Archive:

Day: September 7, 2016

If is correct,what a Quoran wrote,that Ottomans saved Orthodox from Catholics,its not better to add,that they saved also antiquities of Greece,from the same people?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-07 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: History, Modern Greek

Well, let’s put it this way: I don’t know of many instances when the Ottomans destroyed Greek antiquities. I do know of instances when Catholics did. Including the bombing of the Parthenon by the Venetians, and that nutter French monk who went and leveled Sparta: Greek treasures destroyed and stolen by Michele Fourmont; Michel Fourmont. […]

I know nouns and verbs can have declension and conjugation, but is there something similar for adjectives and adverbs, in varying languages?

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Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

In languages where adjectives are inflected for case, number or gender, they are indeed considered to be declined. Note that the distinction between nouns and adjectives is not particularly old: it’s 18th century. In the traditional grammar I know, adverbs are considered indeclinable by definition. They don’t have number, case, or person. So they are […]

How do I join Latin and Greek base words to form a new word for a lover of jewelry?

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Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, English, Latin, Linguistics

As others have said: mixing Latin and Greek is no longer a problem; mixing English and Greek is not that much of a problem, as you can see in Category:English words suffixed with -phile I admit: I find brandophile, a lover of brands, and foodophile, horrible (foodophile? really?). And computerphile is way too close to […]

Do ancient languages have an equivalent word to “cool”?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-07 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

Do modern languages have an equivalent word to “cool”? Cool is a peculiarly Modern American artefact, celebrating at first emotional detachment, and then the chic of youth, and being up to date with fashion and other trends. The Esperanto rendering of cool (Mark A. Mandel’s answer to What is the word for “cool” in your […]