of a Hegesianax that Deucalion is to be identified with Aquarius , "because during his reign such quantities of water poured from the sky that the great Flood resulted." Once the deluge was over and the couple had given thanks to Zeus, Deucalion (said in several of the sources to have been aged 82 at the time) consulted an oracle of Themis about how to repopulate the earth. He

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4160-711: The oracle of Dione and Zeus at Dodona in Epirus . Other oracles of Apollo were located at Didyma and Mallus on the coast of Anatolia , at Corinth and Bassae in the Peloponnese , and at the islands of Delos and Aegina in the Aegean Sea. The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters , ascribed to the Sibyls , prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in frenzied states. Walter Burkert observes that "Frenzied women from whose lips

4240-484: The oracles of the world to discover which gave the most accurate prophecies. He sent out emissaries to seven sites who were all to ask the oracles on the same day what the king was doing at that very moment. Croesus proclaimed the oracle at Delphi to be the most accurate, who correctly reported that the king was making a lamb-and-tortoise stew, and so he graced her with a magnitude of precious gifts. He then consulted Delphi before attacking Persia , and according to Herodotus

4320-411: The orange tree ' , with the initial ⟨n⟩ of naranj understood as part of the article . Rebracketing in the opposite direction saw the Middle English a napron become an apron . In back-formation, a new word is created by removing elements from an existing word that are interpreted as affixes . For example, Italian pronuncia ' pronunciation, accent ' is derived from

4400-534: The original French chaise longue ("long chair"), has come to be associated with the word lounge . Other types of language change caused by reanalysis of the structure of a word include rebracketing and back-formation . In rebracketing, users of the language change, misinterpret, or reinterpret the location of a boundary between words or morphemes . For example, the Old French word orenge ' orange tree ' comes from Arabic النَّرَنْج an-naranj '

4480-574: The original form of words in turn feeds back into the development of the word and thus becomes a part of a new etymology. Believing a word to have a certain origin, people begin to pronounce, spell, or otherwise use the word in a manner appropriate to that perceived origin. This popular etymologizing has had a powerful influence on the forms which words take. Examples in English include crayfish or crawfish , which are not historically related to fish but come from Middle English crevis , cognate with French écrevisse . Likewise chaise lounge , from

4560-559: The prevalence of religious syncretism in the ancient Greek world, these three elements may already have been known to some Greek-speaking peoples in popular oral variations of the flood myth, long before they were recorded in writing. The most immediate source of these three particular elements in the later Greek versions is unclear. For some time during the Middle Ages, many European Christian scholars continued to accept Greek mythical history at face value, thus asserting that Deucalion's flood

4640-524: The reign of King Cranaus . Shortly thereafter, Deucalion died there and was said to have been buried near Athens. During his stay in there, he was credited with having built the ancient sanctuary of Olympian Zeus. Additionally, Strabo mentioned a pair of Aegean islands named after the couple. The 19th-century classicist John Lemprière , in Bibliotheca Classica , argued that as the story had been re-told in later versions, it accumulated details from

4720-567: The related Yoruba peoples of the same country, the Babalawos (and their female counterparts, the Iyanifas) serve collectively as the principal aspects of the tribe's world-famous Ifa divination system. Due to this, they customarily officiate at a great many of its traditional and religious ceremonies. In Norse mythology , Odin took the severed head of the god Mimir to Asgard for consultation as an oracle. The Havamal and other sources relate

4800-431: The responses, not an error of the oracle. Very often prophecies were worded ambiguously, so as to cover all contingencies – especially so ex post facto . One famous such response to a query about participation in a military campaign was "You will go you will return never in war will you perish". This gives the recipient liberty to place a comma before or after the word "never", thus covering both possible outcomes. Another

4880-445: The resulting cracks. A different divining method, using the stalks of the yarrow plant , was practiced in the subsequent Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC). Around the late 9th century BC, the divination system was recorded in the I Ching , or "Book of Changes", a collection of linear signs used as oracles. In addition to its oracular power, the I Ching has had a major influence on the philosophy, literature and statecraft of China since

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4960-531: The rustling of the leaves of the oak tree that stood on this spot as Zeus' sanctuary to determine the correct actions to be taken. The oracle of Abae was one of the most important oracles. It was almost completely destroyed by the Persians during the Second Persian invasion of Greece . Erythrae near Ionia in Asia Minor was home to a prophetess. Trophonius was an oracle at Lebadea of Boeotia devoted to

5040-454: The same, Buta Kola , "paathri" or "darshin"; in other parts of Karnataka, it is known by various names such as, "prashnaavali", "vaagdaana", "asei", "aashirvachana" and so on. In Nepal it is known as, "Devta ka dhaamee" or " jhaakri ". The Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria in Africa have a long tradition of using oracles. In Igbo villages, oracles were usually female priestesses to

5120-668: The selection process performed by oracles. The Dalai Lama , who lives in exile in northern India, still consults an oracle known as the Nechung Oracle , which is considered the official state oracle of the government of Tibet. The Dalai Lama has, according to centuries-old custom, consulted the Nechung Oracle during the new year festivities of Losar . Nechung and Gadhong are the primary oracles currently consulted; former oracles such as Karmashar and Darpoling are no longer active in exile. The Gadhong oracle has died leaving Nechung to be

5200-402: The sixteenth century and the compound was eventually reanalyzed with the Modern English word groom ' male servant ' . A similar reanalysis caused sandblind , from Old English sāmblind ' half-blind ' with a once-common prefix sām- ' semi- ' , to be respelled as though it is related to sand . The word island derives from Old English igland . The modern spelling with

