Thank you for your reply, Garry.
Of the Germanic languages, English is the one that changed the most. We can probably say that of all languages in the world English changed the most. To take English as the standard to understand how fast languages change would not be wise.
Greek is indeed part of the Indo-European language group, and there are some similarities among all these languages. That language group stretches from Western Europe to India.
One example is the word daughter that is pronounced in Dutch the exact same way as a word in Persian (Farsi). In Dutch it means daughter, in Persian it means girl. Clearly, these words are of the same origin.
Another fascinating word is the word milk. Words sounding like milk have been found in languages across the globe with meanings such as woman, breast, niece, suckling, indicating that all these languages had one origin.
It also means that picking Greek as the source is just as good as any one of these languages. The requirement is that it did not change as dramatically as English did.
But Plato also did not invent the word Atlantis. He wrote about it, declared it was about an enormously large area that existed 9,000 years before he lived, and it was located outside of the mediterranean area. So, the origin of the word would not likely have been Greek.
If you know languages (I speak five and can read ten), then you will also know that the philological technique you mention is an option to review languages, and while I love it, we are also talking art and not science. There is also no time component contained in this artful skill that goes back to an exact Millennium. The point I am making here is that we cannot end up with a spot where all evidence is fully conclusive. I am establishing a good attempt to translate the word. A variety of methods are available, and I am using one of them.
I am not saying that The Land of The Common Fields is the translation of Atlantis, or that The Land Ice is that translation, but I am saying that it is indeed possible to translate that word into one or both meanings, and that these meanings are indeed meaningful.
What supports the translation is that all words involved are ordinary words. One can very often translate a word for a group of people or for a geographical area into something rather obvious/simple.
What I like best of all, of course, is that the time period coincides with the End of the last Glacial Period and that the word Atlantis can still be understood without any further need to translate it as The Land Ice in some Germanic languages.
Dutch is recognized as the Germanic language that changed the least over time in that subgroup. In Dutch, when I say 'T Land IJs, I almost say Atlantis in an identical manner.
Next, looking at all other Germanic languages, the word land is found in all of them, an indication that land is a pretty sturdy word.
If you want to find evidence of an absolute nature, then you are out of luck. To undermine the possibility of what a word means in an absolute manner? You are then also out of luck.
Thank you again for your reply, Garry. I hope you liked the article.
