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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Roman Collector, post: 7833877, member: 75937&quot;]Indeed, the Greek ἱστορία has a broad semantic range, but the closest word in English I can think of is <i>inquiry</i>, which fits well with your translation as <i>research</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>***I&#039;m going to switch from the Greek alphabet now to transliterating into Roman characters to make it easier for everyone.***</p><p><br /></p><p>What I find fascinating is that it stems from the root <i>hist-</i>. This root broadly refers to anything set upright, such as a mast (<i>histos</i>) on a ship or the beam on a loom (also <i>histos</i>). From this basic sense, there arise such cognates as histodoke (mast-holder), histophoros (bearing a mast), and histokeraia (sail-yard) in the nautical sphere. In the context of weaving, we have histononos (working at the loom), histotonos (stretched at the loom), histourgeo (to work at the loom, to weave), histourgia (weaving) and histourgos (a weaver).</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, imagine an inquiry or writing as <i>weaving</i> a narrative. We have historiographia (writing history), historema (narrative, tale), historeo (to inquire into, to research) and the cognate adjective historikos (exact, precise, scientific).</p><p><br /></p><p>Research and writing about the findings is like weaving a narrative. Compare the Latin-derived English words <i>text</i> and <i>textile</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Fascinating stuff, this philology.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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