Subscribe to Blog via Email
Join 327 other subscribersJuly 2025 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
What are some patterns in accenting Koine Greek when compounding?
Eg : αὐλέω to αὐλητής, actually. 🙂
For a list of suffixes and how they work in Ancient Greek, see Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges from §833 on for more detail than you’ll ever want on the mechanics. The list starts at §839.
That list is for Ancient Greek; Koine is substantially the same list, and works the same way, but some suffixes did fall out of fashion. For example, -τήρ is Attic, -τής is Attic and Koine.
For accentuation: the rule in Koine remains the rule for Ancient Greek: accent is governed by Mora (linguistics). (It’s terrifying how strongly the rule applies, by analogy, even after vowel length was eliminated in Greek, as it was by the time of the New Testament—and indeed, even in Modern Greek, two millennia later.)
By default, accent is recessive. So if the suffix is unaccented, and ends in a long syllable, then accent will be on the penult. If the suffix is unaccented, and ends in a short syllable, then accent will be on the antepenult. So σημαίνω > σημάν-τωρ; μανθάνω > μαθή-τρια.
Many suffixes bear accent, and that accent overrides the recessive default. αὐλη-τής is one such instance: the agentive -τής is consistently accented.
The only instance where accent makes a meaning distinction is one familiar to students of the Koine from the Paraclete. If you form an adjective in -τος from a prepositional verb, there is meant to be a meaning difference between accenting on the ultima and the antepenult. Accenting on the ultima means the description in the adjective applies as a one-off. Accenting on the antepenult means the description in the adjective applies permanently.
So a παρακλητός is someone you’ve summoned to stand by your side just now. A παράκλητος is someone you summon all the time, a permanent advocate. Which is what the Holy Spirit is supposed to be.
(Given that the instance of παράκλητος in Dio Cassius 46.20 refers to slaves dragooned into a one-off task, that accent distinction turns out to be bogus in practice, and I’ve seen oodles of other instances where it was ignored. Sorry.)
Do some people still have old Latin names and surnames?
Translating your surname into Latin was in fashion in the 16th through 18th centuries for many Germans and Swedes; Linnaeus (von Linné), for example, or Neander (as in Neanderthal; Neumann).
EDIT: Philip Newton points out Neander is Greek. True dat. OK, try Faber (surname), Latin for “Smith”. Or Schmidt.
Sometimes, it has stuck around. I’m assuming Oscar Pistorius is also an instance of Afrikaaners doing this.
See Why are some old German surnames Latin?
I can think of other examples of Latin surnames in Germany, such as Michael Praetorius. There was even a good footballer in the 80’s named Holger Hieronymus.
Could Esperanto seriously become the lingua franca?
A2A by Rahul. Ah, Rahul. This hurts. Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is it like to be a kabeinto? What was it like to leave Esperantujo?
But, you asked.
The lingua franca? Of course not, not any more. There might have been a brief window with the League of Nations, maybe even the UN, but that’s long gone.
It’s a lingua franca, but as the Rauma school (Raumism) have taken to calling it, it’s really more a self-selected diaspora language by now.
Let me turn this on its head though. When the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language met in 1907 to decide which the right auxiliary language would be, Zamenhof was prepared to go along with what they decided. He was on the record more than once saying that he was not an Esperanto chauvinist: he was in it for an international language to enable peace in the world, and he didn’t mind whose language it was.
But the rank and file didn’t go along with that—especially once de Beaufront’s double cross was found out. And really, the only way Esperanto would be adopted as the lingua franca now, is if some group like the Delegation was able to impose it on a One World Government, and they’d certainly want to make that conditional on a bucket of reforms and tweaks.
Esperantists are now Esperanto chauvinists, because we’re involved in the language not so much for Zamenhof’s dream of a world language, but for the reality of the culture that has grown around the language. I wouldn’t give up the Esperanto as I know it, in exchange for an Esperanto Mark #2 being the lingua franca. I’m curious how many would.
By which languages was your native language influenced the most?
