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Month: December 2016
How did Greek language survive despite centuries of foreign domination?
For all that Greek was spoken in areas of foreign domination, It was the prestige and government language in the East Roman Empire—Latin never had a serious chance of displacing it. It was the acknowledged and prestige language of the Rum millet under the Ottomans—Turkish never had a serious chance of displacing it, except in […]
Why are OSV order languages so rare?
Brian Collins says: Those are the type of questions only a few people like Bob Dixon are willing to touch with a 17ft pole. Only Dixon, may his soul be blackened (or indeed blacklisted)? Surely not. Surely we haven’t run out of functionalists in Australia! Here’s a functionalist take, though it will have some holes […]
What is the relationship between Greek nationalism and the Greek Orthodox Church?
Before the Greek War of Independence: the Orthodox Church was hostile to nationalism. Nationalism was this newfangled, godless French thing that set the people against their god-appointed ruler. The Patriarchate was particularly outspoken against it, and described it as a heresy. That’s nationalism. Yes, you can say the Orthodox church helped preserve a notion of […]
How have English punctuation conventions changed over the centuries?
David Crystal’s recent book Making a Point has a rundown of the changes and a very clear framework for discussing them. I’m not going to do it justice, especially because I don’t remember every bit of it. But: There has been a tussle in the history of English punctuation from the invention of printing on, […]
Why are Greek cities so ugly?
As usual, there is a better answer than this answer. Vote #1 Yiannis Papadopoulos: Yiannis Papadopoulos’ answer to Why are Greek cities so ugly? Two factors that have to be added though: The deluge of refugees coming to Greece in 1924. Athens was a beautiful city in the 19th century, as you can tell if […]
Should I take that some Cypriot Greek speakers do call Pounds sterling as “λίρες εγγλέζικες” (English pounds) because the notes…?
Cypriots refer to English pounds, for the simple reason that colloquial Greek refers to English rather than British exclusively. Note that your phrase uses the colloquial εγγλέζικη, rather than the formal αγγλική for “English”. The formation of the United Kingdom never made much of a popular impression on Greeks. In fact even in more formal […]
How much of a text by Aristotle or Procopius would speakers of modern Greek get?
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0055 Nick, what are you doing responding to this question?! You’re a PhD in Greek linguistics, with 18 years of working at the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae! Yes, but I never did formally study Ancient Greek. And I know enough linguistics that I can filter out stuff about Ancient Greek that I’m not supposed to know. […]
How heated was the Greek Language Question?
https://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-biggest-enemies-of-Greek/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5/comment/27674526 If you don’t know about the Greek language question, look at the link: this won’t really make sense otherwise. Neeraj Mathur asked in comments to Nick Nicholas’ answer to Who were the biggest enemies of Greek? So in a sense, the Katharevousa partisans would have portrayed the Demotic advocates as the enemies of Greek […]
Who were the biggest enemies of Greek?
Originally asked: Who were the biggest enemies of Greek? Austin R. Justice writes in his excellent answer (Vote #1 Austin R. Justice’s answer to Who were the biggest enemies of Greek? ): I’m going to assume that you meant “enemies of the Greeks” or “of Greece.” Personally, I don’t know anyone opposed to the language! […]
Which language is older, Persian or Arabic?
Mehrdad, unlike the other respondents, I will disappoint you with a meta-answer. But it is the truer answer. There’s no such thing as an older language. Let me transpose the question to Iberia. People often say, “Woah, man, Basque is like, the oldest language in Europe, man! It’s like, as old as the Cro-Magnon!” That’s […]