Lost words
Kleos (glory) and Time (with a diacritical mark over e) recurrent themes in epic poetry
Indo-European Phrase of the Week: “Undying Fame”
ON JANUARY 22, 2021 BY JENNIFER MUGRAGE
Occasionally comparative linguists are able not only to reconstruct individual words in Indo-European, but also whole phrases … Probably the most famous such phrase is *klewos ndghwhitom, “imperishable fame.” The most ancient texts in Indo-European languages, such as the Vedic hymns of ancient India, the Homeric epics, the Germanic sagas, and Old Irish praise-poetry, all demonstrate that the perpetuation of the fame of a warrior or king was of critical importance to early Indo-European society. The preservation of their fame was in the hands of poets, highly skilled and highly paid professionals, who acted both as the repositors and the transmitters of the society’s oral culture.
The phrase *klewos ndghwhitom, (where *klewos is a noun built on the root kleu-, “to hear,” and can be thought of literally as “what is heard about someone, reputation”) was reconstructed on the basis of the exact equation of Greek kleos aphthiton and Sanskrit sravah aksitam. …
Not surprisingly, “fame” is a recurring element in Indo-European personal names. The name of the Greek poet Sophocles meant “famed for wisdom”; the German name Ludwig means “famed in battle”; and the Czech name Bohuslav means “having the fame (glory) of God.”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/415905
Already in the nineteenth century Adalbert Kuhn suggested similariti cognate phrase, 'fame imperishable' (e.g. Homeric Greek kleos aphthito sravas iksitam). Despite much scholarly skepticism, Rtidiger Schmitt's issue established PIE *klewos *I.dhgwhitom 'fame imperishable' ( among other phrases, as a cornerstone of the hypothesis. Studies, follo Dum6zil, have now detailed the role of an IE poet's praise and satire in societal values. The poet's word was so potent that it could, by its truth shame a societal outcast to death (Ward 1973) as well as bring imperishab a society contrasts with one in which 'sticks and stones may break my bo will never hurt me'. W's formula, SLAY SERPENT, in which capital lett reconstructed meanings (signified), not forms (signifier), describes the ac IE hero wins 'imperishable fame'.
Philological analyses here of older IE texts as diverse as prayers, myt charms from Hittite, Indic, Old Persian, Greek, Italic, Old Italic, Irish, Old Germanic