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Month: November 2016
Why does language grow in a democratic way?
I’m going to limit this to lexicon, and not get into other areas of language change. Think about it. You just spoke of scientific terms being planned out meticulously and promoted by universally acknowledged authorities. Scientific terms are part of language. That includes smaller languages’ authorities, which come up with canonical translations of other languages’ […]
In linguistics is there a term parallel to “nominal” referring to a category used to group together verbs and adjectives based on shared properties?
I don’t know of one; in fact what I’ve seen is linguists call adjectives in Asian languages verbs, to deal with the commonalities. Stative verbs, if you make it more precise. In fact, whether adjectives are real as a cross-linguistic category is a legit question. Answered 2016-11-04 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/In-linguistics-is-there-a-term-parallel-to-nominal-referring-to-a-category-used-to-group-together-verbs-and-adjectives-based-on-shared-properties/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
Will the Norn language see a successful revival in Orkney and Shetland?
http://nornlanguage.x10.mx/index.php?intro Ah, a lot of doom and gloom here from other respondents. I’ll admit that all I know about Shetland is that they have ponies, and all I know about Orkney is “huh, isn’t that halfway to Norway already?” But I knew Norn existed. I’ve had a quick look at Wikipedia (and pasted links in […]
Why are Armenia and Greece against Turkey and Azerbaijan?
As Ayse Temmuz said, this has been gone over very often. Let’s go through the pairs. Armenia–Azerbaijan. I’m married to a diaspora Armenian, which means I know very little of Armenia. We spent 3 days in and around Yerevan during our honeymoon last year. And that was enough to convince me there’ll be war again […]
Who are some notable linguists in the field of historical pragmatics?
Andreas Jucker seems to be the guy that single handedly conjured this field into being, including the journal and the collection of essays in the late 90s. (I think I reviewed it way back then.) Namechecked at Historical pragmatics – Wikipedia UZH – English Department Ah, bugger. He’s the Dean of Arts at Zurich U. […]
Is there a time in history when the Greeks and Turks fought together in the same team?
To add to Andrei Stoica’s answer— (Vote #1: User. This is a supplementary answer) —Byzantines often used Turkish mercenaries, as Andrei pointed out, especially when they went nuts and fought civil wars in the 14th century that only the Ottomans could benefit from. And after the civil wars washed up, and Byzantines were a vassal […]
In the Matrix, why is the Oracle’s message “Know Thyself” in Latin, instead of the original Greek?
Because Latin was always better known in the West than Greek. Greek proverbial expressions are almost uniformly quoted in the West in Latin; e.g. Deus ex machina, not apo mēchanēs theos; Et tu Brute, not kai sy teknon; quod erat demonstrandum, not hoper edei deixai. Gnothi seauton seems to be as prevalent as nosce te […]
What is cod-Greek?
I’ve seen other such expressions, such as cod-Latin, and cod-Spanish. Cod-Latin is a synonym of Dog Latin, a fake Latin used playfully to imitate real Latin. The Wikipedia example is Stormum surgebat et boatum oversetebatThe storm rose up and overturned the boat Illegitimis non carborundum is another such instance. (“Don’t let the bastards get you […]
What do Greeks think of Yusuf Islam?
A2A Hansolophontes. (Sorry, Khateeb, but you walked into that one.) (Ἁνσολοφόντης. Looks nice…) I’ll say what I think they feel, but I’ll go a roundabout way about it. What do Greeks of my upbringing and circumstances feel about ethnic Greek converts to Islam? Well, if they were pre-population exchange, they’re not around any more, and […]
In what languages does “everything is in order” stand for “everything is alright” (and sounds natural)?
Add Modern Greek, as a calque from German into Ancient Greek (Katharevousa): όλα εν τάξει. Now spelled as a single word εντάξει, because that’s a fricking dative, and we don’t have datives any more. Answered 2016-11-01 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/In-what-languages-does-everything-is-in-order-stand-for-everything-is-alright-and-sounds-natural/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]