Ancient and Medieval Greek Etymology as heuristic and pedagogic tool. The case of common words
4th Etygram Conference, April 28-29-30, 2025
This international conference, to be held in Siena in April 2025 aims to attract researchers, mainly philologists, linguists and philosophers interested in ancient practices of etymologizing in Ancient Greek and Byzantine literature. It is promoted by the International Association ETYGRAM (http://www.cepam.cnrs.fr/etygram/) devoted to the study of indigenous (or “emic”) ancient Greek etymologies and follows three editions in 2016, 2018, 2021. The ancient Greek conception of etymology is fundamentally different from our modern one and has a much broader meaning. To start with, it allows a rather exceptional plasticity (see, e.g., Plato’s Cratylus) as far as semantic paronomasia is concerned. As ancient scholars understood it, etymology is chiefly a dynamic process aiming at suggesting semantic correlations between words based on phonetic similarities, with a momentous heuristic power. This intellectual game, a very serious one at that, deserves to be investigated since it is neither scientific in character (as modern linguists would describe it), nor plainly labellable as “folk” etymology. It is rather a cultural construction, which is both an art of punning and an attempt to uncover deep semantic motivations.
The 4th Conference will focus on common vocabulary (i.e. excluding toponyms, theonyms, anthroponyms), a lot of work having already been done on the etymology of proper names. the conference will address the following issues, without excluding other relative topics:
- What is used as etymological material and how is etymology used in intellectual and scientific debates?
- What role etymology plays in educational texts and contexts ?
- How is etymological analysis elaborated in literary instructive contexts, such as didactic poetry and rhetorical training?
- How are etymologies transmitted and modified over time in the different sources?
The organizers welcome proposals (in French, English, Greek, German, Spanish or Italian). Note that a written version of the papers, in English, will be rapidly submitted to De Gruyter, in the series Trends in Classics, where a book Ancient and Medieval Greek Etymology. Theory and Practice I (2021) is already published, and a second volume in press (2024). Conference papers will be 25 minutes, with 10 minutes for discussion. Interested scholars from all academic levels are invited to send an abstract of no more than 500 words to etygram2025@univ-cotedazur.frand assoc.etygram@gmail.com by October 01, 2024. Participants will be notified in November 01, 2024. Accepted papers will be presented on an equal footing with invited speakers. Accommodation and meal expenses will be covered by the organization.
Organizing committee: Simone Beta, Maria Chriti, Claire Le Feuvre, Athanassios Vergados, Arnaud Zucker
Program Committee: Gianfranco Agosti (Univ. Pisa. Italy), Simone Beta (Univ. Siena. Italy), Maria Chriti (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Greece), Christophe Cusset (ENS Lyon. France), Claire Le Feuvre (Sorbonne Université. France), Athanasios Vergados (Newcastle University. Great Britain) Arnaud Zucker (Univ. Côte d’Azur. France).
PROGRAM
28th afternoon Definition and etymology
Palazzo del Rettorato dell’Università di Siena, Aula Magna Storica, Banchi di Sotto 55
2:45–3:15 Welcome and registration
3:15–3:30 Introduction
3:30–4:15 Keynote lecture: Velizar SADOVSKI (Austrian Academy of Sciences) "Etymological and grammaticalreflexions in Indo-Iranian and Graeco-Roman literary sources and pre-scientific texts: poetical, ritualist and philological aspects"
4:15–4:50 Rossana ZANETTI (Univ. Pisa & Firenze) : "Ὑποσημαίνειν δ’ ἔοικε καὶ τοὔνομα: The usage of etymology in Aristotle’s Ethics"
4: 50–5:10 Break
5:10–5:45 Benjamin WILCK (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem): "Etymology, Paronymy, and Circular Definition in Aristotle and Euclid"
5:45–6:20 David PETRAIN (Hunter College of the City University of New York): "A cognitive theory of etymology in a scholion to Dionysius Thrax"
6:20 End
29th morning 9:30 Glossaries
Palazzo San Niccolò, Aula 468, fourth floor, Via Roma 56
9:30–10:05 Daria LEKHNOVICH (Univ. Lumière Lyon 2): "The Etymology of Common Words in Greek Lexicography: The Case of Phrynichus Arabius"
10:05–10:40 Francesco BOTTI (Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata): "Εἴρηται παρά...Proposte etimologiche nel Glossario ippocratico di Erotiano"
10:40 Break
11:00–11:35 Claudio FELISI (Université de Strasbourg):"Come se la cavavano gli etimologisti antichi in lingue straniere? Ricerche sulle voci "barbariche" degli Etymologica bizantini"
11:35–12:15 Presentation of Etygram Dictionary & Egascol (Claire Le Feuvre, Maria Chriti & Arnaud Zucker).
12:15 Lunch
29th afternoon 2:30 Uses of etymology
Palazzo San Niccolò, Aula 468, fourth floor, Via Roma 56
2:30–3:05 Brian McPhee (Bilkent Univ.): "The Role of Etymologizing in Mythological Rationalization"
3:05–3:40 Megan BOWLER (Oxford Univ.): "(Para-)didactic etymologising in Aristophanes"
3:40–4:15 Nathalie ROUSSEAU (Sorbonne Univ.): "L’expression du lien entre ὀνόματα et πράγματα dans le traité didactique sur la Dénomination des parties du corps humain de Rufus d’Éphèse"
4:15 Break
4:35–5:10 Claudia GIANTURCO (Univ. Salerno): "Dall’etimologia come veridica all’etimologia come ‘fandonia’: Diogeniano e la denigrazione dello strumento etimologico per confutare il fatalismo stoico"
5:10–5:45 Laura BUSETTO (EPHE, Paris): " 'Sed prius de ΕΤΥΜΟΛΟΓΙΑ'. L’etimologia greca come elemento speculativo nel pensiero di Eriugena"
5:45 End
30th morning 9:30 EGASCOL in SIENA
Santa Chiara Lab, Auditorium, Via Valdimontone 1 (inside Porta Romana)
Brief presentations by scholars G. Agosti, S. Beta, C. Felisi, A. Vergados. Etymological games by High-school classes (80 students with their teachers)
30th afternoon 2:30 Case studies
Palazzo San Niccolò, Aula 468, fourth floor, Via Roma 56
2:30–3:05 Eleni PERAKI-KYRIAKIDOU (Aristotle Univ., Thessalonique): "Simile and narrative in etymological interrelation. The Role of the term περιβολή"
3:05–3:40 Adrien ZIRAH (Université de Picardie Jules Verne): "Tourner autour de πόλις: la fortune d’une figura etymologica au tournant des Ve-IVe siècle av. J.-C."
3:40–4:15 Cătălin ENACHE (Univ. Vienna): "Νοῦς, νόμος, and ὄνομα in Platon"
4:15 Break
4:35–5:10 Asaf ROTH (University of Pennsylvania): "Paronomasia in the Hippias Major"
5:10–5:45 Athanassios VERGADOS (Newcastle Univ.): "An Eranos of etymologies: Plutarch’s Sympotic Questions"
5:45-6:15 Discussion, conclusions of the conference, information about the publication of contributions.
