[Mageia-discuss] origin of the name "mageia"?

[Cassian Braconnnier]

Le 21/09/2010 20:28, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit :
> 2010/9/21 Maurice Batey<maurice at bcs.org.uk>:
>    
>> Why does the
>>
>>     http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=3095he
>>
>> pronunciation differ from others in here?!
>>      
>   Maybe because it is run by a USA based christian organisation who
> focus on the bible while most people here who gave their prononciation
> are native Greek speakers ?
Because this thread is entitled "what is the origin of the word mageia", 
I just add the following little piece of information. I had dinner 
yesterday in a very pleasant japanese restaurant in Paris, and, well, 
one of the participants was an erudite scholar, specialized in ancient 
greek. I asked him about "mageia". He said it was a very interesting 
term, the origin of which is still much debated. It is generally thought 
to be linked to some proper names, like Machaon, a warrior   on the side 
of the greeks in the Trojan War. Most interestingly Machaon was a valued 
surgeon and medic.
My friend said that the root *"mak-"*  (considered by philologists to be 
linked to both "Machaon" and "mageia") was considered to be a derivative 
of a Persian word, meaning something like : *vault*, *protective vault* 
and in a more abstact derived meaning : *protective knowledge* (hence 
the link with Machaon a character  mastering such protective knowledge 
as medecine and surgery and the drift toward the "magic" meaning).
The debate about the word is not about what I just summarized, he said,  
but rather is this : "are proper names like Machaon, for chararcters 
linked to protective knowledge, the origin of the term which then 
drifted to a common name like "mageia", or, conversely was the common 
name mageia the primary term which then drifted to secondary proper 
names such as Machaon?"
Some notion of 'protective knowledge' for the proper name of a  Linux 
project is perhaps not so bad, don't you think so ?

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