Originally Posted by RickyMaveety
Hmm .... just thinking about that .... biblioteca is library, but libro is book in Spanish. And, in English the library comes from Latin, but the "Bible" comes from the Greek, and I think "book" comes from the German.
Let's face it .... language is pretty much all over the damn place ... and always has been. I wonder if the reason that the word for library in so many of the otherwise Latin based languages comes Greek is because the first true great library was the one at Alexandria, which while technically an Egyptian city was actually built while the Ptolomaic pharaohs were ruling. They would have used the Greek word for books in naming or describing the building ... which was very well known to the Romans.
Just a thought .....
And, taking a minute or two to look at the Wiki about it .... "The Greek term "biblioteke", used by many historians of the time, refers in fact to the [royal] "Collection of Books" rather than to the building itself ..."
So, I think my little theory holds water ... at least in the Wonderful World of Wiki. So, the Greek rulers of post Alexandrian Egypt built a building to house the royal collection of books, and people started associating that term with the building, including the Romans, who as we all know had a pretty close association with Egypt during that period (think Caesar and Cleopatra), and so they took the term, now associated with the building, rather than the contents, and started using it.
This stuff is so much fun!! I mean that honestly.
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