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Month: May 2017
The Lay of Armoures
Song of Armouris – Wikipedia. A heroic Greek ballad, 200 verses, likely dating from the 11th century, though the manuscript is from the 15th. I got into an altercation in comments to Bruce Graham’s answer to What language was used to connect Europe and Byzantium?, an answer approving of the description of Byzantine vernacular Greek […]
Why do Greek words in -της sometimes have the accent on the final syllable and sometimes on the penultimate? (e.g. υπολογιστής, ουρανοξύστης)
I wish I was happier with the answer. Went through Smyth and Kühner–Blass. If the -της suffix is applied to a noun, and indicates someone associated with the noun, e.g. ναύ-ς ‘ship’ > ναύ-της ‘sailor’, the stress is penult. If the -της suffix is applied to a verb, and indicates the agent of a verb, […]
Where can I find a reference for Greek vocabulary in Katharevousa?
Any dictionary of Greek before 1970 is going to be biased towards Katharevousa, and that includes any Greek dictionary you find online (legally). That includes, for example, the 1868 Contopoulos English–Greek dictionary, Νέον λεξικόν ελληνόαγγλικόν. It includes the 15 volume Dimitrakos monsterpiece (not linked, since bootlegged). It also includes any number of Greek–Greek or Greek–French […]
When was it a rule that double rhos (Greek letters – ῤῥ) should be written with smooth and rough breathing marks and when did the rule change?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rho#Greek There’s a reason Konstantinos Konstantinides never heard of this practice: it had dropped out of use in Modern Greek early in the 20th century. As in fact had the initial rough breathing on rho. The ῤῥ orthography used to be regular in Western typography, but has long since fallen out of use; from memory, […]
What would be considered Taboo in Greece?
Not accepting food and drink from a household you’re visiting. Insisting on paying your own share of the meal (if not taboo, certainly frowned upon: you have to at least pretend to offer to pay for everybody). Failing to use formulaic expressions (“Happy month!” “Happy business!” “May she live long for you!” “With health!” “Life […]
What is a touching love poem in Greek?
A lot of these are going to be Modern Greek. This included. Nikolaos Politis’ 1914 collection of Greek folk song was defining, not only for Greek folklore studies, but for the formation of Modern Greek identity. Generations learned how to be Greek from the songs published in the collection; and generations missed out on hearing […]
We have Francophile, Anglophile and Sinophile but what do we call someone who loves The Netherlands?
Nederlandia – Vicipaedia Country Name in Latin: Nederlandia or Batavia Name of inhabitants: Batavi or Nederlandenses The Dutch may well want to avoid Batavia these days, but Batavophile is less of a mouthful than Nederlandophile. Marginally more hits on Google too (438 vs 299). Hollandophile has 711 hits, which just shows how insensitive the world […]
Which conjugation is Gnōthi ‘know’, as in Gnōthi sauton ‘know thyself’?
This is the aorist imperative active, 2nd person singular, of γιγνώσκω ‘to know’ Alas, γιγνώσκω ‘to know’ is one of the many irregular verbs of Greek. The particular irregularity here is that while its present tense is thematic (a normal -ω verb), it forms its aorist stem γνω- according to the older, athematic paradigm (represented […]
Is there a difference between asking which language is older and asking which species is older?
Will you take a “Yes… and No”? 🙂 The Cladistics of biological species was inspired by the cladistics of languages; the cladistics of languages, in turn, was inspired by the cladistics of classical manuscripts. All three fields have similarities. In all three fields, the classical tree model of divergence is an oversimplification; in fact, in […]
Does your language have a word for “hoick”, the noisy action of clearing phlegm from your throat to spit it out?
Yes, Modern Greek has the noun ρόχαλο or ροχάλα. Etymologically, the word ultimately derives from the Ancient verb ῥέγχω ‘to snore; to snort’. In fact, the corresponding verb in Modern Greek, ροχαλίζω, only means ‘snore’ and not ‘hawk and spit’. ρόχαλο, ροχάλα are a back-formation from ροχαλίζω, just like donate in English is a back-formation […]