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(Can't figure out how to type it here.)
If you install spanish from the control panel, using the winXP, you can type in spanish..
Κατάλαβες μωρό μου;
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In fact, I believe it's this ancient and embarassing mix-up which caused the English to change the word to "year" instead.
Around 3500BC, Hellenics (Five thousand years later to be known as Greeks) receive from the Phoinics the frist European alphabet, based on extremely simple words. One of them was "Ρός" (That's how Ross is pronounced in Greek
) that meant "period". In the begining, it was used to describe a lunar period, and later to describe a solar period. Around 2000BC, a major cultural "update" swept Hellas, resulting in a renovation of the alphabet.
Around that time, the term "period" was divided in the following: Ώρος (hour), Χρόνος (year), Μήνος (month). About that time, the first German tribes thrived and started raiding agricultural nations, like the Hellenic (It must be noted that a this time, there was no sense of Nation, but that of City State. it will be during the Persian wars that the Hellenics will unite) At that time, Germans used the runic alphabet, but not in liaison with speach: their language was farily rich especialy in terms describing weather conditions, wood types and battle orders, but the runic aphabet was focused on describing complex terms with a single character. Terms, that were known only to the sages of the people, most notably, druids and bards (that's the first indication of those words in a culture). One of the runes, described the phrase "From one point of time to another" in short, "period".
Typicaly, hostages were not held from german tribes, but when labor hands were needed, they took slaves. Since druids managed the society, they had direct comunication with them. Some druids took interest in other languages, and how those described different the world (I remember one documentary that displayed one "menir" having a inscription rougly translated as "Children of different gods see different worlds") The hellenic language (and some of the Rus, later to be known as Russia) became part of a druid's knowledge, and fidning the nexus betrween the rune "period" and the word "Ρός" was only natural. The hellenic word's sound, was transalted as "Jeros", and later "Jeran". Many years later, the romans started their culture to Rome, bringing their own language, but lacking an alphabet. The first comunication betwen Romans and otehr cultures, started roughly with both germanic and hellenic people at the same time. Mostly, they either went to war with both of them, or traded, a status changing with each generation of leaders.
Generaly, both Romans, Germans and Helenics, prefered to fight each other than the surounding barbarians (most notably other Balcan people, Turks, and the then native Hispanic people and Gaelics) since they had wisemen among them that could understad the language of the others, and often settle peace agreements, hostage excanges (the first time a term similar to PoW {Prisoner of War} was derived) and eventualy, even temporary peace agreements for both trade and entertainment (common ahtletic events). Critical to this time, is the fact that Romans, adjusted their old Gods to the Hellenic pantheon, while the Germans advanced their mythology a lot, practicaly creating two distinct european religous cutlrues, althought it must be said that each "religion" had influences from the other.
At 700BC, the Roman Empire had under its command all of today's Italy, except Sicily (Belonging to hellenics) and msot of Austria, with the northern Austria being neutral teritory betrween romans and germans (It was mostly dominated by swamps, so nobody wanted to have to do with it. Also, more than thousand years later, when Julius Cesar dominated most of Europe, said the famous phrase "Veni, Vidi, Vinci" {Came, Seen, Conquered} meaning that there was no resistance to defeat, and no value to this land) Sicily, at that time known as "Great Hellas" since it had evolved in an advanced cultural centre, away from the realtively conservative Athenian influence, managed to come to terms with the Roman Empire, stop war, and define true political activity for the better of the two.
The roman empire, based on the greek alhpabet, created the Latin one, based on the prospective of adjusting it to the needs of their language. Their word for "year", was "annus". The initial roman language had the habit of describing most words with double letters inside, while depriving one of the two letters, meant a lesser version or the contrary of the initial word. "Annus", meant year, and "Anus" was the year that the seasonal expectances came eariler, like having heavy rains during spring. "Annus", appart from year, also meant "Clean"...(I hope that this makes sense...
). Lets jump a thousand years later (the mid time has so much to offer culture-wise, that would make no sense to try to describe even a fragment of it here)... The helelnics are now united under the name Hellas, the first true nation, while the Romans have pushed the Germans, conquering them, and pushing them north, and then west. The Roman Empire now consists of the Majority of Europe, with Latin being the common language, and Hellenic being the language of the "cultured".
Trade and excange of ideas is the norm between Hellenics and Romans, and the last war between them has already lapsed. The germans, now suffering great defeats and those remaining in central europe being forced to adapt to the roman culture, move to the Normandic lands, and together with them, to the then known Albion (the british isles). They easily conquer the primitives there and establish the predeccesors of today's english people.
Since Normands were mostly warriors, but Germans had a mostly complete culture, with a well formed language, and an alhpabet (The runic was already put aside, since the romans forced them to use the Latin) , their society ideals were established to the new land. the german culture with the normandic influence, created in a few years what is known as the "Anglosaxonic". in that mix of cultures, there were many terms from both. Generally, as Anglosaxonic evolved, the Normandic influences were romoved.
As we saw about twenty lines above and about three thousand years ago, the word "period" in german, was "Jeran" and was pronnounced "Yearn". Many words were softened as the language evolved, and the word yearn became Year... It is noteworthy that the first Bible transaltion in English (I do not remember the writer) uses the term "Yearn" in the "Exodus" and the word "Year" in the "Epistolatus" while the King James translation uses in both occasions the term "Year". That's the story of how the word "Year" came to be...
Yes I really enjoyed writing this, and congratulations for those that read it all. And yes, it was not all that necessary to describe the roots of the term "Year"... But heck, as I said, I enjoyed it..u.u
Ross, maybe it would be more apropriate to move the last few posts to the off the wall forum? I think the degeneration to the realm of "off topic" is now complete..
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