The Odyssey problem?

Question

Does anyone here have a sensible explanation as to why Odysseus, a Greek of Ithaca, is able to freely converse with several different races of people, such as Alcinious the king when he is led to the palace by Nausikka who found him on the beach. Surely he coulndn't have learnt languages that fast, and that they could not all be Greek-speaking?
Also, why do many of the foreign races worship Greek gods? Surely they had little or no contact with Ithaca or Greece, except for the Phaecians who are sea-faring, and so it seems odd that Poseidon and Zeus are mentioned.
Similar thins happen in the Aeneid too. My theory is that both Aeneas and Odysseus are Trojan speakers, Aeneas because he is Trojan, Odysseus learning Trojan during the ten years of the Trojan War. The language of the Phaecians and also of Dido in the Aeneid, could be similar sounding and so both Aeneas and Odysseus could speak with them.

Answer 1

What we are talking about here is the oral tradition. These stories were old before Homer recited them, long before anyone wrote them down. The stories are older than distinctions as simple as 'Greek' and 'Phoenician'.

Interestingly, stories such as these are demonstrative of the way that ancient societies used to communicate with each other - these peoples would have been doing trade with each other for thousands of years, and possibly shared the same stories. Tales such as these are created by a human need for them. The Cinderella story has been found in the history of many cultures, long before they were supposedly in contact.

Interesting.

Answer 2

My goodness, what an intelligent question. You are more or less right, I think. The Trojan language at the time of the War against Agamemnon evolved out of the Phoenician, which had by then been developing for around 200 years in the form of a written, phonetic language. CADMUS is accredited with bringing the first writing into the western lands, and he was himself a member of the Trojan royal family, at the time of the 10 year siege. The Trojan diaspora which occured after the fall, circa 1275 bc, enabled the language to spread far and wide, sparking off new languages. The Trojan tongue was distinct from the early Greek tongues, which were certainly not uniform. ODDYSEUS was a scholar and a sort of diplomatic spy, so he had learned to speak the regional languages. You can find out more on this at my website www.thecreativeuniverse.org if you want to.

Answer 3

I think you'll find that Homer presumed that the world he was talking about spoke Greek- if you actually chart where Odysseus mainly went it was through areas that when Homer was alive actually did speak Greek. As to the sharing of Gods, looking at other Greek authors like Herodotus the Greeks often labelled other Gods by their own names- so for example the Egyptian God of learning Thoth became Hermes, or the Egyptian chief God Amen-Ra became Zeus and so on. As to Aeneas- even more so this is true again all the areas that Aeneas visited in the Aenied at the time of Virgil spoke Latin and Greek- he may well have presumed that Aeneas and the rest would have spoken Greek.

Furthermore I think you've neglected what these books are about- these books are about the story not the detail of how many oars on a boat- to read them like that is to misread them. You wouldn't ask in the Red Riding Hood story how the wolf talked and likewise in these tales- their importance is not their accuracy but their literary merit and how they reflect so much of importance about human life.

http://gracchii.blogspot.com

Answer 4

You have to remember that in the end the Odyssey is just a story written by a Greek person. Because of that, in the Odyssey everybody speaks Greek and the only gods around are the Greek ones. It's the same in modern day TV, no matter where the characters of a show end up, some one there will be speaking English.

Answer 5

It is sort of reasonable to suppose that people around the area Odysseus was travelling did speak Greek. e.g. the Southern part of what is now Italy was at one time known as Lesser Greece because the people from there spoke Greek and worshipped Greek Gods.
Also, according to Peter Jones' notes in my copy of the Odyssey (which I lost a few years back so I maybe wrong on who said it)the Land of the Phaeacians is possibly modern day Corfu (because of the "stone ship" in the harbour).
Ogygia (Calypso's island) is either Malta or Gozo and her grotto is also said to have been visited by St Paul who wrote letters to people in Corinth, so probably spoke Greek.
Failing that, I like Colleen McCollough's explanation in Song of Troy that Odysseus has a good ear for languages.

Answer 6

You have to remember that he does have various Gods helping him throughout the book.
Also, at the time, Ithaca was a major trading place, so people from many places would have come. Odysseus, as the king, would have been expected to be able to converse with many of the richer merchants.

Answer 7

well we can answer this question on two leval first is to point your fundermental mistake your treat both a historical documents oddessy was write about 750BC about event that happened 300 hundred years ago anerid was writen about 30BC about event well over thounsand years ago. So especially with later documents you have to treat is with massive pinch of salt note poltic nature iltaly virgil describe is that italy as rising rome ecountered not as it was at the time. As how it might have been oddesusius was very smart man and would probably be converant with several languages there could also have comman trade language in local mediterian area also possible a language of elite like latin in roman europe but remember stop treating these two poems like stict historical documents

Answer 8

What problem - you write about the yalta conference you say what stalin said to churchill in english because thats the tongue you are writing in you dont mention that they both used interpreters.
Anyway if the fable is based on history then to a certain extent the athenians were seafaring people themselves and were creating colonies round the eastern med from quite early times, greek was the lingua franca of the day.

Answer 9

And you suppose, perhaps, that the epopee would have had increased value if Homer would have depicted Odysseus at trying hard to communicate through gestures, pointing at things and all that?
And besides, the Odyssey is not exactly the kind of text from which you would expect historical accuracy.

Answer 10

I agree with kansomat, only everyone ends up speaking English with an American accent. didn't you know America won all the wars, including the Roman conquest of Britain, 1500 years before the USA was invented. apologies for the sarcasm, i must be in a bad mood today. seriously, hasn't any one ever heard of interpreters? or did you think that they were a twentieth century invention?