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Month: March 2017
How many languages are spoken in New Guinea?
The Ethnologue: Languages of the World guesses 850. On the one hand, the Ethnologue is best placed to know, since it is published by SIL International, and the SIL has the missionary linguists on the ground, who far outnumber academic linguists. On the other hand, the Ethnologue is consistently a splitter not a lumper. 850 […]
Are there any Modern Greek New Testament translations online besides Vamvas’ (biblehub.com), Spyros Filos’ (Bible.is), NTV & TGVD (el.bibles.com)?
There’s an excerpt of the 1536 Old and New Testament by Ioannikios Kartanos: Παλαιά τε και Νέα Διαθήκη. However that is a translation of an Italian paraphrase, and not really a translation. A list of the New Testament translations is available at Μεταφράσεις της Αγίας Γραφής. The list includes: Maximos of Gallipoli, 1638 Vamvas, 1850 […]
Ancient Greek: why is there no neuter first declension nouns?
The original Indo-European declensions were thematic (corresponding to the Greek second declension) and athematic (corresponding to the Greek third declension). The first declension was a late innovation in Proto-Indo-European, involving a suffixed –e[math]h_2[/math] > -ā. It postdates the split of Hittite. The masculine first declension nouns were an even later innovation, and they were specific […]
eudaimonistic
Michael Masiello’s answer to Which would be better for humanity in the long run, everyone being a Catholic Christian or everyone being an atheist? I would argue that what would be better for humanity in the long run has something to do with the cultivation of eudaimonistic virtues — ethical and civic values that aim […]
Which languages have changed the most drastically in the last 1000 years?
When Bergsland and Vogt (1962) debunked the assumption in Glottochronology that core vocabulary is lost at a constant rate among languages [Bergsland, Knut; & Vogt, Hans. (1962). On the validity of glottochronology. Current Anthropology, 3, 115–153], the lexically conservative language they brought up was Icelandic. The lexically innovative language they brought up was Inuit, which […]
On the YouTube channel “Χριστιανισμός”, which Modern Greek Bible version do they read from? Gallipoli? Seraphim?
OP, you know about the first translation of the New Testament into Modern Greek by Maximus of Gallipoli, in 1638! That is awesome! And it would be awesome if that was the version that the channel used in the video: But no. The text is Neophytos Vamvas’ translation, and you can read along here: N. […]
If “gnothi seauton” is “know thyself”, what would “love thyself” be in ancient Greek?
OK: ἀγάπα σεαυτόν agápa seautón. That’s the imperative. Konstantinos Konstantinides’ ἀγαπᾶν σεαυτόν agapân seautón is the infinitive “to love yourself”. The quote from St Matthew in Evangelos Lolos uses the future indicative agapēseis: “you shall love your neighbour like yourself.” Chad Turner went with the middle voice imperative of philéō: φιλέου “be loved [by thyself]”. […]
How far did the influence of Ancient Greek spread?
OK, let’s dispense with hora quickly. Not to belabour it, but yes, coincidence. Probabilities add up pretty quickly in real life, in a way that clashes with our seeking of patterns: See Birthday problem – Wikipedia. If you put 23 randoms in the same room, there is a 50% probability that two of them will […]
Are there languages which refer to the President of the USA as “ruler of the planet”?
As OP hinted, Greek is one. English is not one. The difference between the two is, I believe, instructive. Greek planitarkhis πλανητάρχης means “planet ruler” (or “planet leader”); the Classicising form of it in English would be planetarch. The term was coined in Greek in the early 1990s, when the fall of the Soviet Union […]
Why are the Latin and Greek alphabets the only ones with capital/minuscule letters?
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 […]