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Day: April 30, 2016
In Greek, how do you say “tasty”?
νόστιμος, /nostimos/. The etymology (yes, that’s what I do) is odd. The primary meaning of nostos, the word that nostimos is derived from, is “return”: it’s the word for Odysseus’ return to Ithaca. Wheat gives a rich return on investment, so nostos also means the yield of ground grain. Hence the adjective means “abundant”, referring […]
I want to be a linguist focusing on conserving languages. Should I do it?
What my betters have said, with both the pros and cons from Don Grushkin’s answer. Be aware of the following constraints: Don’t get too caught up in what language you work on. A friend of mine came to Australia to write a grammar of an Aboriginal language, any Aboriginal language. There’s 20 healthy languages left, […]
Did the era of the ancient Greeks happened before the flood or during the biblical period and how long did their time last?
Without getting into the issue of how much of Genesis is historical and how much is wishful thinking: The Babylonian captivity, which can be independently verified from archaeology, was 580 to 530 BC. That’s when the Hebrew Scriptures as we know them were consolidated. Omri is the first independently verified King of Israel, and he […]