Linguists don’t like the word axioms. as you can tell from the other answers: they imply a degree of mathematical rigour that just isn’t compatible with someone as messy as human language. But there are foundational assumptions to disciplines in linguistics, which are pretty much axioms. And they would be more overtly acknowledged, were linguists […]
It has been de rigeur in Greece to take your shoes off when entering a house, as owner or guest. Indeed, Greek has borrowed the Turkish proverbial expression about it: to “hand someone their shoes” is to invite them to get the hell out of your house. (του ’δωσα τα παπούτσια στο χέρι/pabuçu eline vermek). […]
It’s a tough one. I know Klingon and not Elvish, like Brian Collins. I think I disagree with him: Tolkien gives slightly more opportunity. Elvish is a more complicated set of languages than the agglutinative Klingon. Elvish is much less well documented by Tolkien than Klingon is. That’s why people are very reluctant to use […]
Hm. You didn’t ask why the letter looks like that, which I’ll answer anyway: Italicised й: й Wikipedia Ŭ suggests it was formed by analogy with proposed Byelorussian ў. Like someone else said on Wikipedia: [citation needed] Now, why <ŭ> and not just <u>? Zeibura, you dawg, you know that I love this kind of […]
I don’t know the full answer, and I’m not seeing enough of an answer in Wikipedia. Let me put together what I know. There have been Roma in Greece for the better part of a millennium; we know linguistically that they went through Anatolia and Greece on the way to Europe, there is Greek in […]
As I pointed out in commenting Niko Vasileas’ answer, the Morea was reconquered by the Venetians after close to two centuries of Ottoman rule, whereas Tinos was under continuous Venetian rule right through to 1715. Add to this the odd situation of the Ionian Islands. They remained under Venice until 1797. Then they fell under […]
I’d like to thank my wife for arranging access for me to the State Library of Victoria (for free!) Inter alia, this gets me access to the OED. OED? First attested use: 1651, in a trial transcript: Att. Gen. Was Mr. Love present when this letter was read? Far. Yes sure, he was present. First […]
Originally Answered: Which languages were spoken in Anatolia and modern Turkey when Turkic arrived? I’m touched by Anon’s A2A’ing assumption of my omniscience, but I’m going to Wikipedia here, to confirm my vague hunch that the Anatolian languages of yore were long, long gone by the time the Seljuks came to town. Anatolian languages and […]
To my amusement, when I googled for this in Australia, I found that I know the researchers that came up with the latest research on this. The latest research I found was 10 years ago, though (which is why I know them); and I don’t think the numbers will have stayed the same. http://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/… As […]
I echo other respondents in expressing frustration at the vagueness of the question. In English, there are two diacritics that can be applied to <e> to change its pronunciation. <è> is occasionally used to ensure that the <e> is pronounced and not silent. Grave accent The grave accent, though rare in English words, sometimes appears […]