Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/20

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL JAN. 2, im.

Genoese pirates, and that expedition o: bandits humorously known as the "Fourth Crusade." Such distortions are the result partly of what is known as " popular ety- mology," and partly of that self-concedec licence whereby more or less illiterate mariners rechristen in a fanciful manner the places they visit. In the present instance the Italian name Arcipelago (in English texts of the sixth and seventh centuries Archipelagus and Archipelage) has given rise to all kinds of fantastic etymologies. It is thought by some to be a corruption of "Ayiov IleAayos, a name supposed to be given by Greeks to the sea near the holy Mount Athos. Others consider it a com- pound of arco and pelago, because the arches of the monasteries perched on that mountain can be seen from the sea ! More reasonable appears the derivation from ap^r) and TreAayos, as signifying the sea of the kingdom. D'Anville (' Analyse de la carte des cotes de la Grece,' Paris, 1757) disposes of the question in a more off-hand manner :

"Le nom d'Arehipel n'est qu'une alteration rlu veritable, et ne vient point, eomme on pourroit le croire, d'une qualification superieure a 1'egard de quelque autre mer."

His countrymen who edited the ' Grand Dictionnaire Larousse ' and the ' Grande Encyclopedie ' either ignore the difficulty, or squarely affirm that Archipel is the Ancient Greek name itself.

The term occurs (apparently for the first time) in a treaty between the Emperor Michael Palseologus and the Venetians, dated 30 June, 1268 : " Item', quod pertinet ad insulas de Arcipelago." It is then met with in Villani (c. 1345). But in a Venetian State paper of 1419 the mediaeval designa- tion is adhered to, " Ducatus Egeopelagi," this being a rendering of the Greek AtyatoTreAayos, for Aiyatov HeAayos (Mare -^Egseum). IleAayos in Greek signifies the high sea, the main, as distinct from the sea in general, and is further specialized when preceded by an epithet denoting the adjacent country, e.g., Mvprwoi/ IleAayos, Kp^TiKOf IleAayos, &c. ; as also in the case of TTOVTOS, e.<7-, 'I/<apios IIoi'Tos. Opr;i/cios HOVTOS.

Now, as regards the Italian prefix arci (Fr. archi, Eng. arch), we are led, by analogy in language, to discern in it the difference which struck the early Venetian navigators, between the narrow lagoons and shallow ponds of their own island-home and the comparatively vast expanse and depth of the seas which separate the even more

numerous island-habitations of the Greeks- of the ^gean. Thus Arcipelago can only have been a hybrid compound of a Greek sea-term, and an italianized Greek prefix (apx' from ap^os, chief, leader) signifying superiority, priority, pre-eminence. It was- exactly in this manner that the Italians had already in use the word Arciduca ; and successively added to their language arci- poeta, arciconsolo, arcifondatore, arcifanfano' (braggart), arcivero, arcibenissimo, &c. So- also in French archicamerier, architresorier f archichapelain, archiviole, archimagie, and the more recent archipedant, archimilionaire t &c. Of like formation are the English expressions arch-traitor, arch-enemy, and even arch alone, signifying chief, as in Shake- speare, " My worthy arch and enemy." The first steps to these formations were the words in Western languages taken imme- diately from the Greek, such as architect? archangel, archdeacon, archiater, archetype, &c. Arcipelago, therefore, with the Vene- tians originally signified the greater of the sheets of water which they had in mind when referring to it.

Now, as this sea is studded with islands,, renowned for their number and beauty above those of any other sea, the word Archi- pelago soon came to be applied, by an extension of meaning, to any expanse of water studded with numerous islands, and, indeed, to any group of islands. But this- was never the meaning of Aiyatoi/ IleAayos, and therefore I am all the more sorry to- confess that some half-learned, slovenly, or slavish Modern Greek writers betray their ignorance, or their carelessness, by making use of such a grotesque word as ' Ap^i TreAayos in the place of Alyaiov IleAayos, or, in respect to a group of islands, instead of IIoAwijo-os, or N?jo"o7reAayos.

But that Arcipelago is a mere corruption of the Greek AL-/OLOV ITeAayos is an impossible- supposition, on the face of it. Not that the Venetians were incapable of even that normity. They have left firmly rooted in Western languages such linguistic tours de orce as Negroponte from EvptTros. They heard the Greeks journeying there say : (et')'s r^N "Eypurov (vernacular for E-upiTrov) ; and there is a bridge (ponte) over the narrow strait. By a similar process they trans- formed Mount Hymettus into Monte Matto* the " mad mountain," thus associating the sound of its Greek name with the physical characteristic of Hymettus the sudden storms that come from over it.