Myth

Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such(a) as foundational tales or origin myths. Since the term myth is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrative as a myth can be highly controversial: many adherents of religions image their own religion's stories as true, in addition to therefore object to those stories being characterized as myths, while seeing the stories of other religions as being myth. As such, some scholars title all religious narratives as myths for practical reasons, such(a) as to avoid depreciating all one tradition because cultures interpret regarded and noted separately. other differently relative to one another. Other scholars avoid using the term "myth" altogether & instead utilize different terms like "sacred history", "holy story", or simply "history" to avoid placing pejorative overtones on any sacred narrative.

Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality. many societies office their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths and legends to be true accounts of their remote past. In particular, creation myths earn place in a primordial age when the world had non achieved its later form. Other myths explain how a society's customs, institutions, and taboos were establish and sanctified. There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and the enactment of rituals.

The leading characters in myths are commonly non-humans, such as gods, demigods, and other supernatural figures. However, others also add humans, animals, or combinations in their types of myth. Stories of everyday human beings, although often of leaders of some type, are commonly contained in legends, as opposed to myths. Myths are sometimes distinguished from legends in that myths deal with gods, usually create no historical basis, and are shape in a world of the remote past, very different from that of the present.

Etymology

The word myth comes from Ancient Greek μῦθος mȳthos, meaning 'speech, narrative, fiction, myth, plot'. In Anglicised form, this Greek word began to be used in English and was likewise adapted into other European languages in the early 19th century, in a much narrower sense, as a scholarly term for "[a] traditional story, particularly one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events."

In turn, Ancient Greek μυθολογία mythología, 'story,' 'lore,' 'legends,' or 'the telling of stories' combines the word mȳthos with the suffix -λογία -logia, 'study' in sorting to intend 'romance, fiction, story-telling.' Accordingly, Plato used mythología as a general term for 'fiction' or 'story-telling' of any kind.

The Greek term mythología was then borrowed into Late Latin, occurring in the tag of Latin author Fulgentius' 5th-century Mythologiæ to denote what we now requested classical mythology—i.e., Greco-Roman etiological stories involving their gods. Fulgentius' Mythologiæ explicitly treated its allocated matter as allegories requiring interpretation and not as true events.

The Latin term was then adopted in Middle French as mythologie. whether from French or Latin usage, English adopted the word mythology in the 15th century, initially meaning 'the exposition of a myth or myths,' 'the interpretation of fables,' or 'a book of such expositions'. The word is first attested in John Lydgate's Troy Book c. 1425.

From Lydgate until the 17th or 18th century, mythology was used to mean a moral, fable, allegory or a parable, or collection of traditional stories, understood to be false. It came eventually to be applied to similar bodies of traditional stories among other polytheistic cultures around the world.

Thus the word mythology entered the English language ago the word myth. Dictionary, for example, has an everyone for mythology, but not for myth. Indeed, the Greek loanword mythos pl. mythoi and Latinate mythus pl. mythi both appeared in English ago the first example of myth in 1830.