Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Armenian Ալադացիք and its meaning

One of the pleasures of studying ancient texts is the discovery of words that are not in any lexicon or other reference work. Just recently I came across Ալադացիք (Aladats'ik') in a commentary on the Neoplatonist David's Prolegomena to Philosophy. The commentary is attributed to the eighth century Armenian theologian Stepanos Siwnets'i. In commenting on David's allegorical interpretation of the myth of the giants Otos and Ephialtes and their attempt to attack the gods, Stepanos says that the giants are Aladats'ik'. According to Iliad 5.385 they were sons of Aloeus (Ἀλωεύς), though Odyssey 11.352-371 notes that Poseidon, Aloeus' father, was their true father. Being either sons or stepsons of Aloeus, the two were called Aloadai, with the Greek patronymic suffix -ιδης attached to Aloeus' name. The Armenian Aladats'ik' has kept the Greek suffix and appended to it the Armenian suffix of origin -ացի to form a nice example of a bilingual redundancy.


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