From owner-freebsd-doc Mon Jun 26 10: 1:40 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from relay1.inwind.it (relay1.inwind.it [212.141.53.67]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 967D137BAB3 for ; Mon, 26 Jun 2000 10:01:37 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from bartequi@inwind.it) Received: from bartequi.ottodomain.org (212.141.78.117) by relay1.inwind.it; 26 Jun 2000 19:01:34 +0200 From: Salvo Bartolotta Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 18:03:34 GMT Message-ID: <20000626.18033400@bartequi.ottodomain.org> Subject: Re: the word demon II (the revenge :-) To: gsutter@zer0.org, jkh@zippy.osd.bsdi.com, err@intergrafix.net Cc: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: SuperCalifragilis X-Priority: 3 (Normal) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Dear Gregory Sutter, thank you for writing. I had read something in Grog's guide (The complete FreeBSD) before; but I was glad to visit the page you kindly provided. Also, you made me recall another etymological, albeit secondary, point: "daimon", in (ancient) Greek, is not a semantically "marked" term; rather, it is employed as a vox media. AFAIR, the "dark" shades of meaning appear in the New Testament. A vox media is a word having no (positive||negative) connotations *per se*: the (classical) Greek term "pharmakon" (medicine, or poison, depending on the context) and the Latin "fortuna" (chance, luck; the English term "fortune" comes from there) are such words. As regards "fortuna", the positive sense is more used today in contemporary English (cf the Italian "fortuna"; the French "fortune" is slightly closer to a vox media; cf the German "Fortuna", "Fortune"). As far as the Greek term "daimon" is concerned, the root "daiomai" {~ "I give, assign [as someone's good||bad luck/destiny)]}", with which it is closely interconnected, is a vox media itself; specifically, it is related to the concept of chance, luck. As a result, "daimon" originally indicated a "god" (ie "being who has the power to give ..."); subsequently (after Homer), its significance became "being intermediate between gods and men", etc. Finally, in the New Testament, the word developed the typical unhappy/evil connotations, which are (more or less) found in modern European languages -- including Italian. On a related note, the Greek word "eudaimonia" ("eu" ~ "good/well" and "daimon"; cf "eudaemonic", "eudaemonism") springs to mind. It has an ample semantic spectrum, hinging on "good luck", and expressing, inter alia, the idea of "welfare, happiness". Incidentally, in German, "Daemon" (actually written with umlaut) is virtually equivalent to "daemon" ("being intermediate between gods and men"; "inner inspiring force"); in French, "d=E9mon" is mostly used in a= religiously/morally (also figuratively) marked sense (~ devil); in Italian, "demone" covers the areas of the German "daemon", as well as those of the English terms "devil" and "daemon" (~ background process in C.S.). Not to mention other Italian correlated/associated words, "demonio" (~ devil; negative also in figurative senses) and "diavolo" (~ devil; not surprisingly, both "diavolo and "devil" derive from Greek "dia+ballo"; cf syn+ballo --> symbol). Best regards, Salvo To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message