Ariel & VelvetRune
Hey, I was just reading about some ancient tablets found on a shipwreck off the coast of the Aegean. They’re in a mix of old Greek and Phoenician, and they talk about navigation and sea conditions. I’m curious—do you think the terminology they used can give us clues about how those sailors understood the ocean?
Sounds like a treasure trove for anyone who loves the way words shape perception. Old Greek and Phoenician had different ways of naming waves, currents, and weather—each term carries a worldview. If the tablets use specific words for swell, for example, and tie them to particular stars or winds, it tells us the sailors saw the sea as a network of predictable patterns rather than a chaotic force. The precision or ambiguity of the terminology can show whether they relied on empirical observation or on mythic explanations. So yes, a careful reading of those words can open a window into how they interpreted the ocean.
That’s exactly what I was thinking—those old words are like little clues in the tide. If they had a separate term for a particular swell that only happens when a certain star is up, it shows how closely they watched the sky and sea together. And if some currents have a name that feels almost mythical, maybe those sailors saw the ocean as a living thing with its own stories. I love tracing those linguistic footprints; it’s like following a hidden melody of the water.