ἅλς

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /háls/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈals/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈals/^[1]

Forms

ᾰ̔́λς (háls) m (genitive ᾰ̔λός); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *hā́ls, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *sḗh₂l (“salt”).^[1] It is an old word kept in most Indo-European languages.^[2][3] The traditional reconstruction is *sal-; the Leiden school sets up a noun in /l/ instead, to avoid a Proto-Indo-European /a/.^[3] Mycenaean has Mycenaean Greek o-pi-a₂-ra, read /opi-hala/ “coastal regions”.^[4]

Cognate with Latin sāl (“salt”), Old Armenian աղ (ał, “salt”), Latvian sāls (“salt”), Old Church Slavonic соль (solĭ, “salt”) and Tocharian B sālyiye (“salt”).^[2][1] Germanic has a form with /d/, Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌻𐍄 (salt, “salt”).^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Mycenaean compound already contains it.^[4] Homer has it for salt, “he sprinkled divine salt” (Iliad 9.214), and as a feminine noun for the sea, from the first book of the Iliad (“into the bright sea”, 1.141).^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

As a feminine it is a poetic word for the sea, generally the shallow water near the shore.^[5] Beekes suggests it followed θάλασσα (thálassa) or was a collective.^[5][4] As a masculine it is salt, usually in the plural, and Herodotus speaks of salt mines and lumps of rock salt.^[5][7] Salt was the cheapest household thing: “you would not even give salt” (Odyssey 17.455) was said of a miser.^[7][5] It was also a token of hospitality and comradeship (Archilochus, Aeschines, Demosthenes, Aristotle), and figuratively wit.^[7][1]

From Aristotle on a neuter ἅλας (hálas) was formed from the accusative plural; the New Testament uses it of the disciples as the salt of the earth.^[4][7] The diminutive ἁλάτιον (halátion), Byzantine ἁλάτιν, became Modern Greek αλάτι, and άλας survives as a learned word.^[1] English halo- comes from it.^[8]

Timeline

• Mycenaean – A Linear B compound means “coastal regions”.^[4]
• Homer – The Iliad uses it for salt and for the sea.^[5][6]
• 7th century BC – Archilochus uses it as a symbol of comradeship.^[7][9]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus describes salt mines.^[5][9]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses the neuter ἅλας.^[4][9]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament calls the disciples salt.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (masculine) Salt;^[5] (plural) grains of salt, salt deposits.^[5][7]
2. (figurative) Hospitality, comradeship; wit.^[7][1]
3. (feminine, poetic) The sea.^[5][7]
4. Brine.^[1]

Word family

• ἅλας (hálas)
• ἅλινος (hálinos)
• ἁλίζω (hālízō)

Related words

• Latin sāl
• English salt
• English halo-

Usage notes

LSJ treats the two genders as two entries, ἅλς (A) “salt” and ἅλς (B) “sea”, but notes that both come from the same word.^[5][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
3. ^ a b Heggarty, Paul, et al. (2023), Indo-European Cognate Relationships (IE-CoR), Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, https://iecor.clld.org
4. ^ a b c d e f g Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge