Philosophia Biou Kybernetes—welcome reminder that for cultures around the Mediterranean,
sea faring was a basic means of livelihood, so that the craft of one who steers, the helmsman,
kybernetes, was early adopted & often transferred figuratively from shipping to governing oneself or the
metaphorical ‘Ship of State’; hence in Latin gubernare with like semantic range, realized across
Europe in the linguistic talus from Latin, as in govern, governmemt, gubierno, governo,
gouvernement; specialized though in cybernetics, cyber crime. For such an important &
characteristic craft, it is telling that its root, far from Indo-european & the so-called ‘Aryan’
cognation, which includes not only Greek but also Hittite, Sanskrit, protoslavic, protoitalic, protogermanic & Persian, “Foreign origin is probable” (Beekes 2010.I.794). In other words, when the protogreeks arrived at the Mediterranean sea, they named it with their term for ‘the way across,’ pontos, which is cognate with the other Indo-european terms for ‘means of crossing,’ such as puente, pont, & path, or Russian sputnik, put. But the protohellenic arrivals at the sea, to name the newly discovered worker that they needed to get across, instead of identifying him with something they had known on the high plains, chose to absorb the name & skill that they learned from the others who were already flourishing & whose language was not cognate with indo-european: hence immigrant protohellenes learned from indigenous others kybernetes with the ensuing cultural fortune sketched above.
After the session, etymological history also prompted reflection that the very terms
Latino, colony, colonialism are relics, traces, of the Latin language & Roman rule: the
subsequent thrust of empires across oceans may be characterized in terms applied by ‘the poet of
empire,’ Virgil, to the traces left from civil strife following the assassination of Julius Caesar:
sceleris vestigia nostri (‘traces of our crime,’ Bucolicon liber, ecloga iiii.13)
If the very term Latino harbors a trace of empire, current queries about Latino identity &
community prompt wry reflection on what’s become of the heritage of an immigrant, leaving
Holland for the new world in 1652, perhaps after reading the Remonstrance of New Netherl and,
published in 1650 by Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck. Dutch heritage today? Who but a few
aficionados? Traces maybe in subway stations Newkirk, Vansiclen, Church?
[Cf. Further meditation on Mediterranean migration—CLASSICS,etymology & meaning]

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Philosophia Biou Kybernetes—welcome reminder that for cultures around the Mediterranean,
sea faring was a basic means of livelihood, so that the craft of one who steers, the helmsman,
kybernetes, was early adopted & often transferred figuratively from shipping to governing oneself or the
metaphorical ‘Ship of State’; hence in Latin gubernare with like semantic range, realized across
Europe in the linguistic talus from Latin, as in govern, governmemt, gubierno, governo,
gouvernement; specialized though in cybernetics, cyber crime. For such an important &
characteristic craft, it is telling that its root, far from Indo-european & the so-called ‘Aryan’
cognation, which includes not only Greek but also Hittite, Sanskrit, protoslavic, protoitalic, protogermanic & Persian, “Foreign origin is probable” (Beekes 2010.I.794). In other words, when the protogreeks arrived at the Mediterranean sea, they named it with their term for ‘the way across,’ pontos, which is cognate with the other Indo-european terms for ‘means of crossing,’ such as puente, pont, & path, or Russian sputnik, put. But the protohellenic arrivals at the sea, to name the newly discovered worker that they needed to get across, instead of identifying him with something they had known on the high plains, chose to absorb the name & skill that they learned from the others who were already flourishing & whose language was not cognate with indo-european: hence immigrant protohellenes learned from indigenous others kybernetes with the ensuing cultural fortune sketched above.
After the session, etymological history also prompted reflection that the very terms
Latino, colony, colonialism are relics, traces, of the Latin language & Roman rule: the
subsequent thrust of empires across oceans may be characterized in terms applied by ‘the poet of
empire,’ Virgil, to the traces left from civil strife following the assassination of Julius Caesar:
sceleris vestigia nostri (‘traces of our crime,’ Bucolicon liber, ecloga iiii.13)
If the very term Latino harbors a trace of empire, current queries about Latino identity &
community prompt wry reflection on what’s become of the heritage of an immigrant, leaving
Holland for the new world in 1652, perhaps after reading the Remonstrance of New Netherl and,
published in 1650 by Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck. Dutch heritage today? Who but a few
aficionados? Traces maybe in subway stations Newkirk, Vansiclen, Church?
[Cf. Further meditation on Mediterranean migration—CLASSICS,etymology & meaning]

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.