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Day: April 23, 2017
What is the origin of the terms “Bourazeris” and “Vlamis”, obsolete from the 21st century Greek language?
The Triantafyllidis dictionary is online: βλάμης [vlamis] “blood brother” < Albanian vlam: Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής. Obsolete, but certainly familiar from rebetiko and later songs. The 1951 song Παλαμάκια is probably the best known instance of the word—or rather, of its feminine vlamissa: μπουραζέρης [burazeris], variant μπραζέρης [brazeris], was not familiar to me, and is […]
What are the unusual punctuation marks in your language?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language Survey question, and I’m looking forward to someone bringing up the Amharic sarcasm mark. Greek punctuation functionally corresponds to English punctuation—mostly. Upper dot <·> corresponds to semicolon. In Ancient Greek typography, the upper dot is usually also used in the function of the English colon. Modern Greek typography uses the colon. Ancient punctuation had […]
Is Greece a multicultural multiethnic country?
To expand on Fey Lepoura’s answer to Is Greece a multicultural multiethnic country? Historically, Greece contained a large number of ethnicities, and a large number of distinct cultures to go with those ethnicities: Greek Orthodox Catholic Muslim Turkish Arvanite Albanian (in the Northwest, mostly Muslim, but also Christian) Aromanian Megleno-Romanian Macedonian (Slavonic) Bulgarian Christian Muslim […]
How many types of dictionaries are there?
Dictionary Typology This presentation offers the following typology of dictionaries: Bilingual/Multilingual (translating one language into another) Monolingual Synchronic (contemporary usage) Limited (a particular field, e.g. medical; a particular register, e.g. slang) General: Comprehensive (all of the language, multi-volume) or Standard (single volume, mostly for paedagogical use) Diachronic Historical (the historical paths that words have taken […]