The Origin of the word Daemon (2002)

http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Daemon.html

by trueduke • 8 years ago

148 46 8 years ago

ei.cs.vt.edu

Very interesting. Here in Spain some people wrongly translate it as "demonio" which means "demon". However people with more knowledge strongly disencourage saying it and recommend to say "daemon" even when probably near no one really knowing where it comes from. I like the word daemon though.

Checking the oxford dictionary I can see that demon and daemon are indeed related, and that it could theoretically be translated in the same way. I prefer to say daemon though.

dhimes• 8 years ago

When I first read the Maxwell thing it was explained as a demon. There was no doubt in my mind that daemon was just another spelling and pronunciation (day-mon) of that when I came across it later.

throwawaybz03• 8 years ago

Except really its correct pronunciation is “demon”, just like how archæology and æon aren’t pronounced any differently because of the ash (which British English still uses). It drives me up the wall to hear “day-mon”.

bluesmoon• 8 years ago

The jargon file describes the different usage of daemon, demon , and dragon: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/daemon.html as it pertains to computing.

jameshart• 8 years ago

There seems to be a common misunderstanding here.

'Daemon' is just an alternate spelling of 'demon'. It's pronounced the same, means the same thing, and is simply the same word. Just as 'encyclopaedia' and 'encyclopedia' are the same word, or 'mediaeval' and 'medieval' are the same word.

olavk• 8 years ago

Yes and no - they have the origin in the same word, but as the article point out the two spellings have acquired different connotations. So they are not exactly the same word anymore.

gerdesj• 8 years ago

Some pronounce daemon as "day-mon" ie with a long a, whereas I have always heard demon pronounced as "dee-mon".

The second syllable is also different and I don't know the formal notation. day-mn and deemun is the best I can do, where "-" indicates a longer transition from the y to mn (the m flows into the n).

emmelaich• 8 years ago

I like to pronounce it daymon if only to avoid inferences made by the uninitiated. De(e)mon does have the devilish scent.

Good story:

"Are you a Satanist?"

http://rmitz.org/freebsd.daemon.html

empath75• 8 years ago

To be pedantic, ae is a diphthong in Latin that sounds more like the ‘i’ in ‘fine’. It was definitely never pronounced with a long e in Latin. Even ‘demon’ in Latin would have been pronounced with a long a sound.

Kiro2• 8 years ago

I prefer to say daemon though.

They are pronounced the same way so not sure what you are referring to here.

Spivak• 8 years ago

Regardless of correctness this is how you will hear them pronounced.

daemon = day-mon

demom = dee-mon

dang• 8 years ago

From 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2691752

thwave• 8 years ago

A bit more about the etymology: δαίμων (daimon) in ancient greek is simply a god, or a divine spirit [1]. It appears earliest in the Iliad (1.222), and is probably related to the the root da: "from PIE dai-mon- "divider, provider" (of fortunes or destinies), from root *da- "to divide."[2]. Classical Latin trascribed it as daemon, because "ae" was pronounced "ai". Some years had passed, and Latin-speakers stated saying "e" instaed of "ai"[3], and writing "demon". English, as was mention in the article, borrowed the word twice, in both spellings.

I think that since there's a gap in the meaning and writing of the two words, we might as well pronounce them differently, and so I follow the Greek and say "dai-mon".

[1] LSJ Greek-English Lexicon: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... [2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/demon?ref=etymonline_crossre... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_spelling_and_pronunciati...

keeler• 8 years ago

What the answer doesn't explain about Socrates is that his daemon, according to his own telling, was constantly monitoring since childhood what he said and did, and would often warn him against saying and doing certain things.

In philosophy, it is often pronounced (and written) "daimon," after the Greek, to avoid confusion with demons in Christian mythology.

mirimir4• 8 years ago

Me, I wonder about the relationship between Hindu devas, which are benevolent, and Zoroastrian daevas, which are basically demons. And then there's the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda vs Hindu asuras, which are demonic.

It's like Zoroastrianism just reversed the Hindu categories. I get that there's been millennia of bad blood, but this seems rather extreme.

And software demons are generally benevolent, not demonic. So does the usage come from Hinduism?

Sniffnoy• 8 years ago

No, as mentioned it comes from Greek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(classical_mythology)

mirimir4• 8 years ago

Sure, but where did the Greeks get it from? According to the Wikipedia article, it came from the Proto-Indo-European word "*dai-mon". And they were considered benevolent, like Hindu devas. Unlike Roman, Zoroastrian and Christian demons.

twic3• 8 years ago

That doesn't mean it didn't come from Hinduism. The concept and word were in Greek when Homer was writing, around 800 - 700 BC, and Hinduism was coalescing around 1500 - 600 BC (it says on Wikipedia). Greek and Sanskrit are related languages, and the Greek word has a root in their common ancestor. We know there was cultural interchange between the Greek and Indian worlds. Indeed, it's probably a mistake to think of them as separate worlds; Europe and India seems quite distinct now, but there was a time when it was all just the fertile crescent and its hinterlands.

Admittedly, it's probably wrong to say it came from Hinduism per se. But it doesn't seem impossible that the Greek, Hindu, and Zoroastrian ideas are from the same root.

zerostar072• 8 years ago

the origin of the world daemon is a lot older than 2002

saagarjha• 8 years ago

Best I can tell based on my research, the word was first used by people on your team at Project MAC using the IBM 7094 in 1963.

caf• 8 years ago

The meaning of (2002) appended to an article title on HN is that the article was written / last significantly updated in 2002.

The Origin of the word Daemon (2002)

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