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Day: August 11, 2016

What is the etymology of name Mavronis (Μαυρώνης)?

By: | Post date: 2016-08-11 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

It’s an old surname: a scribe Niketas Mavronis is recorded in 1285: Σημειώματα-Κώδικες – View Simeioma The stem is pretty clearly μαύρος “black, swarthy”; the -vr- is something of a giveaway, and the name doesn’t particularly look Slavonic or Aromanian. (1285 is too early for Arvanite or Turkish.) The -ώνης could mean the surname is […]

Is “κάπου και που” in Greek about time or about place?

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Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

I’ll start by saying that the expression (lit. “somewhere and where”) is unfamiliar to me. Which makes me curious when it became common. The related question, αραιά και που “sparsely and [some]where” refers to time: “occasionally, now and again”, rather than “in scattered locations, here and there”. The metaphorical use of spatial for temporal expressions […]

How many times was the City, I Polis, taken: two or three?

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Posted in categories: History, Mediaeval Greek

… I come into this knowing only an outline of Byzantine History, and Wikipedia. But, to focus on what the question details say: Constantinople fell to the Crusaders in 1203/1204, to the Niceans in 1261, and to the Ottomans in 1453. The Siege of Constantinople (717–718) by the Arabs was unsuccessful. The Siege of Constantinople […]