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Oni2:META: Difference between revisions
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===Etymology=== | ===Etymology=== | ||
The Greek prefix is rarely used on its own (mostly in the context of Internet Technologies, where systems and languages are organized in a few layers of abstraction). Using it on its own gives it an absolute meaning, as it's "beyond ''everything''". Beyond influence, beyond | The Greek prefix is rarely used on its own (mostly in the context of Internet Technologies, where systems and languages are organized in a few layers of abstraction). Using it on its own gives it an absolute meaning, as it's "beyond ''everything''". Beyond influence, beyond understanding. Beyond Good and Evil. | ||
In Latin, "meta" is a noun, and means turning point, goal, end boundary, frontier (originally, the pyramidal posts at the end of a circus where the cart races were held). It's ironic how the Greek and Latin meanings are fundamentally opposed : the Latin "meta" introduces the notion of a limit (artificial or not), and the Greek "meta" discards the limits, widens the scope, etc. | In Latin, "meta" is a noun, and means turning point, goal, end, boundary, frontier (originally, the pyramidal posts at the end of a circus where the cart races were held). It's ironic how the Greek and Latin meanings are fundamentally opposed : the Latin "meta" introduces the notion of a limit (artificial or not), and the Greek "meta" discards the limits, widens the scope, etc. | ||
No native Japanese reading apparently exists... Katakana for ME and TA do exist (see images on the right). | |||
===Globality=== | ===Globality=== | ||
The four letters M E T A are shared by the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, and are pronounced the same, too (unlike e.g. "H", which is "n" in Cyrillic, "X" which is "kh" etc). Thus META is a universal word (the capitals are crucial, because small letters differ greatly between e.g. Cyrillic and Latin) : while the word "metaphor" is spelled and pronounced with slight variations in various European languages, the prefix META is a cultural invariant :) | The four letters M E T A are shared by the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, and are pronounced the same, too (unlike e.g. "H", which is "n" in Cyrillic, "X" which is "kh" etc). Thus META is a universal word (the capitals are crucial, because small letters differ greatly between e.g. Cyrillic and Latin) : while the word "metaphor" is spelled and pronounced with slight variations in various European languages, the prefix META is a cultural invariant :) | ||