Classical etymology as revealed in Greek and Latin literature

Abstract

In the earliest Greek literature it is assumed that the proper names in current use carry a meaning which is discoverable; some that have been discovered are revealed in Homer and Hesiod. They describe the bearer's characteristics, or an incident in his career. Whether an explanatory name was given to a preconceived character or a career adapted to a given name is not suggested by these poets, though, from Hesiod's account of Aphrodite it is clear that inventors of myths used the latter process. Aeschylus finds the correspondence between certain names and careers so significant that he believes a superhuman power must be responsible. Euripides first suggested that sane legends grew out of an attempt to explain a name; Plato that both names and experiences of the Homeric character may have originated in a poet's imagination. Etymological speculation scarcely extended beyond proper names till the sophists discussed the rival importance of nature and convention in determining the rightness2of names in general, and till fanciful derivations were used to support Heraclitean beliefs. Out of the exposure of current fallacies in the 'Cratylus' grew Plato's contribution to scientific etymology -that language is imitative in origin, and that the name, like the picture, of an object is a copy of a copy of the true pattern. Early Roman writers were interested in the relation their language bore to other ltalian dialects and to Greek. Aelius, accepting the Stoic belief that names have a rightness by nature, produced ingenious derivations. They survive mainly through Varro, who classified current derivations, added many of his own, and stated certain philological principles. He postulates some forms as primary, that is, they defy investigation; the philologer's task is to collect their derivations, discoverable through analogies of sound and sense. Familiarity with Varro is shown by Vergil and Ovid. With them and their predecessors etymology is interwoven into poetry; but with Verrius Flaccus and his descendants it becomes a subject for the lexicographer .