Modern Greek?
In terms of vocabulary, Italian (including Venetian), but not by much; toss-up between Italian and Turkish. Then Latin, then French, then English.
In terms of grammar, any significant influence was through the Balkan Sprachbund. A lot of the Sprachbund features originated in Greek (and we can tell through the history of Greek and Old Church Slavonic); but not all of it. It’s very hard to disentangle Albanian and Macedonian–Bulgarian as influences, so I won’t.
bewray
The Magister tripped me up this morning with the very first sentence I saw from him.
Andrew Weill and others have bewrayed the remarkable difficulty of your undertaking.
Bewrayed? Bewrayed? Obviously no typo for betrayed. Well, not that obvious: the Magister is at times a bit of a butterfingers. But certainly worth checking out.
verb (used with object), Archaic.
Archaic. No shit.
- to reveal or expose.
- to betray.
So I guessed right. And it would seem quite possible that the current verb betray has coloured the modern interpretation of the archaic verb bewray. What is the etymology, anyway?
1250-1300; Middle English bewraien, equivalent to be- be- + wraien, Old English wrēgan to accuse, cognate with Old High German ruogen (German rügen), Gothic wrohjan
Right. So something that accuses you, gives you away, if you will. Which is pretty close to “betraying” you, and looks like that meaning has merged into it.
Is there an inverse relationship between social mobility and prevalence of formality in language?
I have been invoked by Heinrich Müller, and I corroborate him. Sociolinguistics, after all, is sociology.
The classic study of formality and social level is Labov’s “4th floor” study, in 1966 New York. Or should I say, New Yawk.
Prestige (sociolinguistics) – Wikipedia
Labov and the R | Unravel Magazine
Labov’s New York Department Store
Labov walked into Saks (upper class), Macy’s (middle class) and Klein’s (lower class), and asked for directions to something that was on the fourth floor. Which, in lower class New Yorkese, was fawth flaw. And in upper class New Yorkese, was fourth floor.
The shop assistants in Saks said fourth floor the most. That doesn’t mean they were upper class, but that they were the most compliant to class practice.
But the most anxiety about saying fourth floor was at Macy’s. When you said “pardon?” there, they would immediately rush to correct their fawth to fourth. And they overused (hypercorrected) their r’s the most.
The middle class are socially mobile—or at least, they like to think they are. Studies have repeatedly confirmed that have the most anxiety about sounding formal, which often extends to hypercorrection. They have something to prove; those who have already arrived, don’t. And of course, these are not just sociolinguistic phenomena, they extend to the behaviour of the social mobile in general.
For which, see illustration in Keeping Up Appearances. Or in the contrast between, say, the Real Housewives of Orange County and the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
How and when did you become a Hellenophile?
I have attempted to recuse myself from answering this, being ethnic Greek myself. But Desmond James has importuned me to answer with my Australian hat on, and I do appreciate a challenge.
So I will meet this challenge with generalities, reflecting on the hellenophiles and/or philhellenes that I have encountered.
Hellenophile is not an established term, by the way, whereas philhellene is. But I can easily see a nuance between them. A philhellene has a romantic attachment to Greece, and is typically politically invested in Greece. Or at least, that’s how Greeks think of it. Hellenophile is a novel coinage, and it can be less emotionally loaded. It can just refer to someone who is a fan of Greek things.
I am also going to be biased towards interest in Modern rather than Ancient Greek things.
So how have I seen people become either?
- Marrying a Greek is always a good start. I’ve seen that be a factor, although sometimes it’s been a cause and sometimes it’s been an effect.
- Fascination with ancient Greek culture, often via the most kid friendly version of ancient Greek culture, which is sanitized mythology. Often enough, this leads to an interest in what happened next, and I know of several foreign experts in modern Greek who started out in Classics.
- A holiday in Greece, strategically timed for when you are open to new interests. Of course that will depend a hugely on where you choose to holiday. Going to the wilds of Southern Crete and hanging about with shepherds is likelier to have such an effect than a package holiday weekend throwing up in Malia.
