[Mageia-discuss] origin of the name "mageia"?

Wed Sep 22 09:57:00 CEST 2010

Le 21/09/2010 20:28, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit :
+> 2010/9/21 Maurice Batey<maurice at 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 ?
+
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