From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 61762
Date: 2008-11-20
----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 7:30 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] From here to eternity [was: *y-n,W- "subordinate"?]
>
> On 2008-11-20 19:10, Arnaud Fournet wrote:
>
>> It's quite strange that our anscestors : people with 35 years life
>> expectancy could confuse youth, life-time and eternity.
>
> They used "a lifespan" as a unit of time. It then came to mean 'a long
> time, aeon' (Gk. aio^n). Lat. aevum (with several close cognates) is a
> thematic vr.ddhi derivative of *h2jw-: *h2-e-jw-ó- > *h2aiwó-
> 'life-long' (> 'eternal'). Of course even in the Neolithic there were
> people individually blessed with a long and healthy life. I suppose they
> were called *h2júh3ones.
===========
I don't buy a word of this.
They were obsessed with the fact they were mortal and unfortunately very
short-lived
when the gods were immortal.
This is indeed the main difference between the mrtos and the n-mrtos.
Unfortunately people are in the short-lived part of it.
I don't think they ever came to think their short lifes were a long time.
This makes no sense and conflicts with their culture and mythology.
A.
========
>
>> This makes no common sense at all.
>> I think it just has to be stated to be blatantly absurd.
>
> I see. It's blatantly absurd to say that a child's "age" (another
> cognate of *h2aju) is, say, three years when "age" may also mean a
> century or even hundreds of millennia (as in "the Ice Age").
>
> Piotr
>
============
That use of "age" in that meaning "period of"
like in Middle Ages, Stone Age is about 150 years old.
You're trying to sell that this modern meaning is relevant for the far past.
You're wrong.
Try again. You provide better explanations in general.
A.