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What is the greek word for "slinger"?

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  Quote Mythos_Ruler Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: What is the greek word for "slinger"?
    Posted: 03-May-2005 at 02:36
What was the Greek word for slinger? You know, the vexatious light ranged unit that slung rocks at those hoplite slugs. 
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  Quote Perseas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-May-2005 at 06:42
Its "sfendonistis" and its plural is "sfendonistes".
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  Quote Yiannis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-May-2005 at 15:45

From "Sfendoni"=sling

Rodians were reputed to be the best at it...

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  Quote TheodoreFelix Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-May-2005 at 15:55
balearic slingers were quite reknown also. I remember Hannibal recruiting them in his army.  



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  Quote Spartakus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-May-2005 at 13:34
Originally posted by Yiannis

From "Sfendoni"=sling

Rodians were reputed to be the best at it...

They were also reputed to be very short people.
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  Quote Yiannis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-May-2005 at 03:26

Rodians were short? Never heard that before

Where did you read this, I have some Rodian friends that I can irritate with this info!

The basis of a democratic state is liberty. Aristotle, Politics

Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin
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  Quote Molossos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-May-2005 at 14:56
The correct ancient Greek spelling is , which is written and pronounced as "sphendonetes" according to the Herasmian system, although it is not sure. It is a noun that comes from the Greek word "sphendone" () which means sling.

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  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-May-2005 at 15:40
what about Psilos/Psiloi? I thought the light infantrymen in ancient Greece were called as that? and their weapon was the sling IIRC.
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  Quote Perseas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-May-2005 at 16:06

Originally posted by Temujin

what about Psilos/Psiloi? I thought the light infantrymen in ancient Greece were called as that? and their weapon was the sling IIRC.

Firstly, Molossos is right. The correct ancient greek word is "sphendonetes".

Psilos is a kind of skirmisher. Some of them were throwing Javelins and others indeed were using slings.

The difference i can distinquish between them and sfendonetes was that Psiloi were a bad copy of sfendonetes. As far as i know, Sfendonetes were being considered as a more reliable unit.

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  Quote Perseas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-May-2005 at 17:13

Some images about ancient greek slingers.

More pics here:

http://www.slinging.org/historygallery.html

and a quite informative text about ancient greek slingers is here:

http://www.slinging.org/30.html

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  Quote Phallanx Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-May-2005 at 17:35

I recall seeing on some TV series someone refering to football fans as:
 OI POLLOI or as anyone that read ancient Hellinic in a foreign school would spell it:
 HOI POLLOI

I still laugh when I remember the HO-I POLLO-I (ho-e pollo-e) pronounciation.
They screwed up a perfectly "musical" language, because it's much easier for a non-Hellin to pronounce all binary combinations of letters in the Erasmic manner. The damn fools.
 


Edited by Phallanx
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  Quote Molossos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-May-2005 at 06:02

Phallanx, I agree too that the use of the Herasmian system of pronounciation sounds kind of weird to our Greek ears. However, we must not ignore the strong evidence and facts that suggest how ancient Greek was pronounced. The existence of daseia before vowels in the beginning of words meant that a light "h" was pronounced.

The lingual phenomenon of "iotakismos" (pronouncing ei, oi, upsilon, heta as iota)  in modern Greek is part of the evolution of our language throughout the centuries. Our ancestors were practical people and I don't think they would use two syllables and three letters to pronounce a single vowel (iota). What do you believe about that?

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  Quote Phallanx Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-May-2005 at 21:27
You do have a point with "iotakism".

The basis for this "theory" (Erasmian)  is that words adopted by the Latin language were spelled differently from the way they were pronounced in Hellinic. Do you honestly concider this to be any kind of hard evidence to support this theory on?
In all the languages of the world we can find loan words, are they all spelled exactly as they are pronounced? I think not.

This was actually introduced as an "easy to learn guide" but does not represent neither ancient nor new testament Hellinic. This can be easily understood when you're in church and hear the priest psalm in perfect non-affected by evolution (kathareuousa and demotiki) Hellinic.

As for practical people. No I don't think so, people that would continuously discuss philosophy, astrology, geometry.............. aren't practical but perfectionists.

Anyway I've found this great article some time ago, that does give alot of info on the pronounciation debate :

THE ERROR OF ERASMUS
AND UN-GREEK PRONUNCIATIONS
OF GREEK

http://www.bsw.org/?l=72081&a=Art06.html


Edited by Phallanx
To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.
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  Quote Molossos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-May-2005 at 11:19

The argument of Herasmus that the loan words from Greek were pronounced differently by Latins is not that strong I must admit, because they are too many! Thanks for that piece of information, I didn't know he based his theory on that argument.

Regarding our ancestors nature and character, we already know that the use of the alphabet had been introduced centuries before the golden era of Athens during which philosophy and sciences were at a high level. So, you can't call perfectionists the Greeks of the geometric or the archaic eras who by the way used the script according to the alphabet we borrowed from the equivalent Phoenician.

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  Quote Phallanx Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-May-2005 at 22:06
who by the way used the script according to the alphabet we borrowed from the equivalent Phoenician.


Idon't know what you've been reading ADERFE Molossos, but I suggest you try Passa, Tziropoulou,Georgiadis and a number of other recognized scholars by Oxford and Heideberg.
You'll find some really interesting stuff.

If you'd like to do some personal research I'd suggest, to try to "link" the Minoan script to Phoenician, then  try to find the continuety of Linear B' to ancient Hellinic, Koine, Demotiki and the connection to modern.

Let's continue this by PM, if you'd like to.
To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.
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