Sanskrit Word in English: Yoga

The Sanskrit word YOGA is now very familiar to speakers of English!  What is fascinating about the word "yoga" is that it is also a way to see how Sanskrit and English are related languages, both belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. The Sanskrit word "yoga" is from the Indo-European root *yeug- which is also the root of English words like "yoke" and also "join." If you are interested in the history of the Indo-European languages, you can read more at Wikipedia. You can see a detailed list of the Indo-European words from the yeug- root at the UT Indo-European Lexicon.

The idea behind the Sanskrit word is a "joining" or "yoking," in the sense of harnessing something in order to put it to use. It can also refer to the sense of "joining" with the divine.  You can read about the history of yoga and the different yoga traditions of India in this article at Wikipedia.

In Sanskrit, a man who practices yoga is called a "yogi" (yogin), while a woman who practices yoga is a "yogini." Sanskrit is a language that forms many compound words; you can see a list of Sanskrit compound words with yoga at Vedabase.net.

(Statue of Shiva in Rishikesh, India)

Word from Mythology: Tantalize

Today's word from mythology is tantalize, which means to torment someone with the sight of something desirable that is just out of reach. The word comes from Tantalus, the King of Phrygia, who was tortured in the afterlife by having to stand up in water that reaches to his chin, with tree branches full of fruit directly in front of him. Every time that he tried to drink, however, the water would recede so that he could not drink, and every time that he tried to reach out and pluck one of the fruits, the branch pulled away so he could not reach the fruit.

King Tantalus committed various crimes that could have led to his famous punishment. One of his most notorious crimes was to sacrifice his own son, Pelops, cooking him up and serving him at a banquet for the gods. The gods realized what was happening, but only after Demeter had already eaten Pelops's shoulder. Clotho, one of the Fates, brought Pelops back to life, but because one of his shoulders was missing, it had to be replaced with a shoulder of ivory.

The image below is a 16th-century illustration of a poem about Tantalus by Alciato:

And here is a Renaissance painting by Joseph Heintz the Elder:

Sanskrit Word in English: Juggernaut

Today's word is "juggernaut" — and for this word, there is an entire Wikipedia article devoted to its origin and usage in English.

Short version: the word comes from Sanskrit Jagannatha, World-Lord, an honorific title sometimes applied to Krishna, one of the avatars of the god Vishnu, although the Jagannatha is also worshiped as a separate divinity.

The English usage is from the so-called "Chariot of Juggernaut," which was a cart carrying an image of the Jagannatha for a Ratha Yatra (chariot procession) festival. These temple carts could sometimes be huge in size, hence the sense of a "juggernaut" as a moving force that cannot be stopped. According to a more fanciful legend, the most devoted followers of Jagannatha would throw themselves under the wheels of the wagon to be crushed to death in an act of sacrificial devotion, giving the word "juggernaut" an additional sense of blind devotion. This fanciful idea goes back to the 14th-century Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which you can read about in this Wikipedia article.

The ISKCON movement (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) has promoted the Jagannatha festival around the world. The image below shows a Jagannath Ratha Yatra in London, 2011:

Word from Mythology: HYPNOTIC

The English word hypnotic (and related words like hypnosis and hypnotize) come from the Greek language originally (the "y" is a good clue about that!), specifically from the Greek word hypnos which means "sleep" (ὕπνος). When something is hypnotic, that means it puts you into a state like that of sleep. In a medical context, like a "hypnotic drug," that means the drug is sleep-inducing.

Hypnos was also personified as the God of Sleep. His mother is "Night" and his father is "Darkness," and his brother is Thanatos, "Death." You can read more about the Greek god at Wikipedia.

Here is a bronze head of Hypnos, circa 100 C.E.:

Word from India: khaki

The English word "khaki" is borrowed from the Urdu adjective khaki, meaning "dust-colored" or "dirt-colored," from the noun khak, meaning "dust, dirt, soil." The word is originally Persian in origin. The word became part of the English language from its use by the British cavalry in India, especially when they started using khaki-colored uniforms during the Boer wars (1899-1902).  In modern English, the plural form "khakis" refers to a khaki-colored pair of pants. You can read more in this Wikipedia article: Khaki.

