April 30

3:25 Within minutes i got completely lost in the vast complexity of Ancient Greek and Latin trying to look again, on a suspicion for the origins of the words homo and human as we know them today.

In Romania those born in 1960 like me were the first not to be taught Latin, i guess in the 6th grade, as well as Russian. But still we learned French since 5th grade and English in HS where available.

They were times when Greek and Latin were the main objects of study in any type of schools, considered useless nowadays.

But then an example came to mind. Something i did hear in HS from my roommate, guru and mentor. Homo homini.  And another one i heard on TV or a church i guess. Ecce homo.

As for humanus. Simply no entry in some dictionaries. Human (Humain in French means human not humane) was first mentioned in French @1160, where it came from later in English. When Huns were already part of Europe and Catholic Church as a state for 160 years. St Dominic was born in 1170.

Homo as we know it was introduced in 20th century. The word in modern Greek and mainstream ancient dialects (we can only try to reconstruct pronunciation) is omo. Should have been omosexual?

And one more thing. Homo also overlaps home. For that reason only, writers, trend makers and dictionaries should have avoided this word.