(Piano music) 

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! 

Today's word had two meanings in Ancient Greece and could also be used metaphorically. Σκήπτω (skipto) in Ancient Greek meant 'I lean on' something. Ambassadors and messengers were often put in difficult positions either negotiating for their state's interests or bringing bad news so, they carried a staff to protect themselves but later it became a symbol of someone who was protected so they were safe on sight. A staff was also present in public debates and held by the speaker. And lastly, in courts, it was held by judges. As a symbol of power a staff would be passed from father to son and some had an ornament on top, the equivalent of a family crest although, Zeus had an Eagle (he would, would he?). Metaphorically we find the word used in the Greek Tragedy Oedipus Rex where his children are described as the staff that carries light. And today, we refer to it as a symbol of power. The word went from Latin 'Sceptrum' to French 'Ceptre' and then English in the 1300s. ΣΚΗΠΤΡΟ/SCEPTRE

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(Piano music) 

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! 

Happy Easter to those of you celebrating and I hope you're having a relaxing Sunday those of you who don't. 

Before the Byzantine separation that brought us Eastern and Western Christianity, this word meant 'a universal faith' or more accurately  'a faith recognised by all'. The first time we find that word in writing is in a letter from 110AD by Ignatius of Antioch, addressing the Christians in Smyrna to follow their Bishop like the church follows 'the universal faith'. Κατά (kata) is a preposition and among other things, it means 'according to' and ολικός (olikos) means 'Whole'.  ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΟΣ/CATHOLIC

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Let me tell you what happens when you're your own producer, editor and, host. You spend a few hours of research and writing your episode then, you get into the booth, do a few takes so you have options, edit everything to an episode you  really like and when you're about to save it-at which point you've spend the better part of you afternoon-a message pops up telling you 'that episode already exists' and you remember that you've done that word two years ago! I think it's for the best as the word I found instead, fits perfectly that situation.

(Piano music) 

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! 

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! 

One of the Phrygian gods that arrived in Greece (because they didn't have enough apparently) was the maternal goddess Κυβέλη (Cybele). She was similar to the Geek 'Gaia'  and wasn't an instant hit but her myth is attached to Dionysus as she supposedly cured him from his madness so that made her more likable. Fast forward a few years and the Romans are in great distress by war, famine, failed harvest and a meteor shower! They feel the Empire might collapse so , they consult both the Roman and the Greek oracles and they decide to bring Κυβέλη to Rome. They rename her Magna Mater (The Great Mother) and soon after, the famine ends, the war is won and...it's Spring! They celebrated Magna Mater on March 25th, the Spring Equinox, and named that day (which became a whole festival)'Hilaria' from the Greek word for 'Joyous'. ΙΛΑΡΟΣ/HILARIOUS.

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(Piano music) 

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! 

Happy Spring, everyone! The clocks moved, the days are getting bigger and the Sun is gracing us with its presence more often than not. 

On the first of April in most parts of the world, it's custom to lie, trick and prank eachother. Do you know why? There are a few theories but the most popular one goes back to 1564 in France. Up until that point , the French celebrated New Year's Day on the 25th of March and the celebrations lasted until the first of April but that year, the King decided to sync with the rest of Europe and changed the celebration to January 1st. Not everyone got the memo immediately so, the ones who kept celebrating in March were teased, pranked and called one name in particular. In ancient Greek, the word for a person not contributing to society because they were unskilled or uneducated translates as ' a  private person', one that is not being in sync or engaging with society productively. In Latin, the word escaped the April Fool's custom and that's how it travelled in English. ΙΔΙΩΤΗΣ/IDIOT

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(Piano music) 

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! 

It's Mother's day here, today, and I hope it's a happy one for all of you. My own Mum is listening from Athens so, Happy Mother's day Mum!

Αρχή (arhi) in both ancient and modern Greek means 'The authority' but also, 'The beginning'. The word for 'Mother' in ancient Greek is 'Μήτηρ' and in modern 'Μητέρα'. Now that's a word that goes back a very long time and although we find it in all Latin based languages, more or less in similar form, Mutter in German, Madre in Italian and Spanish, Mere in French, Mother in English and so on, there hasn't been a western society solely run by women apart from the Amazons. In Indonesia however, and specifically in West Sumatra, the indigenous ethnic group Minangkabau is the largest female led society that we know of with a population of 6.7 million. Do have a read about them when you get some time. The combination of the two words is found for the very first time in English in 1885 in London's literary journal The Athenaeum. ΜΗΤΡΙΑΡΧΙΑ/MATRIARCHY

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Hi everyone! After listening to this episode, visit the description and click on the word 'Audible' for a month-long free trial and a free audiobook download. On with our word!

