In certain ancient traditions, storks were associated with kindness and family devotion. The Hebrew word for this leggy bird is chasidah, meaning “the kindly one,” from chesed, or “loving kindness.” Storks were also highly regarded in Greek and Roman culture. The Greek word for this bird, pelargos, gave rise to Greek antipelargia, meaning “reciprocal love between parents and children,” usually the love of adult children for their parents. The Pelargonia was a law in ancient Greek that required the care of one’s elderly parents; the Roman equivalent was the Lex Cicconia. The rare English word antipelargy refers to mutual love between parents and children. Greek pelargos also appears in the name of the flower pelargonium, so named for the beaklike shape of its seed pod, which is why it is also known as storksbill. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Storks Roosting in Our Language”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. I want to talk about an old word that deserves to be revived.
But in order to do that, I need to talk about storks, and specifically white storks in antiquity.
They had a really good reputation in a lot of cultures. The Hebrew word for stork is which means the kindly one. And it comes from the word hesed, which means loving kindness. So it’s a bird that does acts of kindness. And among the Greeks and Romans, storks were known for being especially affectionate with each other and nurturing with their young. And it was said that the young in turn would come back to the nest and support their parents when the parents got old.
And the Greeks and Romans believed that the young storks would pluck their own feathers to keep them warm and go hunt for them and bring them back food the way that their parents had done for them.
Isn’t that beautiful?
And maybe they thought that because storks tend to go back to the same nest again and again and they nurture their young for a particularly long time.
Anyway, the Greek word for stork is pelergos.
Oh.
Ding, ding, ding.
I think so.
Okay.
For a long time in ancient Greece, there was a law called the pelargonia, from the word for stork, that required the adult children to care for their parents.
And the Romans had a similar requirement, the lex kikonia, which meant stork law.
And there was also a word that eventually found its way into English, all the way from ancient Greek via French.
And that word that showed up in the 17th century is antipelargy.
A-N-T-I-P-E-L-A-R-G-Y.
Antipelargy, which means don’t abandon your parents?
Pretty much.
In a 1656 book of words, it says that antipelargy is the reciprocal love of children to their parents or, more generally, any requital or mutual kindness.
Isn’t that gorgeous?
That’s very wonderful.
Antipelargy.
Antipelargy.
Well, the reason I had an aha moment is that I recently took out some plants that weren’t thriving in front of my house.
Oh, I’m having an aha moment, too.
I dug up the plants, and I wanted something that would thrive in Southern California and not require a lot of upkeep and maybe put some scent in the air.
So I came across pelargoniums, which are also known as scented geraniums.
I installed the cinnamon one and the apple one, I think the chocolate one, and there’s like a whole bunch of these.
And they’re vaguely like, the lemon one is very limiting.
The cinnamon one’s close, but the apple one’s very far.
But they’re thriving.
They’re doing very well.
So I have four different kinds of pelargonium in front of my house now.
That’s the Latin genus name, and there’s all the different subspecies and species.
Pelargonium, which comes from the bill-shaped seed pod.
Oh, how about that?
It’s also called storksbill.
You know, never take on the woman who wrote the book about flower words.
She’s going to know it.
Yeah, you’ve got storksbill all over your yard.
And they’re beautiful, and they’re thriving.
They’re doing very well.
Yeah, and it comes from the Greek word for stork, but antipelagy is such a gorgeous word, you know, children looking after their parents.
And anti in that sense means sort of reciprocal or giving back.
Oh, I see. Gotcha.
Sort of like antiphonal music is going back and forth.
So there’s a mutuality there.
The world is complex. Language is interesting.
We’re doing a show about it. We want you to be a part of it.
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