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Day: March 7, 2017

Why are the Latin and Greek alphabets the only ones with capital/minuscule letters?

By: | Post date: 2017-03-07 | Comments: 2 Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, English, Mediaeval Greek, Modern Greek, Writing Systems

There are a few others, but they are mostly neighbours of Greek and Latin, or else motivated by them. Letter case – Wikipedia Writing systems using two separate cases are bicameral scripts. Languages that use the Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, Adlam, Varang Kshiti, Cherokee, and Osage scripts use letter cases in their written form […]

What are some languages/dialects whose speakers call male bus drivers “master”?

By: | Post date: 2017-03-07 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek, Other Languages

Russian: Addressing taxi/bus driver by “шеф”/”командир” – where does it come from? A taxi, and particularly a bus driver, is the “chief” or “commander” of a small mobile unit with a lot of “horsepower.” Such a driver is also responsible for the safety of several passengers. At least in New York City, this person is […]