The origin of the ancient Greek word "thalassa" meaning "sea" has always been a mystery. The only thing we can be sure of is that, due to the dialectical peculiarities of the Greek language, the word exists in two spelling variants: "thalassa" and "talatta". The variant "talatta" is well known.
But "talatta" with a fair degree of certainty contains the Kartvelian suffix "-at", which isoften found in Greek toponyms, turning "talatta" into "place of "tal(i)". If so, then we must establish whether the root "tal" in the Kartvelian languages has any relation to the sea.
The search did not take long. In Chanturia's dictionary, this root is present in two words: "ტალა" [tala] and "ტალი" [tali]. Both, among other things, mean "aromatic salts". While salt is associated with the sea first and foremost. It is enough to recall the Georgian word "marili" ("salt"), from which the Latin "mar" and the Slavic "sea" are likely to have originated.
Thus, we have the right to assume that "talatta" (more precisely, "talati") means "place of salt", which is what "sea" is.
The final chord is the possible origin of the words "salt", "sal" and "sol" from "tal" due to the same alternation between "t" and "s" in Greek dialects.
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