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The Greek word alazon (1)

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06 Visual arts and architecture
11 Language, communication, libraries and education




 		Keywords
Greek language
naming
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Text
Akkadian alazinnu ‘entertainer’ was a buffoon who made a living entertaining others with parodies, mimicry, and scatological songs. It was a loan word in Akkadian, the Sumerian equivalent being alam-zu. In lexical lists the aluzinnu appears in immediate association with words meaning ‘slanderer’, ‘farter’, and ‘shitter’. It is possible that this word is the origin of the Greek word alazōn ‘mountebank’.

Bibliography

Foster 1996, 74Foster, Benjamin. Before the Muses. Ann Arbor: CDL Press 1996 (second edition).
West 1997, 496West, Martin L. The East Face of Helicon. West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1997.

Amar Annus


URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0001299.php

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