echo

Did the nymph give us the word, or did the word give the nymph a name?

What do you notice?

English, a sound that comes back

echo

Greek: a returning sound

ἠχώ

Reconstructed

Reconstructed. We do not have a recording.

The sound had a name before the nymph had a story.

English echo names a sound that comes back. Greek already had that word.

Hear ēkhṓ. The nymph in the story is named from this sound.

Call into a stairwell, a cave, or across water. The returning sound is the old thing. The story of a nymph is a later picture of it.

You can stop here. The word already moved.

Go find a traveling word

The screen was the door.