| As a side-note, though not completely off the point the claim that Greeks had
three clearly distinct words for love (sexual, friendly, and charitable, say) ranks with "Eskimos have 100 words for snow" and the ever-popular }Latin has two different words for "or," one inclusive, the other exclusive." Read the Symposium, a discussion of love which -- using the same stem throughout -- ranges from genital sex through the amor intellectus dei and back to butt-fucking. Similar ranges can be found for the other stems, though not so much in one place (Lord Byron's feelings for the Maid of Athens were probably not exactly what Jesus had in mind when he said "Love one another" but he uses the same verb). In the process of all that discussion (it was a favorite topic by Greek moralists), I suspect that there are twenty kinds of love sorted out and each can be assigned in some cases by some authors to any of the three stems -- and a couple of others as well sometimes. But note that expressing love is not the same as describing it (I thought we were almost through that one) and so saying {iu}, with or without ruffles and flourishes is not saying {mi prami} or {mi broda brode prami} with whatever fine points you want to apply (and this is where to apply them). |