(Punjabi soldiers in khaki uniforms)

Word from Mythology: Museum

The word MUSEUM comes to use from the Greek Muses, the goddesses of art and knowledge. Our word is a borrowing of the Latin word museum, which in turn comes from the Greek word mouseion, meaning a shrine of the Muses. You can see a list of the nine Muses and their special gifts in this Wikipedia article.

Below is Hendrick van Balen's painting of Minerva (Athena) and the Nine Muses:

Sanskrit Word in English: Avatar

The English word "avatar" has been so widely used and familiar that it does seem like an English word now, but it comes from Sanskrit! The Sanskrit word AVATAR (avatara) means a "descent" in the sense that a god comes down from heaven and takes on an earthly form. An avatar is a specific form of incarnation, the manifestation of a divine being in the form of an earthly human or animal. You can learn more in this Wikipedia article: Avatar.

The most famous avatars in the Hindu tradition are the "Ten Avatars" of the god Vishnu: The Fish, The Tortoise, The Boar, The Man-Lion, The Dwarf, Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and Kalki (although the list differs in some details from one Hindu tradition to another). You can read more about the incarnations in this Wikipedia article: Dashavatara.

In English, the word "avatar" has become especially associated with the way human beings are represented in the environments created by digital computers. The Oxford English Dictionary cites an examples of this usage from 1986, although the most famous early example is the use by Neal Stephenson in his marvelous science fiction novel Snow Crash, published in 1992, which happens to be one of my all-time favorite science fiction novels!

Meanwhile, this lovely painting shows the "Dasavatara," the Ten Incarnations of Vishnu:

And of course I had to include something from the film Avatar:

Word from Mythology: Volcano

The word "volcano" comes from the name of the Roman god Vulcan (equivalent to the Greek god Hephaistos). Vulcan was the god of fire and metallurgy, and Mount Etna was Vulcan's forge.

Vulcan is also the name of a planet in the world of Star Trek, with Mister Spock being the most famous of the Vulcan characters.

Below is a painting of Vulcan by Andrea Mantegna:

Hindi Word in English: Jungle

The English word JUNGLE is from the Hindi word jangal (also Marathi), meaning a "forest, wasteland," which in turn is derived from Sanskrit jangala, "desert, uncultivated land."

The modern English sense of a "land overgrown with vegetation" dates to the 19th century, and the Oxford English Dictionary suspects that its evolution in English might be influenced by the word "tangle."

Here's a picture of an elephant in the Wayanad Tholpetty Range in Kerala, India:

You might be familiar with Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book and Second Jungle Book; he was born in India and grew up there. More at Wikipedia.

 

Indian Word in English: Tank

The English word TANK in the sense of a "pool" or "lake" comes from India; the Gujarati word tankh means a cistern or water reservoir, as does the Marathi word tanka. These words in turn may derive from Sanskrit tadagam, meaning a "pond" or "lake."

The English phrase "tank top" is related to this meaning of tank; a tank suit was originally a bathing suit for swimming in a tank, i.e. in a swimming pool.

The word "tank" also came to refer to artificial receptacles for water even of a small size, such as fish tanks. Then, in the early 20th century, the word "tank" was used for containers of liquid fuel, like the "gas tank" of a car. This is also where we get the word "tanker" as in oil tankers.

The use of "tank" to refer to a military vehicle dates to 1915 as a kind of code word, chosen because this new weapon looked something like a benzene storage tank. (Military "tanks" were first used in action on the Western Front of World War I in September 1916.)

The image below shows a temple tank at Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, India:

Word from Mythology: Narcissicist

I've written here already about the Greek nymph Echo who gives us the English word "echo," and now I need to add Narcissus, the Greek mythological character who gives us the word "narcissicist" and "narcissicism" in English. As you can read in the Wikipedia article, Narcissus spurned the love of others (including the love of Echo), but he fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Refusing to leave, he wasted away and finally died there, entranced by his own image.

