As Kathy’s mentioned in her comment on last Thursday’s blog post, the phrase I used for the post’s title, “High on a Hill”, is found in the lyrics to the song The Lonely Goatherd, from the musical The Sound of Music:
High on a hill was a lonely goatherd …
Click here to see all the lyrics
Click here to see a clip from the movie
For the record, there were no goats or goatherds on that hillside a couple of weeks ago in Tübingen. So that song doesn’t really fit with the post, despite my use of that lyric in the post’s title.
But, as fate would have it, I do have a topic today that involves goats. And language learning.
Permit me to explain.
Once upon a time and many years ago back in college, I studied Ancient Greek. While Greek was not my favorite subject, I did have a favorite Greek word: αιγίλιπος (rough phonetic pronunciation: eye-GEE-lip-pos)
It’s an adjective that is a compound, made up of two parts:
- αιγί means “mountain goat”
- λιπος means (perhaps) “deserted” or “devoid” or “lack”
Note: I couldn’t quite track down over the weekend what this part meant, even though Chris helped me consult several online Ancient Greek sources that he knew about. Yes, there are multiple Ancient Greek dictionaries to be found online. How cool is that, eh? Perhaps I would have liked my Ancient Greek classes better had there been online resources to use back in my university days.
Anyway, combine the two parts of the word together and it would literally mean something like “devoid of mountain goats”. However, the typical translation of αιγίλιπος in English is “sheer”, which at first glance has nothing to do with goats.
But in my class, when we ran across the word applied to describe a cliff in Homer’s Iliad, we learned that αιγίλιπος meant that the cliff was “too steep even for a mountain goat”. I.e., the cliff was so steep that not even a mountain goat, which can climb up just about any incline, could climb up it.
I love it – all that meaning encapsulated in one little word! Talk about something being bigger than the sum of its parts. I didn’t retain many things from my Ancient Greek class, but I have always remember that word because I was intrigued by how it was so efficiently descriptive. I guess that’s why αιγίλιπος has stuck with me all these years.
Now, I don’t think about αιγίλιπος that often, of course, but oddly enough it came up when Chris ran across a new German word. German tends to make lots of compounds in general and mostly — as in English – the meaning of the combined words are just rather literal combinations of the two original parts.
But then there’s the German word Narrenfreiheit. Consider it’s base parts:
- Narr “fool”
- Freiheit: “freedom, liberty”
Put them together and the resulting word turns out to be more than the sum of its parts:
- Narrenfreiheit: “the freedom to do whatever you want”
I guess the idea is that normally freedom comes with constraints, but a fool wouldn’t pay attention to rules or limits, and if you’re someone like that, you then have the freedom to do anything at all.
Hmm.
Bearing that in mind, I’m not sure I should admit that one of the reasons I enjoy writing the blog is because I have the freedom to write about whatever I choose. I mean, if I didn’t have that kind of flexibility, how would I ever have been able to work into this one post:
- a song from a musical
- a little lesson in Ancient Greek
- a new German vocabulary word
So, if Narrenfreiheit means the freedom to do what you want, then I certainly have Narrenfreiheit here on the blog. However, please do remember that αιγίλιπος words, like Narrenfreiheit, are necessarily more than merely the sum of their parts.
I’m just saying. 😉
Forgive me if this sounds pedantic, but maybe there’s a place for pedantry in a discussion like this. “aigilipos” is the genitive case of the adjective “aigilips,” which is glossed as ‘destitute even of goats’ in that most wonderful of classical Web sources:http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/.
The source (which incidentally has ties to, among others, the Max Planck Society in Berlin) is regrettably so rich as to be practically impenetrable, which is probably why you and Chris were unable to use it to confirm your translation.
Bottom line: your translation was right!
Thanks, Will. I also had found that (but it wasn’t easy) – thanks for confirming that I wasn’t crazy about what that word meant after all these years! Your new challenge is to find out what just the “lips” part means on its own – “aigi” means goat, but I was never able to confirm what the other part meant (there were tantalizing clues to its origin, but not nearly enough information that I was able to uncover in the online sources.) Have fun! 😉
Man you ask tough questions. But at least they have answers. The key to this one is to undo the effects of Indo-European ablaut, which weakened “lips” from the root form “leips.”
The rest is pretty straightforward, all pedantry aside. The Greek root “leips” is the root we find in “eclipse” and “ellipse.” The basic meaning involves leaving or being absent.
Now you really got me started. Our verb “leave” comes from this root, as does the “lict” of “derelict.” Not to mention the root of “Leben.”
You’ll have to ask your German friends whether there’s a connection with Leipzig. Here’s hoping the answer will lead to a new post some day!
I find that such writings on word origins to be better than sex. oops should I have said chocolate? At any rate only a fool is free, perhaps that is what that lovely long German word really means. because no one can truly be free, no one can be free to do anything they want. i always wanted to fly. Not in a flying machine, but lie a bird. I can in my dreams, but gravity brings me down. It has always been obvious that only a fool thinks they can do what they want. But it sounds good. We can have our fantasies.
oh and I thank you for this post. I am so glad I sparked it by the song that was in my head when I read your, “high on a hill” prior post. This post brings to mind a different song. Actually 2 songs, first “lost for words,” second, “Learning to fly” both by one of my favorite 60’s band, ‘Pink Floyd” if interested you can google both
@Will, well done! Wow, you’re good to have found that so fast! I am intrigued by all the related words (“leave”, “lict”, “Leben”). I will see what I can find out about Leipzig, although I don’t know any historical linguistics here. You can be sure if I find out information, there’s a blog post to be had there. 😉 Thanks for doing all this research!
@Kathy, thanks again for triggering the idea for the “goat” post! Glad you enjoyed it so much! 😉 Re freedom to do what you want and the fool, as you say, perhaps it is the case that only a fool *thinks* they can do whatever they want, but no one ever can. But then, if a fool believes that to be true, perhaps they can find a way to do it, if no one talks them out of it, eh? 😉
Linda, you now have a reason to do field work in Leipzig.
Will, a friend once suggested that I start a business called Creative Rationalizations, as I was always able to provide her with a convincing reason for doing just about anything. I haven’t gotten around to it, though, so I’m officially ceding the rights to the name to you.
Indeed. I’ll keep it in mind. 😉
Dovie, if you and Will join forces your Creative Rationalizations firm will be unstoppable.