A lot of bull about Europe

The international news scene is strongly dominated by the financial problems of Europe, which we are told will become the problem of all of us, no matter how far removed we are from the land where the sun sets, if they do not manage to sort it out. Whether this is true or bulldust is hard to tell bat there is plenty of bull associated with Europe.

The bull-connection already starts with the origin of the name of the continent way back in antiquity.

Truth is that there is no above-all-doubt-answer to the question of the origin of the name. There are however two theories or speculations, if you want, that are presented as the strongest contenders.

The first one suggests that the name has Semitic roots in the Akkadian word  erebu which means to set or go down, or the Hebrew erebus meaning darkness, or the Phoenician word ereb, which can either mean evening or west.

Now keep in mind that if you were living in the Middle East the sun will be setting for you over what became known as Europe.

For me there is plenty of logic in that explanation especially if you add the fact that some speculation has it that Asia got its name from the Semitic word asu (also Akkadian) which means sunrise.

But according to the majority of the language experts the phonological match between Europe and the Semitic words is too weak. They look for an explanation elsewhere.

In Greek mythology Europa was a Phoenician princess and one of the daughters of primordial Oceanus and Tethys. She was abducted by the god Zeus who took on the form of a magnificent white bull for this particular conquest.

This particular story originated in Crete, where Zeus was said to have taken her and where she gave birth to Minos, Rhaqdamanthus and Sarpedon. I could not find sources that explain clearly how the transition took place. They just state that “later Europa stood for central-north Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to the land to the north.

The etymology of the original name Europa is also not quite certain, the most plausible explanation being that it derived from the Greek word euru meaning wide and opslop meaning eye -- Europa then meaning wide-gazing.

Some more bull

Most of Europe’s history, however you see its boundaries, has for most of its existence been one of extreme turbulence and destructive wars – even though it has also given the world the content of most of what is today regarded as “modern civilisation”.

After World War II the continent seemed to have taken a turn for the better and most of its countries came together in a political and economic cooperation  known as the European Union (EU) and some of them became  even more intimately knitted together in a currency union, known as the euro zone.

And then came the sovereign debt crisis. Some experts argue that the only way out of the trouble is to break up the euro zone, with the EU likely to follow. Others argue equally strongly that what is needed is not less, but rather more Europe – in other words there should be more integration and less sovereignty for the individual states.

But, all of a sudden the Zeus-bull is back – this time under the name Dilemma. In maybe a less benevolent mood, the leaders of Europe are poised on the horns of a dilemma.

The word dilemma also comes from the Greeks, with di meaning two and lemma meaning an assumption or premise. The expression laterally means that a person is faced with no-win choices. Whichever way it goes you are going to end up on one of the dangerous horns of the bull.

It would seem that when it comes to Europe, there is just no end to the bull …..

Piet Coetzer