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Day: March 18, 2016
Where did the word Nemesis originate?
Online Etymology Dictionary Nemesis, “Greek goddess of vengeance, personification of divine wrath,” from Greek nemesis “just indignation, righteous anger,” literally “distribution” (of what is due), related to nemein “distribute, allot, apportion one’s due”. Goes on to note that the word is cognate to German nehmen “take”. Conceptually, Nemesis is the same notion as one’s “lot” […]
What is the degree of intelligibility between Standard Modern Greek and Cretan Greek?
I’ve done the Swadesh list lexicostatistics: 89 of 100 core words, which is comparable to Russian and Ukrainian. (I get the same figure for Cypriot.) Mutually intelligible, but just. Much more now that the dialect is dying out. I was exposed to the dialect 30 years ago when it wasn’t doing as badly; so I’m […]