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What is the closest masculine equivalent of “temptress” and “seductress”?
Vote #1 Audrey Ackerman: Audrey Ackerman’s answer to What is the closest masculine equivalent of “temptress” and “seductress”?
A comprehensive answer I will not hope to top.
Audrey has missed one term. She would reject it as a culture specific, literary reference.
But hands up; who knew that Lothario was a character in Don Quixote?
A lot less than know what a lothario is. I’ll concede, not a massively common term; but maybe a touch better than Casanova (which has the whiff of pathology about it for me), certainly more apt than Romeo (I get that from my wife too, but it is pretty jocular, and Romeo was not meant to be irresistible); and Alberto Yagos is right, Adonis is about beauty and not seduction.
Pretty sure stud and hunk have gotten to the literary register by now, surely.
What is the Greek word for “messenger”?
The question has been answered for Ancient Greek: angelos, whence angel.
The Christian use of angelos has made the word inaccessible for “messenger” in Modern Greek. The formal modern word is angelioforos, “message-bearer”. The old vernacular word is mandatoforos (where the Latin mandatum has ended up meaning “military communication”, and thence “news” in general.)
Has Melbourne been the financial center of activities for advocates of annexing Greek Macedonia to FYROM?
Oh, fuck.
Let’s put it this way. And for the purposes of this answer, I’m going to assert that there is indeed a distinct Makedonski minority in Greece, rather than refer to FYROM overtly.
If you were an ethnic Macedonian living in Florina/Lerin or Kastoria/Kostur, you had the option of embracing a Greek identity and rejecting a Makedonski identity, or of asserting a Makedonski identity.
If you did the former, your motivation to leave Greece for other pastures would be no greater than for any ethnic Greek living in Northern Greece.
If you publicly asserted a Makedonski identity in Greek Macedonia, which included at minimum speaking Macedonian in public, and at maximum advocating the union of your territory with FYROM, your life would be made uncomfortable, to greater or lesser extents. And you would have greater motivation to leave Greece for other pastures.
So a lot of ethnic Macedonians from Greece with a Makedonski national conscience ended up in Australia.
So did a lot of ethnic Macedonians from Greece with a Greek national conscience.
It was not pretty. There were violent disputes within families. The anthropologist Loring Danforth wrote the account of what went down in Melbourne (The Macedonian Conflict), and it’s terrifying. In the ’90s, there was literal bomb throwing on both sides.
The crucial point here is, if you’re an ethnic Macedonian from Greece with a Makedonski national conscience, you are far likelier to be vocal about that in Australia than you are in Greece. You’re also far likelier to spend your money, to support any activities supporting the assertion of a Makedonski national conscience in Greece.
That’s not a conspiracy theory, that’s not even an accusation of anything. That’s just fact.
At the time of the bomb throwing, the Australian media was full of third parties snarling that these people should fuck off back to their own country and fight their stupid battle there. At least one commentator (I wish I remember who it was; it might even have been Danforth) pointed out that there is no battle within Greece: it’s because they were in Australia that they felt free to wage a battle.
Oh, and the “Slavomacedonians” of Australia are my fellow citizens, and I have no beef with them. Even though the beef did prevent me dating one…
Full Disclosure: Victor Friedman, advocate for the Macedonian language and well known bugbear of Greek nationalists, has treated me to absinth in his flat while working in Melbourne. In the eyes of some, that might recuse my testimonial…
Are linguists more likely to have a musical background?
Zeibura S. Kathau has a rather more perceptive and fine breakdown on this than I’d hope for; vote #1 Zeibura S. Kathau’s answer to Are linguists more likely to have a musical background?
I’ll just add two observations.
- Of my fellow PhD students in linguistics, one was a composer and pianist, one a bassist, one an orchestral violinist, and me, who at least attempted to compose once. That’s out of a sample of I dunno, 20.
- In my day job in Schools IT policy, we have 8 people in the consultancy. Outside of me, the CEO is a folk mandolinist, the CTO a bassist, and the Comms guy a sax player.
So I suspect that musicians don’t just gravitate to linguistics. But I do also suspect that people interested in formal systems gravitate to also working with other formal systems. Though that’s nothing like as thorough an analysis as Z-Kat suggests.
I’ll note a potential counterpattern. There were a fair few refugees from computer science (as it was then) to linguistics in my cohort too; I was one of them. My master’s supervisor observed to me that when computer people came to linguistics, they did not want to do syntax or formal semantics, as she expected. They did the fluffiest linguistics they could stand: discourse analysis, for example, or historical linguistics. If they wanted to do formal symbolic analysis, after all, they would have stayed in computer science.
Why is the carol “peace on earth and good will to all men”, when the Luke 2:14 says “to men of good will”?
OP, but I’m answering a question raised elsewhere by Zeibura S. Kathau.
Luke 2:14? The source of the confusion is a manuscript variant.
Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία[ς].
The version I as a Greek grew up with has “good will” in the nominative, εὐδοκία. “Peace on earth, among people good will.” That’s Erasmus’ text, which is the established Greek Orthodox text (the Receptus).
It kinda looks odd, and modern editions of the Greek go instead with the genitive reading in manuscripts, which is also what the Vulgate has: people of good will, hominibus bonae voluntatis.
The wording “good will to all men” comes from someone looking at the old Receptus Greek text.
Which is what the King James did: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
What’s interesting is what contemporary English translations do with the genitive of εὐδοκία:
- NIV: and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.
