Le 21/09/2010 20:28, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit :

2010/9/21 Maurice Batey <maurice@bcs.org.uk>:

Why does the

   http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=3095he

pronunciation differ from others in here?!

 Maybe because it is run by a USA based christian organisation who
focus on the bible while most people here who gave their prononciation
are native Greek speakers ?

Because this thread is entitled "what is the origin of the word mageia", I just add the following little piece of information. I had dinner yesterday in a very pleasant japanese restaurant in Paris, and, well, one of the participants was an erudite scholar, specialized in ancient greek. I asked him about "mageia". He said it was a very interesting term, the origin of which is still much debated. It is generally thought to be linked to some proper names, like Machaon, a warrior on the side of the greeks in the Trojan War. Most interestingly Machaon was a valued surgeon and medic.
My friend said that the root *"mak-"* (considered by philologists to be linked to both "Machaon" and "mageia") was considered to be a derivative of a Persian word, meaning something like : *vault*, *protective vault* and in a more abstact derived meaning : *protective knowledge* (hence the link with Machaon a character mastering such protective knowledge as medecine and surgery and the drift toward the "magic" meaning).
The debate about the word is not about what I just summarized, he said, but rather is this : "are proper names like Machaon, for chararcters linked to protective knowledge, the origin of the term which then drifted to a common name like "mageia", or, conversely was the common name mageia the primary term which then drifted to secondary proper names such as Machaon?"
Some notion of 'protective knowledge' for the proper name of a Linux project is perhaps not so bad, don't you think so ?