Talent (was: [Conlangs-Conf] Conculture)

Thomas Hart Chappell wrote:
[snip]
> Speaking of religious assumptions embodied in language.
>
> Is the English meaning of the word "talent" -- a natural gift, inborn
> facility, or knack -- related to Jesus's "parable of the talents"?
Certainly.

> I am not able to guess an etymology from the Latin meaning "enough copper
> to fill an oxhide", to the English meaning, that is independent of Jesus's
> parable.
I don't know where you get that Latin etymology from. The word is not
Latin in origin, and had nothing to do with oxen or copper.

The Latin _talentum_ is borrowing from Greek _talanton_. It presumably
happened via the spoken language at an early date - and is not a
literary borrowing - as we see the /a/ in the second syllable weaken to
/e/ under the influence the initial stress of early Latin (In the
Classical period it would have been stressed on the second syllable).

The original meaning of the Greek _talanton_ was "a balance, a pair of
scales" <-- talant- "(to) swing, balance". And that meaning was still
occasionally found in the writing of Classical authors.

It came to designated anything weighed and, more specifically, to denote
a definite weight: a talent. In the works of Homer it is always used of
_gold_ in this sense. In post-Homeric writers it is used both of
commercial weight and of the sum of money, represented by a talent of
gold or a talent of silver (cf. the British 'pound' [money] which was
original a pound of silver in weight).

The Greeks, being Greeks, did not have a single standard; each
city-state had its own 'talent'. In the Hellenistic period, however, it
normally refers to the Attic talent of 60 minae (Greek: mnai). The
silver mina (mna) was the equivalent of 100 Roman denarii.

But, yes, the derived meaning of 'natural gift' etc is derived from the
parable.

--
Ray
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