1st International Conference on Greek Etymology

November 5th-6th, 2015
Teloglion Fine Arts Foundation, A.U.Th., Thessaloniki

The Institute of Modern Greek Studies (M. Triandaphyllidis Foundation), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, organized the “1st International Conference on Greek Etymology (Ancient, Medieval and Modern)”, on 5-6 November 2015.

The conference examined theoretical and practical aspects of etymological issues related to the Greek language, covering all its historical periods and varieties (both dialectal and standard). Similar issues regarding the Balkan area more broadly were also addressed, with a special focus on the etymological investigation of elements of the Greek language in other languages of the Balkans.

Thematic areas, among others: (a) theoretical aspects of Greek etymology, (b) etymological suggestions regarding Ancient, Medieval and Modern Greek words, (c) etymology and dialectology, (d) etymology and language contact, (e) etymology and philology (text reconstruction, pre-scientific etymology), and (f) etymology and education.

The following distinguished guests participated in the conference:
Academician Ch. de Lamberterie (Université Sorbonne IV, Paris),
Academician M. Sala (Romanian Academy, Bucarest),
Academician A. Loma (Serbian Academy, Belgrade),

Professor M. Meier-Brügger (Freie Universität, Berlin), etc.

It is common knowledge that enhancing the quality of etymological dictionaries presupposes the upgrading of etymological studies. This upgrading will be facilitated, among other things, by the development of a more productive relationship between etymology, on the one hand, and other linguistic fields and cutting-edge theories on the other. Besides the well-known dialectic relationship between etymology and historical linguistics, and the former’s dependence on (mostly historical) phonology, morphology and semantics, a more constructive dialogue needs to be established with linguistic fields such as dialectology, language typology, the linguistics of language contact, as well as with specific theoretical approaches (e.g., grammaticalization and optimality theory).

The purpose of co-addressing etymological issues related to three periods of the Greek language (ancient, medieval and modern) is threefold: (1) to emphasize the need to highlight the historical depth and geographical scope of the data, which is usually restricted to simple reference of the presence of individual words in particular historical periods, (2) to reinforce the feeling that there is one history of words, and that this cannot be artificially segmented into individual historical periods (though, unarguably, influenced by them), and (3) to point out the similarities, but also the particularities of the etymological issues related to each period (cf. the significance of the laryngeal and the Pelasgian theories for ancient Greek).

The Greek language is an Indo-European, European and Balkan language, and both these dimensions emerge as a distinct issue in the compilation of etymological dictionaries. It is well known that the quality of the etymological dictionaries of individual Balkan languages is directly related to the quality of the etymological studies of the borrowing languages. The discussion as to the best way to study lexical Balkanisms is usually reflected in the dilemma: individual monographs on the Greek, Turkish, Slavic, Romance and Albanian elements as well as the lexical Balkanisms of unknown and doubtful origin, or a collective dictionary of Balkanisms? The former option, as has been pointed out, despite the difficulties it presents (to the adventures of the great Miklosich we can add the difficulties encountered by the compilers of the Dictionary of Greek elements in the Balkan languages) seems, at least for the time being, to be the only feasible solution. Given that the difficulties faced by authors of etymological dictionaries of the Balkan languages are, to a great extent, similar and (regarding lexical Balkanisms) the same, the exchange of views could contribute to the enrichment of the discussion.

These thoughts led us to dedicate a great part of the conference to the presentation - by leading experts involved in current projects of compiling etymological dictionaries of specific Balkan languages - of issues and concerns raised in the process of compiling such dictionaries, with a focus on Greek etymology issues.

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