- Malia. *shudder*
- Less often, a chance encounter with Modern Greek culture, music or literature.
- I haven’t seen this myself, but there is a stream of converts to Orthodox Christianity at least in the States. That may be another contributor, although Orthodoxy in the states is not as ethnically bound up as it is elsewhere.
ontic
Another little word that gave me pause. I recognised it just fine, from ontology, I just didn’t know that philosophy had done away with the –ology.
Do Greeks even say ontikós? *googles* Phew. Theologians do, at least: Η οντική εκδοχή του Είναι: Αιτιοκρατία και αξιολογία. “The ontic version of Being: Determinism and Axiology.”
The Magister does too (as do a bunch of philosophers on Quora):
Michael Masiello’s answer to How is God personally known and experienced?
But some intimation of the sacred abides in the human imagination, and the debate between theists and atheists ultimately rests on whether it makes more sense to say it exists only there or has some ontic referent.
Michael Masiello’s answer to Atheists: Why would any human want to be religious?
People want to feel that the world and the universe make some kind of ordered sense, and that their — our — existence in it has some sort of meaning. For some reason, they cannot accept responsibility for the idea that we human beings can make that meaning for ourselves; for them, if it’s not ontic, it’s not meaning at all.
The prerogative of whatever deity happens to enjoy ontic status, and is probably in charge of the situation (not the embarrassed postmortem person)
In philosophy, ontic (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: “of that which is”) is physical, real, or factual existence.
“Ontic” describes what is there, as opposed to the nature or properties of that being.
So, with regard to God: God as someone that really exists in the world, and isn’t just an abstract concept.
limn
I’m an arrogant overeducated effete sumbitch. I’m looking at the contributions so far, and going, ha! I know that word. That word too.
But the Magister has tripped yours truly up as well. And not with big words (Greek and Latin are my gig, after all), but with really small ones.
The Magister loves limn.
Michael Masiello’s answer to What are the best books on Sappho’s life?
In that book she translates Sappho’s poems, discusses the way the Greek originals speak, analyzes the way they think, and in some sense limns a convincing intellectual portrait, if not quite a biography, of this sublime poet.
Michael Masiello’s answer to What is the overall theme of the Bible?
Within these serious, even fatal, limitations, it limns an etiology, a history, and an anagogy for a growing body of chosen or elect humans, ab ovo per aspera ad astra. That’s its basic theme.
However, if we think about the verbally-indefinable emotional states his last major works seem to limn […] maybe he had found some kernel of peace, some palm at the end of the mind, some vision of the phoenix whose fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
Limn is a verb that means to represent or portray. It is most often used to describe the act of drawing or painting a portrait, but it can also refer to describing or outlining a scene or event.
The verb limn evolved from the Latin lumināre, “to illuminate.” The word referred originally to coloring (illuminating) manuscripts. The sense of “portray” or “depict” did not come into use until the late 16th century, but that meaning is close to the original, since someone who paints a portrait usually illuminates something about the subject’s character. The word is less often used of written description, as in “Her reviews tended to limn the worst aspects of the performance, ignoring the best.”
irenic
Love this word, because it comes from my sister’s name, Irene. Love this word, because it describes the attitude I aspire to having on the Quoras, and I use it a fair bit myself as a disclaimer. Love this word, because while I had seen it ages back, the Magister reintroduced me to it.
Michael Masiello’s answer to Why is Quora becoming so conservative?
Trump’s less irenic supporters and admirers seem to see Quora as a liberal enclave at the moment.
Liberals likewise owe a hearing to any conservative who is irenic and who will make arguments based on verifiable facts and logic.
favoring, conducive to, or operating toward peace, moderation, or conciliation
Eirene was the goddess of peace. Her name is also the Greek word for “peace,” and it gave rise to irenic and other peaceable terms including irenics (a theological term for advocacy of Christian unity), Irena (the genus name of two species of birds found in southern Asia and the Philippines), and the name Irene.