Etymology of GREEK and GRAIKHOS

ILIJA CASULE (Macquarie University) (MANU) THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE ETHNONYM Greek, Graikhos (DRAFT) The etymology of the ethnonym GREEK requires a full article, so I will be brief here. What do we know, and what don't we know? 1. The first use of Graikhos as equivalent to Hellenes is found in Aristotle ("Meteorologica" I.xiv). For me, this is a crucial piece of information. What does it tell us? a). That GRAIKHOS is an old formation. b). That, knowing Aristotle's (Ancient) Macedonian origin (although this is disputed) this mention most likely indicates HOW THE MACEDONIANS REFERRED TO THE "Hellenes"... I have noted repeatedly that many ethnonyms given to a people or ethnicity are from their neighbours, in this case from the Ancient Macedonians (< Brygian)... c) That, when Rome conquered Athens et al, it ADOPTED the MACEDONIAN reference GRAIKHOS, and not HELLENES. This is open for an interesting discussion... d) An etymology that came up in the 19th century and cited by the Online Etymological Dictionary, I quote: "A modern theory (put forth by German classical historian Georg Busolt, 1850-1920), derives it from Graikhos "inhabitant of Graia" (literally "gray," also "old, withered"), a town on the coast of Boeotia, which was the name given by the Romans to all Greeks, originally to the Greek colonists from Graia who helped found Cumae (9c. B.C.E.), the important city in southern Italy where the Latins first encountered Greeks. Under this theory, it was reborrowed in this general sense by the Greeks." Hmmmm, not very convincing for the etymologist in me, but should not be rejected outright. 2. WHAT ARE THE POSSIBILITIES WITHIN INDO-EUROPEAN, assuming that the etymon is Indo-European (it COULD be Pre-Indo-European). The Online Etymological Dictionary says further: "The Germanic languages originally borrowed the word with an initial "-k-" sound (compare Old High German Chrech, Gothic Kreks), which probably was their initial sound closest to the Latin "-g-" at the time; the word was later refashioned. From late 14c. as "the Greek language." The meaning ‘unintelligible speech, gibberish, any language of which one is ignorant’ is from c. 1600. Meaning "member of a Greek-letter fraternity" is student slang, 1884." We also find the form GREGEIS in the Middle Ages. Now, what is the root? It obviously has an -K(H) extension (possibly from an older -G(H), and the initial G- could go back to K(H)-... This requires an extensive analysis, which I have to skip here. So, let's assume that the PIE form is *g'her-k- or *g'her-g-. The closest Indo-European root is> PIE *g'her-, 'short, little, small', also with an -s- extension: *g'her-s- or *g'hers- (if we assume that the -s- is part of the root and not an extension). These are the Indo-European developments from this root: Greek kheiron (long -o-) 'worse' (inferior), Old Irish gair (from < *g'heri-s 'short', also garait 'short', Middle Irish gerr 'short' Old Indian hrasva 'minor, short, small' (Pokorny IEW 443). MOST INTERESTINGLY, in the modern Burushaski language, [spoken in North Western Pakistan] which I have proven to be a direct descendant from Phrygian (Brygian) (Casule 2017, 2018) we have: giryaas 'small child, baby, infant' (from < IE *g'her-yo-s-) From this analysis we can surmise that GRAIKHOS meant 'SHORT, SMALL". [There are other possibilities, which I will analyse further in my forthcoming article]. 3. Further evidence in this vein comes from the GREEK understanding of the MAKEDONIAN ethnonym as 'tall people'. Thus (highly simplified) and with some indications of a 'folk etymology': GRAIKHOS 'short, stocky', so-called by the TALL Macedonians, as registered by Aristotle. MAKEDNOS 'tall, high'... [I will leave the extralinguistic discussion out of this analysis... as it may involve a genetic analysis...and language often does not match ethnicity...] but I will note in passing that it is not perhaps an historical accident that the Greeks do NOT want to be called GREEK, and as we have seen, the term has acquired negative connotations. *It could be that two etyma merged, one for 'gray' (dark skinned?) and one for 'short' which were perhaps used in antiquity to describe the physical appearance of these people... **Please do not quote this at this time, as it is WORK in PROGRESS... *My 50 etymological dictionaries, are still making their way from Sydney, so further checking of existing etymologies is required (esp. Beekes's Greek Etymological Dictionary...published by BRILL.)