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Ulysses vs Odysseus | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes  5 sounds | Message 1 of 5 02 February 2009 at 8:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm puzzled, why have two spellings for the same thing? Which one is more common?
And where did that Uly- came from? The Greek version is Ὀδυσσεύς (according to Wikipedia; I'm no expert) and it corresponds to the way it is transcribed in many languages (but not in English, nor French.) Edited by Sennin on 02 February 2009 at 8:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6148 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 2 of 5 02 February 2009 at 9:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ulysses/Ulixes is the Latinized form of Odysseus. Probably a very early loanword since it exhibits the change from d->l in Latin. The change from o->u is not well known (to my knowledge) but many believe that Latin already had quality differences in all its vowels besides "a" (as opposed to merely a difference in quantity except in 'e' and 'o' where there are differences in quantity AND quality) and that this somehow influenced even early loanwords (e.g. purpura from Greek πορφύρα). It might also have been caused by Etruscan influence either possibly through secondary borrowing.
AFAIK, the name "Odysseus" has been more common in English than "Ulysses" at least for the past 30 years. Edited by Alkeides on 02 February 2009 at 9:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 5 02 February 2009 at 9:27am | IP Logged | |||||
From http://www.speedylook.com/Ulysses.html:
Wikipedia says:
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| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 4 of 5 02 February 2009 at 9:42am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you for the responses, Alkeides and jeff. The Latin origin definitely makes sense to me (and apparently there are several Greek versions so Latin adopted one of them.)
I am surprised to learn Odysseus is more popular in English. Most of the time I encounter the other version; for example in this song and also a sci-fi cartoon I used to watch; Admittedly the cartoon is from the 80s. Edited by Sennin on 02 February 2009 at 9:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6148 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 5 of 5 02 February 2009 at 9:50am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, it is worth noting that the entries with a lambda in Liddell and Scott are post-classical Greek. The full entry with variants containing lambda:
Hdn.Gr. = Herodianus Grammaticus Diome. = Diomedes Grammaticus This d->l change is also apparent in lachryma which has derivatives in most Western European languages. Also the word "lingua" itself - which was "dingua" in Old Latin cognate to "tongue" in English. About the transliterated Greek form being more popular - I suspect the trend started right from the 1950s with Lattimore's translation of the Iliad and Odyssey extending even to Achilleus, Aias, Kyklops instead of the more familiar Latin versions. The decline in Greek and Latin knowledge might have led to greater use of the original sources since people would no longer have any reason to be acquainted with the Latin forms. By Fagles' translation in 1991, although he adopts a middle ground between the more thoroughly Anglicized names from Latin sources (Patroclus, Ajax, Thrace) and the Greek transliterations, he claims that imposing Ulysses on Odysseus (along with Minerva for Athena and Jove for Zeus) would be an "unacceptable demand". Link to his explanation on Homeric names Edited by Alkeides on 02 February 2009 at 10:03am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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