I would like to take the opportunity afforded by this question, to translate the epigraph to Ptolemy’s Geography, which is included in the new edition. It might be Byzantine rather than Roman, but for these purposes, Byzantine can serve for Roman. And it illustrates that Romans looked down on all foreigners, not just ones with […]
Ancient Greek ἀλώπηξ /alɔ́ːpɛːks/; this ends up as Modern /aleˈpu/ via the Hellenistic variant ἀλωπά, somehow: Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής. In English, the Ancient word for fox has given us alopecia: Hair loss The origin of this usage is because this animal sheds its coat twice a year, or because in ancient Greece foxes often […]
To add to others: We use the neuter to address or refer to someone cute; desexing them is infantilising them, and infantilising them is a sign of affection, even if you are otherwise sexual with them. It’s the same thinking as using baby or babe in English. So χρυσέ μου “my golden one” (masculine) or […]
To explain the question: Tachy-dromos, “quick-runner”, was originally a word for a courier. Couriers deliver mail, and tachy-dromos is now the word for mailman. If someone uses tachy-dromos in its original original meaning of “fast runner”, rather than its community accepted meaning of “mailman”, how do I react? I react by telling them to stop […]
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%80%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%8D%CF%89#Ancient_Greek In refutation of Jose Pineda: You need Old Ionic (Epic) to understand Homer, and all of Greek literature is suffused with Homer. You need Ionic for Herodotus and Hippocrates, and the authors imitating them (more of them for Hippocrates, for Herodotus just Lucian in one work). You need Doric for the choruses of the […]
Well, there was also a Thermodon river in Boeotia, mentioned by Herodotus (Thermodon – Brill Reference). So it was a real river name, both in Boeotia and in Asia Minor: Terme River. This commentary on Lysias A Commentary on Lysias, Speeches 1-11 speculates that Therm-odon was picked as the location for the Amazons because Aristotle […]
What my peers said. Being upbeat and in a good mood, having fun. To do something with kefi means you’re smiling, you’re doing it with gusto, you’re having fun. To have kefi is to be in a good mood. Kefi is one of those Greek words that is routinely listed as “untranslatable”, because it has […]
Well, I’ve already answered the related question What do you know about Greek speaking Muslims (e.g. those in Hamidiyah, Syria)? I was tempted to merge the two questions, but the focus on Al-Hamidiyah is useful, because they’ve been so prominent in Greek media. Outside of Al-Hamidiyah: I know that some Muslims in Greece that were […]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Hamidiyah Hello, Aziz, and thank you for A2A. I found out about Al-Hamidiyah a few years ago, and posted about my emotional reactions on my blog: opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr: Al-Hamidiyah. I know that the settlers of Al-Hamidiyah fled Crete after Crete gained autonomy, and Christian Cretans started reprisals against Muslim Cretans. (In fact, as I found on […]
Indigineity sounds Latinate, so it is being accepted in those contexts where a Latinate word makes sense. Particularly when the emphasis is not so much on an individual attribute, but on a more abstract construct. Cf. Maleness and Masculinity. For example, if you want to talk about the factors that correlate with student performance in […]