- RSV: and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.
- The Message: Peace to all men and women on earth who please him
See what’s happened there? The contemporary interpretation is that it’s people of Good Will alright; but it’s not their own Good Will. It’s God’s Good Will. People in God’s eudokia.
What are the main differences between natural languages and Lojban?
- Explicit predicate structure of arguments. Which throws natural language notions of case out the window (although prepositions are included as well): it really is a matter of argument #1, argument #2, rather than accusative, dative, etc.
- Very explicit, computer-parsable syntax, with spoken brackets for syntactic structures.
- Logical, rather than natural language, notions of negation. (Again, more natural representations are included alongside it.)
- Berserk allomorphy in compounding, and no distinction between derivational morphology and compounding.
- Differentiations in determiners that are also very logicish and independent of definiteness.
- No substantial noun/verb distinction (the terms are avoided in Lojban); a noun is just a verb with a determiner, and thus can have tense or mood the same as a verb.
- Locative as well as temporal tense and aspect, and explicit Vendlerian categories of aktionsart.
Why is English one of the official languages of India?
Writing this so that lots of other people can correct me. And because I keep passing on Mehrdad’s A2As. 🙂
English is neither the official language of UK, US or Australia.
Indeed. The notion of an official language seems to have been ignored in the Anglosphere, simply because they took it as given that the language of the King was the language of government and the public sphere. They did not have any white minorities to take seriously as rivals, and they ignored any non-white minorities.
The exception of course is Canada—hence Official bilingualism in Canada. German was huge in the US back in the day, though the claims that it narrowly missed out on the vote to become an official language are exaggerations: German Almost Became Official Language.
So much for the white Dominions. What about India?
During the Indian Raj, of course, English was an official language, being the colonialists’ language. So why was it kept after 1950?
Languages with official status in India – Wikipedia
During the British Raj, English was used for purposes at the federal level. The Indian constitution adopted in 1950 envisaged that Hindi would be gradually phased in to replace English over a fifteen-year period, but gave Parliament the power to, by law, provide for the continued use of English even thereafter. Plans to make Hindi the sole official language of the Republic met with resistance in some parts of the country. Hindi continues to be used today, in combination with other (at the central level and in some states) State official languages at the state level.
So, it was envisaged that English would be phased out gradually. It hasn’t been, partly because Hindi is not the only indigenous language, and there is resistance from the states. And partly, I assume, because the Indian intelligentsia and middle class are pretty happy about being part of the Anglosphere—as a means to an end.
Let’s get some actual Indians answering this, shall we?
Why do we use number 5, in some Greek words: “You left me in 5 streets or in 5 winds”, “You are 5 (times?) orphan”, “5 t. beautiful”?
Vote #1 David Caune. Excellent and wide-ranging answer. David Caune’s answer to Why do we use number 5, in some Greek words: “You left me in 5 streets or in 5 winds”, “You are 5 (times?) orphan”, “5 t. beautiful”?
I’ll add some Greek-specific details.
Modern Greek uses a few numbers to mean “lots”; they include:
- 5
- 7 (Cats have 9 lives in English, but 7 lives in Greek)
- 14 (“have 14 eyes!” = be on the lookout)
- 40 (which it shares with Turkish: e.g. the town name Saranda Ekklisies/Kırklareli, see Nick Nicholas’ answer to How many placenames have been Turkicised in Turkey? with comments)
Why those numbers? Why not others? That’s a tough one, and clearly different cultures have different predilections (9 is big in English, but not Greek). But I suspect 5 and 7 being primes has something to do with it. (And 14 eyes are what 7 people have.)
Vote #1 David Caune.
What is your opinion on eurasiatic and nostratic theory?
In my last lecture of Historical Linguistics, I brought in a guest lecturer, a fellow PhD student, who was an ardent Nostraticist. I hadn’t discussed Nostratic with him for years. To my astonishment, I watched him recant Nostratic right before my eyes. And the way he did it was by making fun of Starostin et al., grasping for cognates.
What do *I* think about Nostratic? It’s plausible, and it uses the comparative method, which the long range Greenbergian macrofamilies do not. It’s not generally accepted, and the scepticism is warranted given the time depth and the likelihood of noise in the data. Unproven, but wouldn’t be horrified if it turned out true. But hard to see, given current attitudes and the tenuousness of the relations, what it would take for to be proven true…
What is it like to be a kabeinto? What was it like to leave Esperantujo?
My bio for Esperanto says Kabeinta Esperantisto, lingvisto: “Esperantist who has done a Kabe, linguist” (for explanation on Kabe, see question details). So I guess I qualify to answer.
I have been corresponding with Clarissa Lohr a fair bit in Esperanto recently. I don’t think that means I’ve un-Kabe’d though; Clarissa is hardly a verda batalanto. She is a Green Warrior, but that’s Green as in hair colour, the environment, and Social Justice, not Green as in Sub la sankta signo de l’ espero (La Espero).
So, how does it feel to have abandoned the Esperanto movement?
Guilt, mostly. Not debilitating guilt like I feel for Lojban (where I was a much bigger deal, as it was a much smaller group). But guilt. They were my people, and I did not stick by them.
Also: Surprise, when I see the language has moved on past me. I Kabe’d in the 90s, distracted by shinier objects (Lojban, then Klingon); Esperanto went off and coined new Esperanto slang. Without my permission. The nerve!
But Esperanto made me, in a lot of ways. Not least of which was poetics. And I’m grateful for that, forever.