Hellas

From Ancient Greek Ἑλλάς (Hellás, “Greece”), from Ἕλλην (Héllēn), most probably a derivation of Ἑλλοί (Helloí) or Σελλοί (Selloí), the Greek inhabitants of the area around the sanctuary of Dodona (Δωδώνη (Dōdṓnē), possibly from the same root as σελήνη (selḗnē), namely from Proto-Hellenic *selas-nā, whence also σέλας (sélas) (or possibly Pre-Greek).

sέλας possibly from Proto-Indo-European *swelō (“dazzling light, a glare”), thus cognate with Old English swelan (“to burn, be burnt up, inflame”) and English sweal from Proto-West Germanic *swelan, Sanskrit सुरति (surati, “to gleam”), Lithuanian svilti (“to singe”), or Pre-Greek.

• Rhymes: -ɛləs

Hellas

1. Greece; (specifically) Ancient Greece.
   • 1999, Sean McMeekin, "The Place that Launched a Thousand Ships", Literary Review, March:

     Modern Greece would not be Byzantium reborn. Rather, it was an imagined nation conjured up from ancient Hellas.

• Helladic

Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN

• as hell

Hellas f

1. Hellas (Greece, especially Ancient Greece)

   Synonym: Helada

• See Helén

• Hellas in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
• Hellas in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989

Directly borrowed from Greek Ελλάς (Ellás, “Greece”), possibly being influenced by Ancient Greek Ἑλλάς (Hellás, “Greece”), in 1932 to replace the Danish loanword and German cognate Grekenland as part of a trend to adopt endonyms as Norway was nation-building during the early 20th century and as a compromise during the early stages of the Norwegian language conflict, with Nynorsk and Samnorsk advocates rejecting the existing name and Grekerland, a calque of Swedish Grekland, only working in Bokmål (where Greek is greker, being grekar instead in Nynorsk). In the 1970s, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry attempted to reverse the name change to be more similar to other European countries. Although this movement gained enough momentum to make it to the Language Council of Norway, it was rejected by a majority of the Council.[1]

Hellas n

1. Greece

• gammelgresk
• greker
• gresk
• hellener
• hellensk

• Greeklish

See #Etymology_2.

Hellas n

1. Greece

• grekar
• gresk
• hellenar
• hellensk