14 Mar, 2011
Meme is considered to be a recently created word with particular usage in describing the cultural impact of the Internet in transmitting particular ideas. However, it has a much older relative that shows that it is a very old concept with a very old name.
According to Wikipedia, an Internet meme is:
… a catchphrase or concept that spreads rapidly from person to person via the Internet, largely through Internet-based email, blogs, forums, social networking sites and instant messaging.
A meme is an important concept for understanding and driving communications on the Internet. A meme can be carried by almost any electronic communication from viral videos or photos to chain e-mails or Facebook questionnaires. In marketing, Internet memes are essential in creating buzz for a product or service.
- Mnemosyne—a picture by the Pre-Raphaelite painter Rosetti
The word meme is generally claimed to have been coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. He used it to emphasize the similarity between the way genes are propagated biologically and the way ideas are propagated culturally. He explained his derivation as a shortening of the Greek word mimema, meaning something imitated.
However, although Dawkins can probably claim the first usage using this spelling, the word mneme appears first in English in 1921 as a translation from a German term relating to the memory of feelings. Later in the decade it was used to describe a concept similar to Dawkins’. This word, mneme, is a direct borrow from the Greek word mneme for memory. It relates to the English word, mnemonic to do with the mind and memory.
But long before English started borrowing from the Greek language, and before Dawkins claimed to have coined a word for the transmission of ideas, the Ancient Greeks revered a goddess of memory and remembrance called Mnemosyne (from the Greek for memory, remembrance). Ironically, Mnemosyne is now almost forgotten amongst the Greek gods and godesses. She was the mother of the Muses (the goddesses that inspired poets and musicians and promoted the arts and sciences) and she was attributed with inventing language and words. Before the introduction of writing, she preserved the stories that became history. It was her role to ensure the cultural transmission of ideas across the ages.
So Dawkins cannot be given credit for the concept of the meme because the Greeks had the concept epitomised in their goddess of memory, Mnemosyne. This forgotten goddess was the original carrier and protector of memes.
6 Mar, 2011
I thought it might be interesting to look at ogham as the word of the week. Ogham is a form of Celtic writing that was used in inscriptions from about 300 AD to 600 AD. It is formed using simple furrows across a line or an edge in stone to form the letters.
It has proved most interesting but after hours and hours of reading I have found myself struggling with too many disputed possibilities so I am going to apply Occam’s Razor (no more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary). It is undoubted that ogham was used as a secret language in post Roman Britain and because of this there is much folklore surrounding it. Understanding where the word, ogham, comes from is also difficult but may help substantiate the belief that ogham was a secret druid language.
Ogham is read from bottom to top from left to right. This is the ogham alphabet.
Ogham is known from about three hundred insciptions, found mostly in Ireland but also in Wales, Scotland and Cornwall. They are mostly grave markers. It is also explained in detail in several later manuscripts so there has never been any problem with translating the inscriptions.
Some scholars suggest that ogham was used as a secret sign language by the Druids after the Romans had invaded Britain and was only used in public inscriptions when the influence of the druids was in decline. There is an ogham inscription on a sandstsone slab on the Isle of Man, which reads Dovaidona Maqi Droat, meaning Dovaidona son of the druid!
The ogham alphabet uses between one and five lines scribed across an edge for its letters and this provides strong evidence that it was used as a secret sign language. In forming the letters of the sign language one, two, three, four or five fingers from the left or right hand were placed across a line on the body, to either side, accross or at an angle. There are references to cos-ogham (leg ogham) probably using the shin; sron-ogham (nose ogham) probably across the bridge of the nose; and a slightly different finger form.
Ogham is based either on Latin or Runic text. It did not arise independently as a text but was used as representation of a spoken language. The link to the druids comes because the inscriptions are found mainly in Ireland or places in mainland Britain not conquered by the Romans and in places of later Irish settlement. However another idea was that it was used by early Christians as a script or sign language that could not be understood by the pagans around them in late Roman Britain.
There are 100 variants of written ogham described in the Lebor Ogaim (The Book of Ogams also known as the Ogam Tract) an Old Irish book on the ogham alphabet.
The Ogham Tract
The magical, Druidic associations of ogham have been enhanced by the letters’ traditional links with the magical properties of trees. The first letter, Beith, from Old Irish, Beithe, represents the birch-tree, the Druid symbol for the Bards, and is the bringer of promise, light and new beginnings.
The origin of the name of the text, ogham, has had several suggestions. One idea suggests that it comes from the old Proto-Indo-European word ogmo for furrow or track, consistent with the way ogham is written. But this would suggest that ogham pre-dated Roman Britain, which is unlikely.
Another popular suggestion is that ogham got its name from the Celtic poet god, Ogma Grianainech (Ogma Sun Face) also known as Ogma Milbel (Ogma Honey-mouth), the god of eloquence, healing, fertility, and prophecy. It is he who is credited with inventing the ogham text.
Ogma, is the Celtic version of the Gaulish god, Ogmios. Ogmios, who wore a lion skin and carried a club was the Gaul’s equivalent to the Greek god, Herakles. But where Herakles was known for conquering his foes with strength, Ogmios, conquered his foes with eloquence. Symbolically, Ogmios is depicted as leading his willing followers with a golden thread from his tongue to their ears.
If ogham got its name from Ogma Sun Face, then it is more closely related to pre-Christian Celtic beliefs than it is to Christian symbols. So for me, I am happy to think that ogham is the secret alphabet of the druids, named after their god of eloquence, and to move on.
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