By Spiro Konda Historians have referred to a pre-Greek population that inhabited the Balkan Pen insula, which as of yet

remains quite mysterious. Referred to them by the name Pelasgiasn, little is known about their origin and language. Homer in Illiad ind icates that they were settled in Epirus originally. Herodotus indicates that the ir language was definitely different from Greek. Herodotus also indicates that t he Greeks adapted the names of Pelasgian gods. Here is Herodotuss elaboration: the Pelasgians formerly were wont to make all their sacrifices calling upon the go ds in prayer, as I know from that which I heard at Dodona, but they gave no titl e or name to any of them, for they had not yet heard any, but they called them g ods from some such notion as this, that they had set in order all things and so had the distribution of everything. Afterwards, when much time had elapsed, they learnt from Egypt the names of the gods, all except Dionysos, for his name they learnt long afterwards; and after a time the Pelasgians consulted the Oracle at Dodona about the names, for this prophetic seat is accounted to be the most anc ient of the Oracles which are among the Hellenes, and at that time it was the on ly one. So when the Pelasgians asked the Oracle at Dodona whether they should ad opt the names which had come from the Barbarians, the Oracle in reply bade them make use of the names. From this time they sacrificed using the names of the god s, and from the Pelasgians the Hellenes afterwards received them. Being that the names of these gods had come from the Barbarians, the Greek languag e did not help to explain the etymology of the name of these gods. Some have use d the Albanian language with the assumption that this language has preserved mor e of the elements of the Pelasgian language. One of them was Spiro N. Konda who saw the Albanians as the descendants of the Palasgians. In his book The Albanian s and the Pelasgian Problem he collects an abundant source of data in an attempt to prove his theory. He also dealt with the etymology of the names of the Pelas gian gods and this analysis is summarized below. Demeter ()

T e name Demeter is made up of two words, from de and meter. The word de was pronounc d de imitially, and later it was pronounced as dhe, thus, Demeter= Dhemeter. The mea ning of the compound word is indicated as Dhe, meaning in current Albanians earth, and the original IE word meter=mother (mata in Sanskrit). Thus, Demeter=Dhemete r=Earth Mother. In Greek, the pronunciation varied according to the dialects, Da mater (Doric), Domater (Aeolic) According to Diodor, Egyptian priests believed that the earth, as the common womb of all production, they called Metera, as the Greeks in process of timecalled th e earth Demetra, which anciently was called Gen Metera, or the mother earth, as Orpheus attests in this verse:

The mother earth, Demeter also calld, Brings forth most richly. (Diodorus Siculus, I, p. 20, London, 1814) The Greeks were not aware of the meaning of the word de because the compound word D emeter is not in Greek but in a pre-Greek language. Zeus () D (see above) became de-a in feminine form and de-u in masculine form. Just lik e de-a is mother of all, so is de-u father of all. The Greeks took dea and deu a

nd changed them to thea () and theos ( ), respectively. But the terms had lost their iginal meaning of Dheu=earth and were thought of as gods/goddesses. The Latins also took the terms from the Pelasgians and added us to de, creating de-us which changed to Zeus. And, besides the mother was also born Zeus, father of men and gods, in line with the concept earth, mother of all (as inferred in Diodoru s passage). Pausania makes the connection even clearer:

Zeus was, Zeus is and will be, mighty Zeus! Earth gives us fruits, hence call on mother earth. (Pausanias, III, Cha. X, p.135 , London, 1794) The Latin version transforms Deupater to De-jupiter, and then to Jupiter. As the meaning of Deu was deified, the meaning of born from earth changed to born fro m god. Now only the base word Deus continued to be used and it signified the suprem e deity. Hesychius of Alexandria in his lexicon indicates that Pellasgians called the deit y Dipatyron which in todays Albanian appears as Perendi. Its morphology is explaine d as follows: If the suffix is dropped dipatyr remains, Dipatyr=Depater=De-at (w hich in Albanian means father). De pater corresponds to Pater-de (this use is ob served in Homer (O Zeus pater O father Zeus), thus, Pater=per, de=di, which join t o form Per-di=Perendi. This Pelasgian word would convey the original concept of t he earth is my father. Poseidon () ha been understood as the god of drink, of river, of seas, and waters. This mist aken etymology continued from Homer to the present. In the Albanian language exists pat, which means to have (me pase=to own), which in the Greek language exist in the form of pot and pos. The word pat, preserves the o lder sound, while in Greek and Latin it changed into (o). As the other gods, Pos eidon was taken from the pre-Greek tradition. If the Greek suffix is dropped (), the word Poseida-s is formed which can be split as follows: Pos = (possess, he who possesses=zot (in Albanian)=god I=of Das=earth; meaning, the Lord of the earth.

This etymology has backing by Homer who calls Poseidon Geehon (), that is who holds controls the earth. (Homer, Iliad, Ken. XII, Varg. 43.)