5280-457: The stories of Noah: "Thus Apollodorus gives Deucalion a great chest as a means of safety; Plutarch speaks of the pigeons by which he sought to find out whether the waters had receded; and Lucian of the animals of every kind which he had taken with him. &c." However, the Epic of Gilgamesh contains each of the three elements identified by Lemprière: a means of safety (in the form of instructions to build

5360-524: The term an additional meaning of "hopeless venture". Sometimes imaginative stories are created to account for the link between a borrowed word and its popularly assumed sources. The names of the serviceberry , service tree , and related plants, for instance, come from the Latin name sorbus . The plants were called syrfe in Old English, which eventually became service . Fanciful stories suggest that

5440-426: The time of Crotopus occurred the burning of Phaethon , and the deluges of Deucalion." Folk etymology Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology , analogical reformation , (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one through popular usage. The form or

5520-530: The tradition may have spread from Egypt. By the time of Herodotus, Zeus had displaced the Mother Goddess, who had been assimilated to Aphrodite , and the worship of the deified hero Heracles had been added. Dodona became the second most important oracle in ancient Greece, after Delphi . At Dodona, Zeus was worshipped as Zeus Naios or Naos (god of springs Naiads , from a spring under the oaks), or as Zeus Bouleos (chancellor). Priestesses and priests interpreted

5600-503: The ultimate origin of all three is Ancient Greek γλυκύρριζα glucúrrhiza ' sweet root ' . Reanalysis of loan words can affect their spelling, pronunciation, or meaning. The word cockroach , for example, was borrowed from Spanish cucaracha but was assimilated to the existing English words cock and roach . The phrase forlorn hope originally meant "storming party, body of skirmishers" from Dutch verloren hoop "lost troop". But confusion with English hope has given

5680-403: The verb pronunciare ' to pronounce, to utter ' and English edit derives from editor . Some cases of back-formation are based on folk etymology. In linguistic change caused by folk etymology, the form of a word changes so that it better matches its popular rationalisation. Typically this happens either to unanalysable foreign words or to compounds where the word underlying one part of

5760-542: The will of gods. These towers were called 'Anu'u . An example of this can be found at Ahu'ena heiau in Kona . In ancient India , the oracle was known as ākāśavānī "voice/speech from the sky/ aether " or aśarīravānī "a disembodied voice (or voice of the unseen)" ( asariri in Tamil), and was related to the message of a god. Oracles played key roles in many of the major incidents of the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana . An example

5840-405: The word widerdonum meaning 'reward' was borrowed from Old High German widarlōn ' repayment of a loan ' . The l   →   d alteration is due to confusion with Latin donum ' gift ' . Similarly, the word baceler or bacheler (related to modern English bachelor ) referred to a junior knight. It is attested from the eleventh century, though its ultimate origin

5920-604: Was a regional flood, that occurred a few centuries later than the global one survived by Noah's family. On the basis of the archaeological stele known as the Parian Chronicle , Deucalion's Flood was usually fixed as occurring some time around 1528 BC. Deucalion's flood may be dated in the chronology of Saint Jerome to c. 1460 BC. According to Augustine of Hippo ( City of God XVIII,8,10,&11), Deucalion and his father Prometheus were contemporaries of Moses. According to Clement of Alexandria in his Stromata , "...in

6000-426: Was advised: "If you cross the river, a great empire will be destroyed". Believing the response favourable, Croesus attacked, but it was his own empire that ultimately was destroyed by the Persians. She allegedly also proclaimed that there was no man wiser than Socrates , to which Socrates said that, if so, this was because he alone was aware of his own ignorance. After this confrontation, Socrates dedicated his life to

6080-470: Was also another oracle of Zeus Ammon at Aphytis in Chalkidiki . The oracle of Zeus at Olympia . In the city of Anariace (Ἀναριάκη) at the Caspian Sea , there was an oracle for sleepers. Persons should sleep in the temple in order to learn the divine will. The oracle of Apollo at Eutresis and the oracle of Apollo at Tegyra . Oracle of Aphrodite at Paphos . There were many "oracles of

6160-476: Was an oracle of Artemis Tauropolus. At Claros , there was the oracle of Apollo Clarius. At Ptoion , there was an oracle of Ptoios and later of Apollo . At Gryneium , there was a sanctuary of Apollo with an ancient oracle. At Livadeia there was the oracle of Trophonius . The oracle of Zeus Ammon at Siwa Oasis was so famous that Alexander the Great visited it when he conquered Egypt. There

6240-473: Was essentially the highest authority both civilly and religiously in male-dominated ancient Greece . She responded to the questions of citizens, foreigners, kings, and philosophers on issues of political impact, war, duty, crime, family, laws—even personal issues. The semi-Hellenic countries around the Greek world, such as Lydia , Caria , and even Egypt also respected her and came to Delphi as supplicants . Croesus , king of Lydia beginning in 560 BC, tested

6320-504: Was the response to the Athenians when the vast army of king Xerxes I was approaching Athens with the intent of razing the city to the ground. "Only the wooden palisades may save you" , answered the oracle, probably aware that there was sentiment for sailing to the safety of southern Italy and re-establishing Athens there. Some thought that it was a recommendation to fortify the Acropolis with

6400-592: Was told to "cover your head and throw the bones of your mother behind your shoulder". Deucalion and Pyrrha understood that "mother" was Gaia , the mother of all living things, and the "bones" to be rocks. They threw the rocks behind their shoulders and the stones formed people. Pyrrha's became women; Deucalion's became men. These people were later called the Leleges who populated Locris . This can be related to Pindar's account that recounted "... Pyrrha and Deucalion came down from Parnassus and made their first home, and without

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