Subscribe to Blog via Email
Archive:
Day: February 23, 2017
What names were historically used to refer to your spoken language before assuming their current form?
http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~coby/essays/gloss.htm As Names of the Greeks – Wikipedia details, the name that the Byzantines gave themselves, and the name that Modern Greeks traditionally gave themselves as a result, was Romans: Romioi, with Hellene reserved for the Ancient Greeks (or for pagans in general). It follows that the name Greeks traditionally gave their vernacular was Roman, […]
How likely is it that the Cypriot Greek word for ironing board is related not only to horse but also to the English “apparatus”?
Not likely. Not impossible. But not likely. Let’s think this though, and the considerations for us thinking this through are not specific to Cyprus; they are pretty generic in etymology. English was a donor language to Cypriot Greek while the British ruled Cyprus, from 1878 through 1960, and as an international language since. While there […]
Could emoticons form the script of a new constructed language?
http://joehale.bigcartel.com/product/wonderland-emoji-poster Obviously, Vote #1/#2 Daniel Slechta’s answer to Could emoticons form the script of a new constructed language? and Daniel Ross’ answer to Could emoticons form the script of a new constructed language? (I disagree with Daniel Ross’ first point, that the emoji must be conventional and not iconic for them to be a language […]
Are second Aorist tenses in Ancient Greek more frequent that first Aorist?
More frequent? No. But certainly very noticeable! The second and first aorists are equivalents of the strong and weak verbs of Germanic. Strong verbs and second aorists form their past tense by ablaut, vowel change. Weak verb and first aorists form their past tense by suffix. The older pattern is the ablaut; the newer and […]