Timeline for What is the etymology and origin of the name of Dido's sister Anna?
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9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 25 at 23:17 | comment | added | Cerberus♦ | Random thought: perhaps Anna was taken by Virgil from some story in Greek literature (about a Punic women) now lost to us, while Hannibal and Hanno were directly taken from Punic by the Romans? | |
| May 8, 2018 at 2:05 | vote | accept | Cerberus♦ | ||
| Jan 23, 2018 at 4:18 | comment | added | Penelope | Sorry, I just found this: Josephus writes Hannah as Ἄννα, with smooth breathing. This could explain Anna in Latin but doesn't explain Hannibal! | |
| Jan 23, 2018 at 4:10 | comment | added | Penelope | @Cerberus (last one, I promise!) But why does the H drop off of Anna and not Hannibal, in Latin? This perplexes me. The ḥ in ḥnn is a guttural which we would expect to be transliterated as an aspirate H. Strangely, in Greek sources, Hannibal and Hanno are Ἀννίβας and Ἄννων respectively, with smooth breathing. | |
| Jan 23, 2018 at 4:09 | comment | added | Penelope | @Cerberus Factors in favour of Anna being Semitic in origin include: Augustine uses Anna for Hannah; Anna, in Virgil, is a Phoenician so why wouldn’t she have a Punic name? To this end, Hannibal and Hanno are both unreservedly Punic names and the similarity with Hannah is obvious. And indeed, they do all share the Semitic root ḥnn – to be(come) gracious (see: ahdictionary.com/word/semitic.html#%E1%B8%A5dd ) So, culturally and linguistically, it is entirely feasible that Anna is Hannah. | |
| Jan 23, 2018 at 4:07 | comment | added | Penelope | @Cerberus Yes, I think there is definitely a hint of folk etymology here too! I keep coming back to this question because I feel I’m missing something. My thoughts, in brief: factors in favour of Anna not being Punic/Semitic are the following: the name Dido isn’t Punic (her Punic name is Elissa) so perhaps neither is Anna; the absence of an H, when Hannibal is always spelt with one in Latin, could suggest that Anna is a complete name, in of itself; the apparent evidence of Anna Perenna as a deity indigenous to Italy, with a not-too-fantastical etymological link to annus / annare. Yet ... | |
| Jan 23, 2018 at 1:58 | comment | added | Cerberus♦ | Great connection with Ovid's Fasti! So Ovid explicitly links Dido's sister with Anna Perenna, I had no idea. I get a feeling, though, that this might be folk etymology, as it was not uncommon in Antiquity. Ovid might have found it a pleasant idea to link the two women even though one was Semitic (Punic) and the other Latin (from annus) or from some other language (it is possible that a mythical woman had been connected by folk etymology to annus as well, whence Anna Perenna). | |
| Jan 21, 2018 at 22:46 | history | edited | Penelope | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 11 characters in body
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| Jan 21, 2018 at 6:57 | history | answered | Penelope | CC BY-SA 3.0 |