Also, Pindar, calls Poseidon Geahon (), that is one who holds, one who controls th . (Pindar, Carmina, Olimpians, 13 , 79-82, face. 56, Leipzig, 1862.) Aferdita-Aphrodite ()

Acc d n to Hesiod, Aferdita was born from foam. Plato indicated that there is no merit in contradicting Hesiod, but he thought that it was doubtful, if the na me Aferdita came from the Greek word afros (). Karl Sittl in Theogonia said that it i possible for the derivation to come from the Greek word afros, but it is equall y possible for the name to have come from an Asiatic language.

In Albanian language the adverb afr=near; the word also existed in the old Greek as afar (). The next part of the word dita which compares to Sanskrit word dia=brigh light. According to Makrobit in Saturn, Cretans called dita, dia. Most probably this dia changed to dita in accordance to nat-a=night (nakta in Sanskrit) by Pela sgians. Thus, from afer and dita was formed the name of Godess Aferdita (). Acc Muller, in the beginning Aferdita signified the days dawn. Its interesting to not e in line with the Sanskrit word di-a, Albanian language has the verb u-di=ugdhi =to dawn. Konda indicates that Hesiod did not create the name Aferdite, but tried to expla in on the basis of available words and evidently did not select appropriate ones . The first part, Afro, was distant from afar, but resembled, or better was iden tified with afron (the foam of the sea); the choice for the second component of the word, dite, was just inexplicable; he chose to go for the word dyesthai ()= and anadyeshtai () =to rise. Apolloni-Apallo ()

that in Greek dialects, pelasg is translated to mean gegenes which means to be born from earth, autochthonous. The latter could also be said, I am born from earth whi ch would be the form of A pel-g. To this, in later Greek was added on () and forming Apelgon (). The g has been dropped creating Apellon which is easier to say. Anot pell (pjell in todays Albanian) is poll which appears in the name Apollon, translat as am born but essentially meaning am born from earth. Dionysos ()

God Dionys has also been referred as Deynysos (), , Z and . T n of Zeus who was reared by nymphs.

The name is made up of Dio (genitive case for Zeus: Dio-s) and nysos (=, ). If to t tter the Greek os is dropped, nys remains; y in this word in pre-Homeric times s ounded as u, that is nus, in sanskrit snusa, in Albanian nuse=nymph(in Greek). Konda says that the form Deynysos, which is made up of Dey+nysos, leads to an ex plaination of the etymology of the word. Dey is the genitive form of the word de whi ch in Albanian means dhe=earth. The second part of the word, nuse, means bride.

In pre-Homeric nyos would have also sounded nuse and meant bride. With time the middl s was dropped and the word took the form of nyos () which was used by Homer (Illia I, 49). This word also connotes daughter or son. Thus, the meaning of the whole name Dionysos is: son of earth, or daughter of earth, =children of earth=earthborn= el-os (vineyard). Hera Here ( ) T s Goddess appears in writing of Homer and Hesiod as Here () and with Pindar as H era (). Pl tried to explain the etymology of the word Hera from the word erao ( = to lo ve). He said that possibly the one that gave the name, like a meteorologist, cal led the air Hera (Plato, Kratylin). Konda said that Platos thought that Here represents a personification of a meteor ological element was correct, but he failed in explaining the etymology of the w

T e s .

explain the etymology, Konda deals first with the name Pelasgos. Pelasg is th synthesis of Pel-as-gai, that is pel=born, as=be-is, and g=earth. A form of as i also a; g is the dative form of the word ga-ge which here could be the Pelasgic To support this etymology, Konda indicted

di

ord To the point now,

The word () in the old Greek was pronounced Era () which in Albanian refers to the ai . Konda is unsure if the exterior similarities in () and Albanian Era are also orga nic. Rea ()

T e word appeared first in doric and eolic as Rea and ionian as Ree. Plato and o thers indicate that Rea took the name from the verb = flow. Karl Sittl (the publishe f Hesiod) indicated that Rea is the Goddess of all currents-flows.

By seeking etymological explanation in Greek words, or only in the Greek languag e, they missed to identify the similarity in sound of (reein) with that of the word a. In Albanian language exists the word rea (sothern variant) and reja (northern variant) which means cloud, just as in the old Greek existed Rea and Reia. If there was a case about a practice of personifying gods with the natural pheno menon and forces, Rea has all the attributes to represent re=cloud, because it i s the creation of the sky and the earth. Athena () Athena according to Hesiod has wisdom. Theogen Regin indicated that Athena was herself wisdom. Aristotle indicated that Athena is attributed science and arts.

Konda again looks to an Albanian word to explain the etymology of the name. He s ees Albanian verb than =said/told and by adding article e the verb changes into an a djective, e thana=the said. In Greek language it was taken as one word, ethana; the e was assimilated by the stressed a at the end, transforming the word to athana =athena Parsefoni ()

T e e also the forms Perifona () and Phersephassa (). The existence of so ws how difficult it was for the Greeks to pronounce the word in their own langua ge and suggests that the name has probably a pre-Greek origin.

Konda states that Persephone was the symbol of the seed, which stays on ground f or four months and then springs up above ground. And the name Phersephassa conta ins the Albanian word far=seed. As to how a changed to e he explained, the a of first syllable was assimilated by the e in syllable that fallows.(just like e in epano t o become apano, or, ergates became argates and ihnaria became ahnaria. The other part of the word, sefano is could not be explained.