(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 winter solstice right behind us, New Year's eve coming up and this being the last episode of the year, I couldn't think of a better word. Ακμή in Greek means the highest point of something, both literally and metaphorically. And surprisingly, until the Middle Ages in England, it was written...in Greek! ΑΚΜΗ/ACME

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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! 

Χορός (choros) in both modern and ancient Greek, means Dance. Αυλός (aulus) means pan-pipe or flute. In Ancient Greece there was a festival in honour of Dionysus, in that festival Theatre was born but also, a long tradition of religious dances to the sound of a flute. That tradition reached the Middle Ages where song and dance accompanied religious plays. That section was named choraula. In England and during the Protestant reformation in the 16th century, religious songs were translated from Latin so everyone could sing along. Those songs were named after the French and shortened version of choraula, Carole. ΧΟΡΟΣ/ CAROLS

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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! 

Συν (syn) is a preposition and it means 'with' . Πίπτω (Pipto)is an ancient Greek verb ,still in use today, and one of its meanings is 'I occur'. The combined infinitive is Συμπίπτειν (sympiptin)and it means that something occurs at the same time as something else or as a result of something else. The noun is Συμπτωμα and it first appears in Middle English as 'synthoma' , to be replaced later by the French Symptome. ΣΥΜΠΤΩΜΑ/SYMPTOM

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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! 

Μανθάνω (Manthano) in ancient Greek and Μαθαίνω (Matheno) in modern, means 'I learn'. Τέχνη (techne) means 'art' but also 'craft'. Around 600BC a man called Θαλής (Thales)of Miletus decided to put all his efforts in order to prove that not all phenomena are caused by the Gods but that all things are filled with Gods. That was the first step to deductive reasoning. His life, work and legacy are too big to fit in this episode so, do have a read about him if you find the time. Aristotle called him The Father Of Science, as he started measuring heights, distances, explaining earthquakes instead of fearing the God behind them, and asking all the right questions like, 'what is the nature of an object for it to behave that way?'. Gods started being more of a philosophical matter and science took centre stage. Learning was associated with science and excelling in it was considered a serious craft. Θαλής went on to put all sciences under one. In Latin, the study of science was called Ars Mathematica and today we just call it ΜΘΗΜΑΤΙΚΑ/MATHEMATICS

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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! 

Words transitioning from the Greek Alphabet to the Latin one, usually get a do-over in both spelling and pronunciation. Thankfully in most of them, you can still detect similarities in the spelling. Today's word is one of them. Υπερ started as an adverb in Ancient Greek. It meant 'beyond' or 'over'. In modern Greek it is a preposition (or a prefix) and it means 'over the top'. So when combined with a word it magnifies it. In many ways it has the same use the word 'over' has. There is an added use in English too. Since 1946 it's been used as an adjective. But only in English. ΥΠΕΡ/HYPER

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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! 

Greek Myths are so complex and -more often than not- linked to each other that it's very difficult to focus on one story. Today's myth is one of those and I deliberately leave out a few of the names and details of this story but I promise to make separate episodes for those. Hermes and one of the mountain Nymphs had a son. A son with the body of a man, horns in his head and goat legs for feet. His mother got so frightened seeing the newborn that she abandoned him. Hermes picked him up and took him to Mount Olympus. He grew up to be the Greek god of lust, fun and general mischief. A devoted follower of Dionysus and Apollo's musical rival. Legend has it that one day, he was chasing a nymph in the woods but she managed to get away by asking the river Λάδων to save her and the river transformed her into a cane. The boy cried but he heard his voice going through the canes and make sound. He gathered a few canes, put them together and blew. Music! From that day on, he would keep all herds calm by playing music, he would be the protector of farmers but when he got mischievous , he'd jump-scare everyone and everything with weird sounds that would spread through the forests. the boy's name was Παν(Pan), his musical instrument we know as a pan-pipe and that unexpected terror animals and people would feel from time to time, was named ΠΑΝΙΚΟΣ/PANIC

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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! 

Laws in Ancient Greece weren’t always as fair and democratic as we might think. Until the 7th century BC the higher classes were setting the rules and laws verbally and to their benefit. Revenge killings because of family feuds were common and there was no degree of murder. Crimes like theft, poisonous drug making, misleading slaves were all punishable by either exile, fines or death depending on who the crime was against. Around 621BC the people assigned the making of the new laws to one man. Δρακον. For the first time ever, the laws were to be written down and not change at will. Murder was divided into intentional, unintentional and accidental, revenge killing was deemed illegal and even the death of a slave was punishable by either exile or death. It’s good to mention here that exile in Ancient Greece was considered the most serious punishment, the name of the accused would be written in stone, they would never be able to return in the city and it was up to other cities whether they’d accept them or not. So essentially, you could end up wondering for months without any prospect and possibly die from the dangers of the times. It is said -although not 100% proven -that Δράκος, all good and fair laws he made aside, he also  made even the lightest of crimes punishable by death or exile unless they were forgiven by the victim. If the criminal tried to flee they would be executed and all executions were delivered by a member of the victim’s family or the victim themselves if still alive. The higher classes were in a very new and uncomfortable position so they called anything  restricting, harsh and unfair, ΔΡΑΚΟΝΤΕΙΑ  μέτρα. DRACONIAN  measures 

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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! 

While the COP26 climate summit takes place I thought it be good to do an episode of a relative word. Οίκος in Greek means home -ology is a suffix used to apply expertise in the word that is attached to.  According to the Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy In 1866 the German philosopher & zoologist Ernst Hackle decided to use a combination of Greek words and inevitably coined the term-to describe and I quote  ‘the  construction of models of the interaction of living systems with their environment’. ΟΙΚΟΛΟΓΙΑ/ECOLOGY 

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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 halloween to those parts in the word celebrating,  I promise to do a carnival episode come February.  These objects were used in ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome respectively they were always placed above ground unless they contained many valuables in which case they were hidden. And…they were meant to hold the dead. Originally they were made from wood, clay or stone depending on the social status of the deceased and they might have started as simply decorated with carved leaves or flowers but they evolved to highly artistic sculpted boxes of battles and festivities. Σάρκα in Greek means flesh, φαγειν is the Ancient Greek infinitive for ‘to eat’ . A big stone box that holds a coffin or a wrapped up dead body is called a ΣΑΡΚΟΦΑΓΟΣ/SARCOPHAGUS

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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 today I’d like to give a shout out to two amazing female podcasters that kept me company with their show over the summer. Ladies who London podcast are Emily Dell and Alex Lacy and their both blue badge guides. Their podcast is about the history of London’s people, places and things. Now, I’ve noticed that Alex likes big words and some of them happen to be Greek so today I’m doing a word that she has mentioned she liked and it’s also linked to a Museum in London! 

Περί (peri) is a preposition and it means around πατώ (pato) means I step. Aristotle and his students used to walk around philosophising and their school was called περιπατητική . In modern Greek a περίπατος is a walk, a stroll and in the V&A’s childhood museum in Bethnal Green  you can find an object labelled autoperipateticos and dated 1865.  Can you guess what it is? Keep an eye on my instagram for a photo of it*. The word came to the English through old French and for many years was used only in relation to Aristotle. ΠΕΡΙΠΑΤΟΣ/PERIPATETIC

*an automaton doll

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