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Day: September 14, 2016

What is the root of word “Havales”, denoting in Greek, “spending time, having fun”?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-14 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

A magnificent resource I have just stumbled on, in seeing if someone has already answered this question (do I look like a Turcologist to you?) is tourkika.com. An online Turkish grammar resource for Greek learners of the language, with lots of etymology for loan words into Greek. The etymology… is enlightening. Χαβαλές – havale. From […]

What is the Latin translation of “healing is not linear”?

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Posted in categories: Latin, Linguistics

I’ll take a different template, with Alberto Yagos’ as an inspiration. When Ptolemy I asked if there were any shortcuts for plodding through the Elements, Euclid supposedly said, “there is no royal road to geometry”: Euclid – Wikiquote The first Latin translation of the quote is Non est regia ad Geometriam via. Non est regia […]

Is it correct that the word “Dune” comes from a very old Greek root?

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Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, English, Linguistics

A dune is a heap of sand. We can track it to Gaulish *dunom. Maybe. A θίς can be a heap of several things, including sand. A relation between the two has been suggested, but it’s not certain. To quote Frisk: No satisfactory explanation. Wackernagel compares Old Indic dhíṣṇya– ‘situated on a knoll’, ‘knoll strewn […]