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Hello, and welcome to Your Greek Word On A Sunday, a weekly, bite-size podcast for anyone curious on language, etymology and connections. I am your host, Emmanuela Lia and wherever you are in the world, if you want to entertain your brain for a few minutes, this is the podcast for you. Let's Go! 

We now know that ancient civilisations created some of their myths based on what surrounded them but was at the time incomprehensible. We don’t exactly know how the myths evolved or got embellished with time but sometimes there are clear and verified links. For the next two episodes I’m going to talk to you about two different words that come from the same fact. Prehistoric fossils found in Ancient Greece.  Nobody could explain them and they looked… bizarre! Γαία (Gaia) was the name for the goddess Earth. Among her children were  100 , of enormous height and strength.  With scaled bodies and lizard tails who were covered in hair. looked like humans and they were mortal. They were divided in clans and each had special extra powers. Including the lightning power they gifted Zeus. Most of them died in the Great War between them and the Olympian gods and there are depictions of that war on ancient vases and  sculptures.  Their name means ‘of the earth’ but in English it came through Latin and old French in the 1300s and by then it had turned into an adjective ΓΙΓΑΝΤΙΟΣ/GIGANTIC 

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