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Day: May 29, 2017
What was the role of the Turkish language in the Balkan sprachbund? How was Turkish affected by it or how effected it?
All Balkan languages have borrowed substantial Turkish vocabulary, and all Balkan languages have borrowed some Turkish affixes. However, the Balkan Sprachbund is defined through the convergence of grammars, rather than just their borrowings from a common source. It is defined by shared morphological categories and syntactic constructions: a convergence such that, if you replace a […]
What do the Greeks think of the Pontic Greeks who converted to Islam?
Greeks in recent years have established contact with the Pontic-speaking Muslims of the Of Valley, who remained in Turkey after 1923. (Their autonym for the language, unsurprisingly, is Romeyka.) They are renowned as devout Muslims, prominent in Islamic learning. (One might ruefully speculate that they feel they have something to prove.) Any promotion of the […]
How do I say “I am proud to be a Sufi Muslim” in Koine Greek?
I trust, OP, you appreciate the… clashiness of your request. Even if Rumi actually did write some verses in Greek. I guess, καυχῶμαι μουσουλμάνος σουφιστὴς ὤν. You won’t find “Mussulman” in any Koine texts, but you certainly find the adjective in the 12th century. You won’t find “Sufi” in Byzantine Greek either, and Ottoman Greeks […]