This ancient story led Freud to coin the term "narcissicim" to refer to someone who is self-obsessed; you can read more about the psychological dimensions of narcissicism at Wikipedia.

Narcissus also gave his name to the flower "narcissus," also known as "daffodil." Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, tells us that after he died, Narcissus was turned into a daffodil. You can read Ovid's version of the story at Tony Kline's website: Ovid's Metamorphoses in English.

Here is a medieval depiction from the British Library's Harley 1766 ms.

Here is a modern illustration by Franceschini:

Word from Mythology: Draconian

Today's word from mythology is "draconian," which means laws that are especially strict or severe, and more generally it can refer to anything which is extremely severe. The word comes a proper name, Draco, who was the first lawgiver of Athens in the 7th century B.C.E. At the time, the law of Athens was an oral code, and Draco replaced it with a written code. Draco's laws were notoriously harsh and were later repealed by Solon; you can read more about Draco and his laws at Wikipedia.

Carving of Draco Lawgiver

in the United States Supreme Court.

(image source)

Word from Mythology: Odyssey

The English word "odyssey" comes from the name of the Greek hero Odysseus. After the end of the Trojan War, Odysseus and his men set sail for their island home of Ithaca, but Odysseus is the only one to make it home, after a journey lasting ten years, and many adventures along the way. That is how we got the word "odyssey" in English. At first, "Odyssey" referred to the name of the ancient Greek epic poem narrating Odysseus's adventures, but starting in the late nineteenth century, the word came to be used with a lower-case "o" — odyssey — to refer to any long, adventurous journey.

Odysseus's journey is related to another English word that comes from Greek: nostalgia. The English word "nostalgia" comes from two Greek words: nostos, which means "homecoming," and algia, which means "pain, grief, longing" (as in the English word "analgesic"). Put them together and you get nostalgia: homesickness, a painful longing to return home.

The image below is a Greek vase painting of Odysseus and the Sirens, and "siren" is another English word from mythology; more about sirens here.

Word from Mythology: Morphine

The name of the drug morphine takes its name from the Greek god Morpheus, the god of dreams and the illusions we see in sleep; his father is Somnus, the god of sleep. Friedrich Sertürner, a German pharmacist, isolated morphine around the year 1805 (it became commercially available in 1827), and he named it after Morpheus because the drug was sleep-inducing. You can read more at Wikipedia, and you can also read about the etymology of heroin in this post: Heroine and Heroin.

The painting is a detail from a fresco by Luca Giordano showing Morpheus and Night:

Word from Mythology: Mentor

The word "mentor" is widely used in English now, but most people do not know that this is a name from Greek mythology: Mentor. Mentor was a friend of the Greek hero Odysseus, and he also advised Odysseus's son Telemachus. When the goddess Athena wanted to advise Telemachus, she disguised herself as Mentor.

The use of the word "mentor" in English to mean an "advisor" dates to the 18th century. Nowadays you can also hear the word "mentee," which is formed as if "mentor" were a Latin verb, but that is a bit of linguistic nonsense that does not fit the Greek origins of the word at all! The word "mentee" was coined in the 1960s. To fit the Greek, it would be better to talk about a "mentor" and a "telemachus," rather than mentor and mentee. :-)

You can read more about Greek Mentor at Wikipedia, which is also the source for this picture of Mentor with Telemachus:

Word from Mythology: Echo

The English word "echo" comes from the Greek word which is also the name of a nymph: Echo (Ἠχώ). The god Zeus was notorious for his love affairs with the nymphs, and Echo distracted the goddess Hera with lengthy conversations in order to give Zeus the chance to make his escape. When Hera found out how Echo had tricked here, she put a curse on the nymph: Echo would no longer be able to speak on her own. Instead, she could only repeat the last few words of what another person said — that is, she could only echo the words she heard.

