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Month: September 2015

When was the uncial Greek script adapted and abandoned?

By: | Post date: 2015-09-30 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Mediaeval Greek, Writing Systems

Thx for A2A. Being lazy, I refer you to An introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography : Thompson, Edward Maunde, Sir, 1840-1929 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive . From what he says (with nice photos for 1912), the uncial starts in codices 3rd century AD, but is anticipated in papyri in the […]

Do I need permission from any one to publish a story book in Klingon? Will it violates any copy right law? The stories are non sci-fi.

By: | Post date: 2015-09-30 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

You and I may think it is absurd to copyright languages; unfortunately Paramount doesn’t, and has forced someone to pulp their Klingon Martial Arts manual in Klingon. The safe thing to do is to approach the Klingon Language Institute (Page on kli.org): Paramount have designated them as a licensed user of the language, so they […]

What other languages influenced Greek?

By: | Post date: 2015-09-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics, Mediaeval Greek, Modern Greek

In terms of the usual interpretation of the question (what languages did Greek borrow words from), at different times Greek has borrowed words from: Persian (a small number) Latin (a fair few) Slavonic (surprisingly few) Albanian (surprisingly fewer) Aromanian (ditto) Catalan (one word, παρέα < pare(j)a) Romany (very few, although it is the go-to source […]

How different is the Ancient Greek language from the modern Greek language? Can any Greek-speaking people testify if they understand classical Greek of Homer, et al?

By: | Post date: 2015-09-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics, Modern Greek

I understand most of what’s going on in the Gospels, though much more so with Mark and John than Luke and Paul. Some Attic texts (and the Byzantine texts emulating them) are a challenge, not least because of their abstruse syntax, but I still have  a hazy notion of what’s going on. The syntax in […]

How different are Cypriot names from their Turkish and Greek counterparts?

By: | Post date: 2015-09-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

Greek Cypriot surnames are often patronymics, formed as the genitives of given names. Surnames are quite region-specific in Greek, so you can tell a Greek Cypriot surname: it’s the one *without* a suffix, like -opoulos, -akis, -idis, -ellis, -atos, etc. Greek Cypriots use a few more Ancient names than Greece Greeks, and a lot more […]

Why do the names of many Greek letters end in “a”?

By: | Post date: 2015-09-23 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Writing Systems

The following is intelligent guesswork. In ancient Greek, words were constrained to end in a vowel, /n/ or /s/.The Phoenecian letter names did not fit that pattern, so they were adapted to end in vowels. Of the available vowels, nouns most frequently ended in alpha (neuters or feminines) or eta (feminines). Omega, iota and upsilon […]

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