I’ll start by saying that the expression (lit. “somewhere and where”) is unfamiliar to me. Which makes me curious when it became common. The related question, αραιά και που “sparsely and [some]where” refers to time: “occasionally, now and again”, rather than “in scattered locations, here and there”. The metaphorical use of spatial for temporal expressions […]
… I come into this knowing only an outline of Byzantine History, and Wikipedia. But, to focus on what the question details say: Constantinople fell to the Crusaders in 1203/1204, to the Niceans in 1261, and to the Ottomans in 1453. The Siege of Constantinople (717–718) by the Arabs was unsuccessful. The Siege of Constantinople […]
The only time the city-states of Ancient Greece rallied to a common cause Therefore, a formative event in the understanding of Greek identity (not least, because it was defined as not-barbarian) Leaving out the inconvenient fact that the Greeks of Ionia had long accommodated themselves to Persian rule A formative event in the history of […]
No idea whether the Sorbs are part-Gothic, or even how you could tell. I have another, more obscure instance though. Gothic survived in Gothia (Principality of Theodoro) in the Crimea, up until the 16th century. Gothic shifted in the Crimea to Greek. In fact, the Gothic speakers that Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq recorded were giving […]
Not a whole lot. Consider: Only very few scripts even have a case distinction: Roman, Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian. Georgian and Cherokee are picking up case now, but that’s not because they need to, that’s because they’re being culturally influenced from hegemonic scripts. Languages vary wildly in what they choose to capitalise. German capitalises nouns; most […]
Famously, yes in the case of Romani: http://am.uis.no/getfile.php/Ark… Through the common vocabulary of all the Romani dialects, we can trace their migration from India, through Iran, Georgia and Armenia, to Greece/Anatolia, to Romania. After Romania there is a dispersal throughout Europe: there is no further common vocabulary between Romani dialects. (from: Romani people, though this […]
http://m.nisanyansozluk.com/?k=merak In Greek, μεράκι means: yearning love-sickness pride in one’s work (in the phrase με μεράκι “with merak”) A μερακλής on the other hand is a bon vivant, a connoisseur, someone who knows how to have a good time and who appreciates the finer things in life. And the verb μερακλώνομαι is to be in […]
Agreed with Brian (more or less). Despite the inconsistencies and hypercorrections and weirdness, English spelling is not random. If you see a new word, you have reasonable chance of coming up with a consistent pronunciation; and if you hear a new word, you have a (somewhat less) reasonable chance of coming up with a consistent […]
I don’t know the answer, but I do know how to read Greek Wikipedia: Αχέρων – Βικιπαίδεια The Acheron was considered a river of Hades in antiquity. Which makes sense, given that Epirus, where it is located, was nowheresville to the Ancient Greeks. This also exaggerated their sense of its importance: far from being the […]
Ah yes. There isn’t enough of a bulls-eye on my back in Quora already. There are two schools of thought on the origin of Aromanians, as discussed in Wikipedia: A1. The Aromanians are descendants of Greeks (or at least, Greek-speakers) who were Latinised during Roman rule. A2. Slight variant on this: the Aromanians are descendants […]