Things got worse for Echo when she fell in love with Narcissus. She was not able to communicate with him, and so she watched as Narcissus wasted away gazing at his own reflection in the water. Echo eventually lost her physical body and all that remained was... her echo!

You can read more about Echo at Wikipedia. The painting below is Waterhouse's Echo and Narcissus:

Words from Mythology: SYRINGE

The "y" in the word "syringe" is a clue that it comes from Greek. To be specific, English "syringe" comes from Greek syrinx, which refers to a tube or pipe, including a musical pipe. The word has a story that goes with it: Syrinx (Σύριγξ) was a nymph devoted to Artemis, the virgin goddess of the woods and forest. The god of the woods, Pan, lusted for Syrinx and pursued her; in order to escape, Syrinx prayed to be turned into reeds by the water's edge. Pan cut the reeds and shaped them into a "Pan's pipe," hence the meaning of the word syrinx, "pipe." You can read more about the nymph Syrinx and her story at Wikipedia.

Pan chases Syrinx

You can also read more about pan pipes at Wikipedia. Here is a fourth-century mosaic of a shepherd with pan pipes:

(mosaic in the cathedral of Aquileia, Italy)

Indian Word in English: Calico

The English word CALICO is a corrupted pronunciation of the name of the city of "Calicut" (compare Arabic Qaliqut, Malayalam Kolikodu) on the Malabar coast of India in Kerala; the modern name of the city is Kozhikode. The fabric was known by this name in English already in the early 16th century, referring to a coarse fabric made from unbleached cotton imported from India. This raw textile was then dyed with bright hues. These colorful calico prints later gave rise to the metaphorical application of the term "calico" to refer animals with varicolored coats (calico horses, calico cats, etc.), a usage that dates to the early 19th century.

You can read more about calico fabric at Wikipedia, and you can also read about calico cats.

The image below shows a classical calico print fabric (image by Pattie Hite at Flickr):

And here is a calico cat (image by Michael Frank Franz at Flickr):

Word from Mythology: Chaos

The word from mythology today is CHAOS, which is a Greek word borrowed into English; the ch- in the spelling is a clue. The Greek word is khaos, χάος. In the ancient Greek story of creation, the world originally was "chaos," a void without form or shape, literally the "gap" between heaven and earth at the beginning of creation. In some of the ancient Greek writers, Chaos was one of the most primitive of the gods, along with Gaia (the earth), Tartarus (the underworld), and Eros (love).

Later on, the word chaos came to refer to a mixture of elements that had not yet taken shape in the process of creation, hence our modern sense of things being "chaotic."

The image below is the depiction of "Magnum Chaos," The Great Chaos, as designed by Lorenzo Lotto for the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, Italy.

Hindi Word in English: Parcheesi

The English word "parcheesi" comes from the Hindi word pachisi, from pachis "twenty-five," from Sanskrit panca "five" + vimsatih "twenty."

This Sanskrit root panca for "five" is related to the Greek pent- root that we see in English words like pentagon, pentagram, etc.

In the traditional Indian game of pachisi, played with cowrie shells, twenty-five was the highest throw of the shells, hence the name. In modern parcheesi, which is played with dice, five is still an important number in the game because pieces move into play when you throw a five.

Although the Indian game is supposed to be quite ancient, the oldest testimony for the game dates to the 16th century.  Legend has it that the Emperor Akbar of India had a courtyard in the shape of a pachisi board, with members of the harem acting as the pieces.

In the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, there is a dice game which is crucial to the plot. The description of the game in the epic does not seem to correspond to pachisi, but modern artists have imagined that the game was indeed pachisi, or something very much like it, as you can see in this 19th-century illustration:

The first American version of the game was called Patcheesi and a copyright claim was filed in 1867. The name was later changed to Parcheesi, and the North American rights are currently held by Hasbro. The Parcheesi board game shown below is from Wikipedia:

For more about games in India, see this article: Ancient India, The Birthplace of Modern Game Design.