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Month: February 2017
What led to Ancient Greeks to create such a fascinating history and culture?
It’s a good question, and a question that has been posed and discussed by many before. The history of Classical Greece is more interesting than that of other places, because it had more conflict and more players: it wasn’t a steady-state, stable empire. (That came later, with the successors of Alexander.) Of course, being more […]
In Early Modern English the pronunciation of “housewifery” was /’ʔɤzɪfɹəi/. What caused the apparent (partial) reversal in modern pronunciation?
Why did housewifery used to be pronounced uzzifrie, and now it’s pronounced house-wife-ree? Well, let’s look at housewife itself. I’m looking up OED. OED reports that the usual pronunciation in the second half of the 18th century of housewife, as given in pronunciation dictionaries, was /ˈhʌzwɪf/, huzzwiff, with its start matching hus-band (which has the […]
What are some characteristics of the Greek dialect spoken by Sarakatsani?
Stand back everyone, I’ll handle this one. 🙂 The Sarakatsani are traditionally nomadic shepherds in Northern Greece and Bulgaria, who speak Greek. Their origins have excited interest, because the Vlachs are traditionally nomadic shepherds through the southern Balkans, who speak Aromanian, and there has been speculation about whether the two populations are related. The most […]
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 […]
Why is this language still called English, when the majority of its speakers are not even English?
It’s a good question, Mehrdad, and it deserves a serious answer. Language has functioned as a cohesive social force, much longer than the nation state has. Language has long bound people within an ethnic group, and those outside the ethnic group who also speak it. Language, it is true, is emblematic of ethnic groups, and […]
What was your first scientific published paper?
Nicholas, N. 1998. To aper and o opios: Untangling Mediaeval Relativisation. In Joseph, B.D., Horrocks, G.C. & Philippaki-Warburton, I. (eds), Themes in Greek Linguistics II. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 159) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 283-323. Τὸ ἄπερ and ὁ ὁποῖος: Untangling Mediaeval Greek Relativisation This was a very tangled paper, that kept tripping itself over. […]
Why is Aromanian not officially recognized in Greece?
Oh dear. Greece has long had a model of state nationalism which, like that of France, treated minorities as a threat to national unity, and pursued assimilation. The Greek Orthodox ethnic minorities of Greece, who had identified with ethnic Greeks as fellow members of the Rum millet, enthusiastically embraced assimilation for the most part. So […]