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Day: August 29, 2016

Why isn’t there a non religious equivalent of agape love?

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Posted in categories: Linguistics, Mediaeval Greek

The noun agapē first arises in Koine. (In fact, the first attestations, other than as a proper name, are in the Septuagint.) But the related verb agapaō was used for 800 years before Christ, both agapē and agapaō have been used for 2000 years since Christ, and there’s nothing intrinsically Christian about agapē. In fact, […]

What country of origin does the first name “Zander” come from?

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Posted in categories: Linguistics, Other Languages

Can be German as Romain Bouchard said, can be English, can be Dutch (mostly as Sander (name)); Zander, Sander, and Xander are abbreviations of Alexander. Xan Fielding was born in 1919, and the oldest Xander listed under Xander was Xander Berkeley, born 1955. But the name was popularised through Xander Harris of Buffy. As a […]

In the New Testament, what different semantic shades can the verb agapao (“love”) take?

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Posted in categories: Linguistics, Mediaeval Greek

A non-theological response: I’m grabbing all the definitions of agapaō from ἀγαπάω, DGE Diccionario Griego-Español, and highlighting those for which they give New Testament or Septuagint instances. As you can see, there’s a fair area of coverage for the verb; theologians have tried to pin it down in a nice schema, but a concept as […]

How are colors perceived in different languages and cultures?

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Posted in categories: Culture, Modern Greek

Greek: The colour of sex is pink. Actually, it’s roz, a borrowing from French rose. The colour of freshness and youth is not green, but pale green, khloros. Sky blue, galanos, is the colour of calm. (There’s been some etymological conflation there.) You go yellow with fear, not cowardice. Answered 2016-08-29 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/How-are-colors-perceived-in-different-languages-and-cultures/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

Eros and Agape are much more specific words than the English word love. Why was the word love decided to be the word for love? What are the etymological roots of love? Why did the English word for love not evolve to be as precise as the greek words?

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Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

Critical insight with the four-way classification of love in Koine Greek (Greek words for love): do not assume that the Greek classification was that clear cut. These are theologically useful idealisations. Like I already pointed out in Nick Nicholas’ answer to Why isn’t there a non religious equivalent of agape love?, the Diccionario Griego–Español’s definitions […]