Episode 209: Dialogue

Your Greek Word On A Sunday

(Intro & piano music)
Here is a word that has created some noise on pronunciation, meaning and, origin. Well, the origin is Greek but, which version? I'll try and untangle it here, wish me luck! Δια (dia) means 'through' and it's also the Greek name for the mathematical symbol of division -which has led people to believe that it also means 'half'. Λόγος (logos) means 'speech'. If you combine Δια/through and Λογος/Speech, you get Διαλογος (dialogos) , which means a 'conversation' between people (not necessarily just two people). Now, from the moment the word came to Latin and for the longest of times, that is exactly what people thought διαλογος (dialogos) meant; so much so, that they created a trialogue and a quadrilogue, which didn't last however, it wasn't until 1864 that things cleared up. The word two, the number, in Greek is Δυο, spelled in Latin, reads 'duo'. So, people could now stop counting heads conversing and use 'Duologue' for two people (which is not used in Greek by the way) and for any other conversation ΔΙΑΛΟΓΟΣ/DIALOGUE

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