Alala

Her name derives from the onomatopoeic Greek word ἀλαλή (alalḗ),[1] hence the verb ἀλαλάζω (alalázō), "to raise the war-cry".

[2] According to Pindar, Alala was the daughter of Polemos, the personification of war, and was characterised by the poet as "prelude to spears, to whom men offer a holy sacrifice of death on behalf of their city".

Alala is one of the attendants of Ares out on the battlefield,[citation needed] along with the rest of his entourage: Phobos and Deimos (his sons); Eris/Discordia, with the Androktasiai, Makhai, Hysminai, and the Phonoi (Eris' children); the Spartoi, and the Keres.

'lɑ/ was invented by Gabriele D'Annunzio in August 1917, using the Greek cry preceded by a Sardinian shout, in place of what he considered the barbaric 'Hip!

Later a young Polish sympathiser, Artur Maria Swinarski (1900–65), used the cry as the title of a collection of his poems in 1926.