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Day: December 19, 2016
What is the history of Greek punctuation?
I have written some pointers about the history of Greek punctuation on my Greek Unicode Issues website: Punctuation. To summarise: The basics of punctuation as we know it in both Latin in Greek were in place by around the 10th century, including commas, periods, and interrogatives. They appear to have developed independently, although they had […]
Does language play any significant role in shaping national identity?
Language plays a huge role in shaping national identity, as any European knows. But from OP’s details, their question is really more, how does national identity get shaped in the absence of a distinct language? If it’s a sufficient but not a necessary condition, how do such countries get their own identity? Let’s go shopping. […]
Are there some Latin alphabet languages except for Latvian that change personal names when translating to their language and why don’t others do that?
Refer to the related question What non-Roman scripts keep foreign words in Roman? You ask which Latin alphabet languages do transliterate, and why more Latin alphabet languages don’t transliterate. I know Czech does (right, Zeibura S. Kathau), but it is indeed the case that most Latin alphabet languages don’t, and certainly any that do are […]