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Day: August 12, 2017
Why didn’t Modern Greek unify all the ancient Greek dialects? See my comment.
The answer is Niko Vasileas’ answer. I’ll add that koineisation, the merger of dialects into a new norm, happens a lot. Australian English is a dialect koine, for example, and so is the contemporary dialect of London, and so is Early Modern English. They do tend to have a dominant dialect as their basis, typically […]
If so many Greeks live in Anatolia (modern Turkey), then should we consider Greeks as Asians and not Europeans?
It’s an interesting question—more interesting than people are giving it credit for. The question I’m going to write on is, how did the balance between Anatolian Greeks and Balkan Greeks change over time, and should that change in geography influence whether we call them European or Asian? (You might say, it’s only interesting because I’m […]
How did the Greek name Konstantinos (for short, Kostas) become Gus? It appears that “Dean” is much closer, especially to the Greek Ntinos.
The Greek diaspora often had to translate its unfamiliar names into names the locals found more familiar and/or pronouncable. Hence the long line of people called Athanasios who ended up as Arthur, or Dimitrios who ended up as Jim. Constantine was a peculiar case. As a Latin name, it should have translated into English readily, […]