FORVM`s Classical Numismatics Discussion Board
Numismatic and History Discussion Forums => Ancient Coin Forum => Topic started by: esnible on January 21, 2010, 01:53:00 pm
-
I thought the word 'triskeles' was singular and I was surprised to find out that Wikipedia and Wiktionary think the singular is 'triskele'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskelion#Spiral_triskele
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskele
This symbol is frequent on coins, such as https://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp?param=82368q00.jpg&vpar=68&zpg=39928&fld=https://www.forumancientcoins.com/Coins2/
The online Merriam-Webster dictionary seems to agree: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/triskele
-
Hmm, interesting.
-
I know that in the Greek language you can sometimes pronounce a word with an "s" at the end without it becoming a plural form. For simple example, my name in greek, Mihali, can also be pronounced Mihalis. Or lets say dog, skilo, can be pronounced or spelt skilos, while still being singular.
-
Mihali,
I was going to say the same thing. The name example is a very good one. Dino/Dinos. Niko/Nikos. etc.
-
I use triskeles as singular and for my sprachgefühl (feel for language) the plural is triskeleis. This I have read too in older scientific literature.
Best regards
-
Interesting. Historia Numorum uses triskeles as singular (for example, here: http://www.snible.org/coins/hn/lycia.html ). Perhaps tomorrow I can check in the O.E.D. at the library.
The reason I stumbled across the Wiktionary and Wikipedia entries was because I was trying to figure out the Italian word for 'triskeles' so that I could search Italian eBay for ancient coins and modern tokens with it. (There is a triskeles on the flag of Sicily [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Sicily ] and I have some unidentified modern medalets with this image.)
-
This strikes me as another example of what we see with trousers, pants, breeches and any other item of clothing made to accommodate a pair of legs. Triskeles is in itself necessarily a set of three so falls into the collective category where you can't have a single. If you spill something on only the right side of your leg attire do you say, "I stained my pant!"? Children ride one tricycle but they never wear a solo pant.
-
I'm not so sure that analogy works, Doug. A more analogous example might be a tripod. It's singular and like a triskeles has three legs . You can also say, either I broke my tripod or one leg of my tripod and the plural is tripods.
-
Both the O.E.D and the Random House Unabridged list triskele as singular with no plural indicated. The Random House dictionary also has triskelion, with plural triskelia.
-
well Star Trek suggests that Triskeles is singular, so that ends it!
~ Peter
-
Jochen and I are both glad that somene, if only the writers at Star Wars, had some Sprachgefühl.
Tri-skelês, neuter in -es, is in ancient Greek, first, an adjective. We have only upper case :Greek_Tau: :Greek_Rho: :Greek_Iota: :GreeK_Sigma: :Greek_Kappa: :Greek_epsilon: :Greek_Lambda: :Greek_Eta: :GreeK_Sigma:.
If its prime form were a noun, I would be sure that Jochen was right, but since it is an adjective one would form the plural with whatever noun-gender was expressed or understood.
Like most I-E adjectives, it freely became a substantive, as, in Latin, boni are good men, and bona are good things.
As a substantive it denotes that shield device formed of three bent legs, making a sort of whirligig expressive of running, I think. It probably has appeared here because we had that little silver fraction with what was hard for many to see as a bent leg, but which perhaps means a third of a perhaps a tritemorion, one bent leg being a third of three (I may be disgracing myself on the language of Greek fractions) or diobol and a third of a drachm?
Anyhow, -skel- as in skeleton.
Pat L.
-
I just use triskelion. Saves trouble.
I wonder: what say the Manx, or the Sicilians, or the Wiccans (some of them, anyway), or the Bretons, or those naughty whip wielding folks in leather, or any of the others who use this symbol as an integral part of their identity?
-
Patricia, when in the presence of 'Nerds' mixing up Star Wars and Star Trek can be very serious!
-
When adjectives or descriptive phrases are turned into nouns, their form can easily be misleading. In English, if you call something "a threelegs" it is a singular object that has three legs. The legs are plural, the object is not. I would not be surprised to find this making for odd forms in other langages, too.
Bill
-
The modern use 'Triskeles' can be seen as a plurale tantum. Here: one object named by its three parts. The Greek origins have lost their grip on the word imo.
Frans
-
The Merriam-Webster dictionary entry for triskelion says it's from the Greek "triskelēs", and gives a reference to the word "isosceles", "from Greek isoskelēs, from is- + skelos leg"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/triskele
Isosceles is an adjective ("isosceles triangle") and thus neither singular nor plural.
Maybe "triskeles" entomology is that it was borrowed from the Greek twice, once by numismatists to describe coins and once by non-numismatists to describe the symbol used on the Isle of Man?
-
The Italian word for triskeles is "triscele", also known as "triquetra" in heraldry. In its Sicilian form it has a Gorgon's head in the middle, in common understanding the symbol points to the island's triangular form with a cape at each tip (Peloro, Pachino, Lilibeo). For the same reason the island is sometimes dubbed "la Trinacria" (no translation needed for those who have a minimal understanding of Greek), a name which is sometimes improperly used for the symbol itself.
Regards, P. :)
-
but a triskeles and a triquetra are two different symbols, the former meaning "three legs" (roughly), the latter meaning "three corners" (see image below).
i have always associated the triskeles more with the swastika, that is a rotating or cyclical symbol, possibly representing the seasons or the elements.
the triquetra is more of a unity symbol, and has even been used to symbolise the Trinity.
~ Peter
-
A triskelion.
(This coin photo has been modified in Photoshop.)
-
In his later years Edward Steichen, the photographer, had a rescued dog that had lost one hind leg, and he named it Tripod (naturally).
I wish I'd thought of isosceles as the perfect analog to triskeles.
Pat
-
A triskelion.
(This coin photo has been modified in Photoshop.)
Very funny!
-
Now I get it, and can stop staring at moonmoth's coin! "Lion," for God's sake. :-[ George S.
-
Confession: it took me that long to get it, too. I couldn't disassociate the Greek diminutive ending (or the prefix, tri-, for that matter) so as to see "lion", especially since the -s- and the -l- both belong to the stem, 'skel-'.
I got the visual joke of removing one leg in Photoshop, but until you guys "got it" it was just a three-legged tetrapod / quadruped to me! So I just remembered Steichen's dog, tri-pod, and remembered how convenient it is to turn things neuter by using an -ion diminutive in Greek as with -chen in German!
We all have our own problems.
Pat L.
-
Well, sorry about that, but I had an image of a three-leg-lion and I wanted to share it .. anyway, ions are difficult to draw.
From the same mind that contains this scalene triangle.
-
it must be lots of fun in your brain man.
~ Peter
-
a triskeles and a triquetra are two different symbols, the former meaning "three legs" (roughly), the latter meaning "three corners" (see image below).
Yes, quite correct. I'd rather write that the second term is sometimes used improperly as a synonim. Never accept wiki information without proof-reading ;)
-
Never accept wiki information without proof-reading ;)
SO true!
I find errors in Wikipedia articles on such a regular basis that it has become a source of amusement for me to look for them.
What is NOT amusing is how dependent people are becoming on this convenient but notoriously unreliable source of information, particularly younger people, many of whom actually believe that looking something up on there is doing research.