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What was the status of black people in the Roman Empire?
I would like to take the opportunity afforded by this question, to translate the epigraph to Ptolemy’s Geography, which is included in the new edition. It might be Byzantine rather than Roman, but for these purposes, Byzantine can serve for Roman. And it illustrates that Romans looked down on all foreigners, not just ones with different-coloured skin.
Ἐν γραμμαῖς τὸν κόσμον ἀριθμηθέντα νόησον·
ἄρκτους, Ὠκεανόν, δύσιν, ἀντολίην τε νότον τε,
χεῖμα, θέρος, φυσικάς τ’ ἀτραποὺς σκολιάς τε κελεύθους,
Αἰθίοπάς τ’ ἀδρανεῖς, Γερμανῶν δύσμορα φῦλα,
Σαυρομάτας χοίροισιν ἐοικότας ἠδὲ καὶ αὐτῆς
αἰνομόρου Σκυθίας χαλεπὸν γένος ἄχρις ἐς ἠῶ,
Ἰνδῶν τε Σηρῶν τε· τὸ γὰρ πέρας ἀντολίης γῆς.Here comprehend the world numbered in lines:
north, Ocean, west, east, south; summer and winter;
the roads of nature and the crooked pathways;
the idle Ethiops; the ill-starred Germans;
and the Sarmatians, who look like pigs;
the irksome race of wretched Scythia;
even unto the daybreak lands, of India
and China, at the eastern edge of Earth.
EDIT: as is so often the case, Yanko Tsvetkov’s Atlas of Prejudice nails it:
What is the translation of the word “fox” to Greek?
Ancient Greek ἀλώπηξ /alɔ́ːpɛːks/; this ends up as Modern /aleˈpu/ via the Hellenistic variant ἀλωπά, somehow: Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής.
In English, the Ancient word for fox has given us alopecia: Hair loss
The origin of this usage is because this animal sheds its coat twice a year, or because in ancient Greece foxes often lost hair because of mange.
What are some Greek terms of endearment?
To add to others:
We use the neuter to address or refer to someone cute; desexing them is infantilising them, and infantilising them is a sign of affection, even if you are otherwise sexual with them. It’s the same thinking as using baby or babe in English.
So χρυσέ μου “my golden one” (masculine) or χρυσή μου “my golden one” (feminine); but just as often, χρυσό μου “my golden one” (neuter).
I have a soft spot for μάτια μου “my eyes”.
Κανακάρη μου (masc)/Κανακάρα μου (fem) is “my darling boy/girl”; that’s much more mother to son, and it’s derived from the verb for pampering.
Provided you speak greek, how would you respond if someone used the word “ταχυδρόμος” for someone crossing a distance fast, not for the postman?
To explain the question:
Tachy-dromos, “quick-runner”, was originally a word for a courier. Couriers deliver mail, and tachy-dromos is now the word for mailman.
If someone uses tachy-dromos in its original original meaning of “fast runner”, rather than its community accepted meaning of “mailman”, how do I react?
I react by telling them to stop being Humpty Dumpty. Words don’t mean whatever you decide them to mean, and they don’t mean whatever the original etymology of the word says, even if the etymology is transparent. Just as an undertaker in English no longer means “entrepreneur”, someone who takes on an “under-taking”. Words mean what the community has ended up saying they mean.
There’s an out with that kind of compound: you can pause between the compound words: “He’s a quick. runner. Not a quickrunner.” Like in English, if I were to say “an underTAKE. -er. Not an undertaker.” That would try and trigger the etymological reading in the listener.
And would likely fail.
What kind of ancient Greek dialect is usually learnt?
In refutation of Jose Pineda:
- You need Old Ionic (Epic) to understand Homer, and all of Greek literature is suffused with Homer.
- You need Ionic for Herodotus and Hippocrates, and the authors imitating them (more of them for Hippocrates, for Herodotus just Lucian in one work).
- You need Doric for the choruses of the plays, as well as a lot of poets (not just Alcman of Sparta), and to know what’s going on in half of Aristophanes’ plays, where Doric-speakers show up.
- Aeolic you need for Sappho, Alcaeus, some poems in Theocritus—and to know how different Greek dialect can get.
Luckily, you don’t need to know much dialect for most things you’re likely to read in the canon—the Doric of the plays is quite superficial, and there’s not much variation in vocabulary.
But to go back to your original question details:
every time I look up a word in the dictionary, I find like seven versions of the same words in different dialects. Which one am I supposed to learn?
Liddell–Scott is an historical dictionary, so it tends to give Epic first, as the oldest form. If you’re learning ancient Greek, the form you learn out of the options given to you in an Ancient Greek dictionary is the Attic one: it is the dialect of most of the canon.
But you should be aware of the derivation of the form—particularly the uncontracted forms—so that the Attic form makes more sense in context. And being aware of the Epic form is no waste of time.
What is the origin of “Thermodon”, the river near which the mythological Amazons lived?
Well, there was also a Thermodon river in Boeotia, mentioned by Herodotus (Thermodon – Brill Reference). So it was a real river name, both in Boeotia and in Asia Minor: Terme River.
