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Day: April 11, 2016
What are the differences between linguistics and philology?
Philology is what linguists think they are above doing, and they are boneheads for doing so. Philology was the study of language in its literary context; so it was confined to written language, and historical linguistics, both of which have become decidedly old fashioned. So when the Old Man of Modern Greek Linguistics, Georgios Chatzidakis, […]
How come that the term “Pharaoh” ends with H in English and with N in many other languages [(like: Faraon, Firaun (in different languages)]?
A most excellent question, Aziz! I don’t have the complete answer, but googling gets what seems to be most of it. The original form, per Pharaoh, ends in a vowel. Hieroglyphics pr-3, Late Egyptian par-ʕoʔ, Greek pharaō /pʰaraɔ́ː/, Hebrew פרעה (parʿōh), Latin pharaō. The Greek word pharaō is indeclinable, but it does have a variant […]