Re: Speak, Mnemosyne

Eugene Oh wrote:
> The above, as some of you who read the Economist would probably be
> aware, was the original title of Vlad Putin's memoirs before it was
> changed to "Speak, Memory", for fear that people wouldn't be able to
> pronounce the mythical figure's name.
>
> My question is: how would one render that in Ancient Greek (hint hint Ray heh)?
>
> Mnemosyné logé, where acute accents represent long vowels?
If that is so, there should be a accent on the first _e_ also - both are
'eta' - MNHMOCYNH. The actual Greek acute is on the upsilon: Μνημοσύνη.

But the second is a bit astray. While the noun for 'word' is _logos_,
the verb for 'to speak' is _legein_; we have the IE ablaut log- ~ leg-
here. But there are other verbs meaning to speak. Also we need to decide
whether the imperative should be imperfective ('present imperative') or
perfective ('aorist imperative'). Presumably Vlad Putin gave the title
in Russian, so which imperative did he use?

OK - If we stick with _legein_ (which has a suppletive aorist), the most
common of the verbs 'to speak', we have (using _ee_ for long 'e'):
λέγε, Μνημοσύνη (lége, Mneemosýnee) - imperfective
εἶπε, Μνημοσύνη (eîpe, Mneemosýnee) - perfective

I'd guess perfective is more likely.

P.S. I do give you credit for trying.

--
Ray
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Entia non sunt multiplicanda
praeter necessitudinem.

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