Author: Nick Nicholas

Website:
http://www.opoudjis.net
About this author:
Data analyst, Greek linguist

What is said at Greek funerals?

By: | Post date: 2017-04-27 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Modern Greek

Constantinos Kalampokis’ answer to What is said at Greek funerals? covers everything that happens at a funeral; but I’m assuming the question is particularly after what the condolence formula is. Both Greek and Turkish are notorious in linguistics for having a formulaic expression for just about every occasion; it’s part of good social behaviour that […]

What is the origin of the scientific name of the apple tree “malus”?

By: | Post date: 2017-04-27 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Latin, Linguistics

This has been answered already, I’ll just answer it more anecdotally. Indo-European has two words for apple, that show up in different daughter branches: *h₂ébōl shows up in Germanic (… apple), Celtic, Balto-Slavic, and probably Hittite šam(a)lu- ‘apple tree’ *méh₂lom shows up in Greek (Doric mālon, Attic mēlon), Latin (mālum), Albanian (mollë), and Hittite maḫla […]

What is written on the Library of Celsus and is it still readable easily for a modern average Greek?

By: | Post date: 2017-04-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics, Modern Greek

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Celsus Well, there’s a whole bunch of writing on the Library. In order of size: The four statues: ΣΟΦΙΑ ΚΕΛΣΟΥ, ΑΡΕΤΗ ΚΕΛΣΟΥ, ΕΝΝΟΙΑ ΚΕΛΣΟΥ, ΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΗ ΚΕΛΣΟΥ. “Wisdom of Celsus, Virtue of Celsus, Meaning of Celsus, Science [Knowledge] of Celsus”. False friend in “Science”, but no problem. The facade: I actually got this from a Google […]

What are some beautiful Greek names for a girl?

By: | Post date: 2017-04-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

I’m going to go all contrarian like Evangelos Lolos did. Way too much antiquity here. Special shoutout to John Salaris, who also went with two overtly modern names: Panagiota (Greek equivalent of Madonna), and Argyro “Silver”. Those names ending in –o are particularly delicious. If they aren’t truncations of other names (Βαγγελιώ < Evangeline, Βαλάντω […]

What was Clearchus’ tragic flaw?

By: | Post date: 2017-04-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Literature

Desmond, I have the highest of regard for you who have A2A’d me, and you have the highest of regard to me to have A2A’d me. The problem is, I don’t even know who Clearchus is. Yes, I am actually an impostor. But Wikipedia remedies that! So. Clearchus of Sparta – Wikipedia, and Battle of […]

What is the Latin translation of “Even the dead have not seen the end of war”?

By: | Post date: 2017-04-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Latin, Linguistics

Ne mortui quidem belli finem viderunt. Answered 2017-04-26 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-is-the-Latin-translation-of-Even-the-dead-have-not-seen-the-end-of-war/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

By what process(es) do complex inflection systems form in natural languages? What influences how they form?

By: | Post date: 2017-04-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

There are languages with clean, atomic, nuggety units of meaning as separate words: isolating languages like Chinese and (mostly) English. There are languages with suffixes as well as words, where those suffixes are still, for the most part, clean, atomic, easy to detect, and easy to take apart: agglutinative languages like Turkish. And then you […]

How did Byzantine Greeks regard ancient Greek civilization?

By: | Post date: 2017-04-24 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Culture, Mediaeval Greek

As a complement to Dimitra Triantafyllidou’s answer and Niko Vasileas’ answer: There was an undercurrent of resentment of the ancients and their pagan wisdom, but it remained an undercurrent. There’s the renowned hymn on the Pentecost by Romanos the Melodist, dismissing ancient learning with puns on the pagan scholars—and alas, a favourite of the Greek […]

What is the word for the thief in the every day language of your country and in the New Testament?

By: | Post date: 2017-04-24 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Mediaeval Greek, Modern Greek

Ancient Greek made a distinction between thieves and robbers: kleptēs vs lēistēs or harpax. Both kleptēs and lēistēs are used in the New Testament; the men crucified with Jesus were lēistai. The Modern Greek vernacular had lost the word lēistēs, and had kept the word kleptēs (as kleftis) to refer to both thieves and robbers. […]

What is the origin of the terms “Bourazeris” and “Vlamis”, obsolete from the 21st century Greek language?

By: | Post date: 2017-04-23 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

The Triantafyllidis dictionary is online: βλάμης [vlamis] “blood brother” < Albanian vlam: Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής. Obsolete, but certainly familiar from rebetiko and later songs. The 1951 song Παλαμάκια is probably the best known instance of the word—or rather, of its feminine vlamissa: μπουραζέρης [burazeris], variant μπραζέρης [brazeris], was not familiar to me, and is […]

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