| Hmmm, I have a strange sense of deja vu in replying to this comment. There is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tekt%C5%8Dn which broadly supports your first paragraph. On the other hand, in architecture, tectonics is usually contrasted with stereotomics. Tectonics is concerned with framing, stereotomy with compressive masses. The former is paradigmatically a branch of carpentry, the latter part of stone-masonry. This is how the words are used in architectural history. See e.g. https://www.campobaeza.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/1996_0... I'm an architectural historian, so I tend to care most about the way the term tectonics functions within architectural discourse. But I think I would translate tecton as carpenter anyway, because of the strong older biblical tradition of doing so, and (independently) the etymology of the word. '* teks-
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to weave," also "to fabricate," especially with an ax," also "to make wicker or wattle fabric for (mud-covered) house walls."' https://www.etymonline.com/word/*teks-?ref=etymonline_crossr... NB the distinction in German between Wand and Mauer. Both mean "wall", but Wand corresponds to the light, woven wattle partition, while Mauer is associated with massive masonry. One thing that would convince me to drop the architectural association of tectonics with carpentry would be a classical Greek text describing fortifications or other heavy stone masses being built by people referred to as "tecton", since that scenario would strongly suggest that they were not carpenters. The revisionist biblical concerns mentioned on the Wikipedia page seem less relevant to the connotations of the Greek word—they have more to do with recovering the connotations of the text in its original language, before translation to classical Greek. |
The wikipedia page you link favours the "wood-worker" translation, so you are probably right and I'm wrong, but I have to say that Greek _is_ my language and "τέκτων" just doesn't sound anything like "wood-worker" to me. It's probably just my modern ears. Thanks for correcting me and apologies for opining on something I don't understand that well after all (the etymology of the word).