Isidore of Seville and his Etymologiae (7th c. AD)

Language Log 2025-11-25

Tomorrow I will be delivering the keynote address to the international conference on "China and Greece. Ancient Ecumenisms in the Mirror", to be held at the Dipartimento Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo (DAAM) of Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale" in late November (actually tomorrow, Tuesday the 25th; here's the zoom link for my talk at 9:30 AM EST).

In preparing for my lecture on "Isidore of Seville and the medieval concept of the ecumene", I was delighted to learn more about this remarkable man. Isidorus Hispalensis, who lived from ca. 560-636. was a Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian, and the archbishop of Seville. During his lifetime, he was active in the politico-religious affairs of Iberia, including most prominently the conversion of the Visigothic kings to Chalcedonian Christianity. After his death, Isidore's legacy was based largely on his celebrated Etymologiae, an encyclopedia that brought together extracts of works from classical antiquity that would otherwise have been lost.

Another notable contribution of Isidore's Etymologiae is that it helped to standardize the use of punctuation marks — period, comma, and colon.

Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae does not provide a specific entry for the term "ecumene" (oikouméne) in the way one might expect a modern dictionary to, but his work explains the world geographically and includes a T-O map that divides the world into the three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. The book defines "oikouméne" by describing the inhabited world as divided among the sons of Noah, a concept found in his work

A T and O map or O–T or T–O map (orbis terrarum, orb or circle of the lands; with the letter T inside an O), also known as an Isidoran map, is a type of early world map that represents the Afro-Eurasian landmass as a circle (= O) divided into three parts by a T-shaped combination of the Mediterranean sea, the river Tanais (Don) and the Nile.The origins of this diagram are contested, with some scholars hypothesizing an origin in Roman or late antiquity, while others consider it to have originated in 7th or early-8th century Spain.

This T and O map, from the first printed version of Isidore's Etymologiae, identifies the three known continents as populated by descendants of Sem (Shem), Iafeth (Japheth) and Cham (Ham).

(Wikipedia)

Selected readings

"Lhomond" (6/6/15) — this comment
"Anamnesis" (10/27/18) — this comment ("patron saint of unreliable information found on the internet")

[Thanks to Joe Farrell and Ralph Rosen]