(Piano music) 

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! 

Τρία (tria) in both ancient and modern Greek means 'three'. Πτυχή (ptyhi) means 'fold' and a picture you could fold because it was carved or painted in three compartments, was something very common in religious painting during the Middle Ages. However, it goes back much further, to ancient Greece where according to Herodotus in 5th century BC, a wooden frame filled with wax was used for writing. The material has changed since as well as the appliance of the term. Whether in photography, art or music, a three part project that can be seen as one is a ΤΡΙΠΤΥΧΟ/TRIPTYCH

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(Piano music) 

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! 

Before we begin, a shout-out to fellow thespian and loyal listener, David Charles for bringing today's word to my attention. A word with such an interesting and complex history . Thanks David!

Δια (dia) means 'through' or 'across' and Ασπρο (aspro) in modern Greek , means 'white'. And here's the tricky part, 'asper' is the Latin word for 'rough' (hence 'asperity' in English) but it was also used for the shiny coins of small denomination in Greek Byzantium because their engravings were rough. They were called 'aspro'. And because of that, a fabric that was white and bright with patterns woven onto it, was also called 'aspro';  but the Greeks needed distinguish between the coins and the fabrics so they added δια (dia) to the word, which means a fabric with patterns across it. As time went by and white fabrics started being used to clean babies the word went back to Latin as 'diasprum', to the French as 'diapre' -not used anymore- and in English from the Greek ΔΙΑΣΠΡΑ/DIAPERS

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Before we begin, if you haven't listened to last week's news, we have become an affiliate to Audible. If you like listening to podcasts and books go to the description of this episode, click on the word 'Audible' and get your one month, free trial to download any item you like. On with our episode!

(Piano music) 

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! 

Every ancient culture has a myth about a flood that wipes out humanity. And so did the ancient Greeks. When Zeus decided that humans were corrupt, he sent a flood to drown Greece but he saved two people he thought were worth saving; King Δευκαλιων (Defkalion) and his Queen Πύρρα (Pirra). They built a boat and travelled for nine days until they reached Delphi. There, they asked the oracle how they could rebuild humanity. The oracle said 'you have to cover your faces and throw the mother's intestines behind your backs' , Oh, they both understood, so they covered their faces and started walking, picking up stones from Mother Earth and throwing them behind them. Wherever a stone landed, a human appeared. And so, humanity was saved. Or that's how the myth goes anyway. Κατά (kata) is a preposition meaning 'downward' and κλυζείν (klizin) is the ancient Greek infinitive meaning 'to flood' . The combined word came to English through religious texts from France in the early 1600s. ΚΑΤΑΚΛΥΣΜΟΣ/CATACLYSM

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Happy March, everyone!

At the beginning of the year, I promised to keep this podcast Ad free and find another way to make it a profitable endeavour and today, I'm here to celebrate exactly that!

I would like to welcome our new sponsor, Audible! A place where you can find thousands of audiobooks and download them, for your listening pleasure. Head to the description of this episode, click on the word 'Audible' and get your one month free-trial that you can cancel at anytime. And if you're wondering how this works for me, all the information can be found in the description as well. On with our episode!

(Piano music) 

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! 

Ακούω (akouo) in Greek means 'I hear'. The noun is ακουστική (akoustiki) and it means 'the audible' . Joseph Sauveur was a mathematician and physicist in the French court, during the enlightenment, and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He grew up with a hearing and speech impairment and had to often rely on musicians' ears for his results. Among other fascinating subjects he delved into the vibrations of Greek, Roman, Arabic and Persian music to study the correlation between frequency and pitch and in 1701 he presented the results of his research to the Academy. It was then when he coined the term for his new found practice on what the author and librettist, Fontenelle, called  'The discovery of an unknown country' ΑΚΟΥΣΤΙΚΗ/ACOUSTICS

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(Piano music) 

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! 

With the state of our world being what it is , I thought this word is a good fit. 

Humphrey Osmond was a British-Canadian researcher and psychiatrist interested in exploring the possibilities of LSD to treat mental illness and substance abuse. He befriended Albert Hoffman (the scientist who discovered LSD) and, Aldous Huxley the author of books like The Doors of perception and Brave new world. Together with Huxley they tried to find a name for the experience of taking LSD and they experimented (full pun intended) by combining several Greek words. In 1957, during a meeting at the New York Academy of Sciences, Osmond used for the first time his new found term to describe his research. Ψυχή (psyche) in both ancient and modern Greek means 'soul' and δήλος (delos) meant 'the visible'. Osmond accompanied the word with this rhyme 'to fathom Hell or soar Angelic/just take a pinch of..' ΨΥΧΕΔΕΛΙΚΟ/PSYCHEDELIC

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