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Month: March 2017
In Ancient Greek, how common is this declension? It’s in the second declension group but called “attic declension.”
To add to the others: Vote #1: Humphry Smith’s answer to In Ancient Greek, how common is this declension? It’s in the second declension group but called “attic declension.” Vote #1: Robert Todd’s answer to In Ancient Greek, how common is this declension? It’s in the second declension group but called “attic declension.” The Attic […]
querent
A queer little word, querent, and one that tripped me up when I beheld it come from the Magister: Michael Masiello’s answer to Why do many students believe that their major will limit or prevent them from getting jobs or degrees in other fields? Sure, there are other means of finding this out, but Quora […]
Why didn’t many revolutions in 19th century (e.g., American, French, Haitian, etc.) influence people in the Ottoman Empire to initiate their own revolution?
They did. The French Revolution inspired a lot of Greek intellectuals in the two decades before the Greek Revolutionary War, laying down the theory for what a Greek state should look like. In his Memoirs, General Yannis Makriyannis mentions the great warriors who have inspired him to deeds of valour; his list includes George Vasikhton. […]
What is the historical significance of the International Phonetic Alphabet?
In the 19th and early 20th century, there were several phonetic alphabets and spelling reform proposals in circulation; Romic alphabet was one instance. Linguists working on different languages had their own transliteration conventions in place, for use not only in citing non-Roman languages, but also for dialectal transcription. The International Phonetic Association was initially founded […]
Do “lëkurë” and “leder” have any link with each other?
The Albanian lëkurë means ‘skin, bark’. The German Leder means ‘leather’. Consulting Vladimir Orel’s Albanian Etymological Dictionary: lëkurë ‘skin, bark’ < *lauk-urā lakur ‘naked’ < *lauk-ura In both cases, *lauk– is derived from Indo-European *leuk̂- ‘to shine, to be white’. German Leder, English leather < Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/leþrą < Proto-Indo-European *létrom ‘leather’. From The Oxford Introduction to […]
What are some positive stereotypes of Balkan nations about each other?
There’s not a lot to be had in the region of course. From the Greek perspective: Serbs are our “brothers in Orthodoxy”—but I don’t know if that actually amounts to a positive stereotype. I don’t think relations between Greeks and Serbs have actually been close enough to rise to the level of positive stereotype. Albanians […]
Could someone tell why the words bind, band and bundle haven’t got more similar spelling?
I’m a bit incredulous at the other reactions to this question; but of course, you’ve A2A’d the right person. You’re right, OP. bind and band and bundle all mean similar things. A band is something that you bind things with. An bundle is a bunch of things that have been bound together. Hey, bound is […]
What are linguistic problems in swearing?
Use of swearing to affirm solidarity. There’s a lot of that. In fact, what the contextual cues are to differentiate between swearing used to affirm solidarity, and swearing used to express hostility. Cultural factors associated with the use of swearing to affirm solidarity: what are the demographics? Working class? Youth? Gender? Other correlates? Are particular […]
Why are miaphysite/ old Oriental churches called Orthodox when they are not Orthodox and not related to (Eastern) Orthodoxy?
Well, OP, at least you’re not calling them Monophysites. 🙂 The Greek Wikipedia, and as far as I can tell the Greek Orthodox Church, refers to Oriental Orthodoxy as Pre-Chalcedonian Orthodoxy (Προχαλκηδόνιες Εκκλησίες – Βικιπαίδεια). Of course, a church who thought Chalcedon got it wrong is not going to call itself that. Orthodoxy – Wikipedia […]
What are the most difficult things to learn in the Modern Greek language?
To Tasos Anesiadis’ answer (Tasos Anesiadis’ answer to What are the most difficult things to learn in the Modern Greek language?), I’ll add for Modern Greek: The chaos introduced by the clash of spelling pronunciations from Ancient Greek (via Puristic), and vernacular pronunciations. [nd] vs [nð]; clusters like [fθr]; [i] vs [j] before a vowel […]