This commentary on Lysias A Commentary on Lysias, Speeches 1-11 speculates that Therm-odon was picked as the location for the Amazons because Aristotle thought that women were cold and men hot, which would make warm women tomboys. The catch is, s/he goes on to say, Hippocrates thought menstrual blood was evidence that women were hot, and Lysias predated Aristotle.
Pseudo-Plutarch in De Fluviis gave a story for why the “Scythian” Thermodon was so called: Pseudo-Plutarch, De fluviis, XV. THERMODON. Annoyingly, the manuscript cuts out before we get to the story.
EDIT: Thank you Dimitra Triantafyllidou for prodding me in comments: https://www.quora.com/What-is-th…
From List of river name etymologies:
Danube: Latin Danuvius, Dacian: Donaris, from Iranian (Scythian or Sarmatian) dānu- ‘river’, of Indo-European origin.
So while the name translates into Greek as “hot tooth”, the word that looks like “tooth” is likely the Scythian for river.
That doesn’t account for the Boeotian river of the same name, of course…
What does the Greek word “kefi” mean?
What my peers said. Being upbeat and in a good mood, having fun. To do something with kefi means you’re smiling, you’re doing it with gusto, you’re having fun. To have kefi is to be in a good mood.
Kefi is one of those Greek words that is routinely listed as “untranslatable”, because it has such deeply embedded cultural resonance. Like most of those words, it is a loan from Turkish. And at least in this instance (unlike say merak “hypochondria” > meraki “yearning; diligence in craftmanship”), the meaning in Turkish seems pretty close.
What do you know about ethnically or linguistically Greek Muslims?
Well, I’ve already answered the related question What do you know about Greek speaking Muslims (e.g. those in Hamidiyah, Syria)? I was tempted to merge the two questions, but the focus on Al-Hamidiyah is useful, because they’ve been so prominent in Greek media.
Outside of Al-Hamidiyah: I know that some Muslims in Greece that were subject to the population exchanges were neither linguistically nor ethnically Greek (notably in Macedonia), whereas others were both (notably in Crete, where up to half the population was Muslim in 1800). I know that the version of Greek they spoke had Arabic and Turkish words in it, just as the version of Greek that Jews spoke had Hebrew words in it, reflecting their different cultural orientation. I know there’s some Arabic-script literature by Greek Muslims, as you’ll find by googling “Greek Aljamiado”; unsurprisingly, Christian Greeks have not paid this much attention until very recently.
I know that Greek Muslims were more liberal in their Islam than those of the Middle East, with much greater Bektashi Order influence. Something they had in common with Muslim Albanians, in fact.
And I know that I find the story Ioannis Kondylakis: How the village turned Christian more poignant than its author probably did…
What do you know about Greek speaking Muslims (e.g. those in Hamidiyah, Syria)?
Hello, Aziz, and thank you for A2A.
I found out about Al-Hamidiyah a few years ago, and posted about my emotional reactions on my blog: opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr: Al-Hamidiyah.
I know that the settlers of Al-Hamidiyah fled Crete after Crete gained autonomy, and Christian Cretans started reprisals against Muslim Cretans. (In fact, as I found on Trove, the only time my hometown of Sitia was mentioned in the Australian press was for massacres of Muslims). The town Al-Hamidiyah was named after the Sultan who resettled them there.
I know that the folk of Al-Hamidiyah were ethnic Greek Cretans, and held on to their dialect and customs in Syria. So when the Greek journalists come visiting, they are touched by the maps of Crete on the wall, and the pure Cretan dialect, and the longing they express for their lost motherland. (Just like the Albanians who moved to Italy from the Peloponnese: Moj e Bukura More.) And they’re pretty chuffed that the folk of Al-Hamidiyah have not adopted the polygamy of their neighbours.
They don’t mention as prominently that the folk of Al-Hamidiyah want to visit Crete, but the Greek government won’t issue them visas. Or that the folk of Al-Hamidiyah are the “Turk Cretans” that Greek literature vilifies.
I know that my ancestral village of Zakros has what looks to be a pre-Hellenic name. And that the neighbouring abandoned Muslim village of Zákathos has what is pretty definitely a pre-Hellenic name (it’s almost identical to Zacynthus). Which means four thousand years of habitation, unplugged because of the population exchanges.
I know that the Cretan Turks could have remained the brothers of us Christian Greeks’, had the religion of Greece been Grecism instead of Christianity. (I’m alluding to the decision that Albania made, “the religion of Albania is Albanianism”.) Then again, if Greece were a cosmopolitan, non-sectarian nation, it would not have been Greece. It might have been the pan-Balkan confederation that Rigas Feraios had in mind instead.
Is the correct word “indigenousness” or “indigeneity”?
Indigineity sounds Latinate, so it is being accepted in those contexts where a Latinate word makes sense. Particularly when the emphasis is not so much on an individual attribute, but on a more abstract construct. Cf. Maleness and Masculinity.
For example, if you want to talk about the factors that correlate with student performance in Australian education (a discussion I get exposed to), you’ve got Gender, Socio-Economic Background, Home Language, and… Well, Indigenousness just doesn’t sound as right, in the context of a statistical factor, as Indigineity. More reified, if you will. And indigineity is the only word I’ve seen in that context.
If male gender were invoked in that context, you would see Masculinity and not Maleness, for the same reason.
This is of course just reasoning by analogy; but that’s how language changes: by analogy.