Author: Nick Nicholas

Website:
http://www.opoudjis.net
About this author:
Data analyst, Greek linguist

Is there a “White Black” prototypical character in the Balkan, Turkish, Middle Eastern, or Arabic folklore or fairy tales?

By: | Post date: 2016-05-02 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Modern Greek

Not aware of one in Greek folklore. Lots of Arapis in Greek fairy tales, filling the same niche as ogres and giants—sometimes benevolent, sometimes malicious, but always exotic. But not aware of White Arapis. Answered 2016-05-02 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/Is-there-a-White-Black-prototypical-character-in-the-Balkan-Turkish-Middle-Eastern-or-Arabic-folklore-or-fairy-tales/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

How has it happened and Kemal Ataturk did not adopt Greek Alphabet, although in the Ottoman empire the Greek (and Cyrillic) were spoken?

By: | Post date: 2016-05-02 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Modern Greek, Other Languages, Writing Systems

There was use of Greek script to write Turkish: Karamanli Turkish. Illustrated in https://www.quora.com/How-has-it… But without some concerted linguistic  work, Greek script was not much better suited to Turkish than Arabic script was. No differentiation between <ı> and <u> for example: both ου. No systematic differentiation of <c> and <ç>, just as Greek (at the […]

Why are deixis and seismic pronounced like that?

By: | Post date: 2016-05-01 | Comments: 3 Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

I referred to my wrong answer in Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is it like to be able to fluently speak Klingon?. The oddity is also commented on in Pedro Alvarez’s answer to What English word is pronounced the most differently from the way it is spelled? Here’s the deal, from the appendix to Vox […]

What is the etymology of Istanbul?

By: | Post date: 2016-05-01 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Mediaeval Greek

Uncontroversially: from the Greek εις την Πόλιν [is tim polin], “to the City”—The City being the informal name of Constantinople in Greek, to this day. There is at least one similar Turkish placename:  İstanköy is the Turkish for Kos (εις την Κω /is tin ko/). There are some uncertainties about why it ended up as […]

In Greek, how do you say “tasty”?

By: | Post date: 2016-04-30 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

νόστιμος, /nostimos/. The etymology (yes, that’s what I do) is odd. The primary meaning of nostos, the word that nostimos is derived from, is “return”: it’s the word for Odysseus’ return to Ithaca. Wheat gives a rich return on investment, so nostos also means the yield of ground grain. Hence the adjective means “abundant”, referring […]

I want to be a linguist focusing on conserving languages. Should I do it?

By: | Post date: 2016-04-30 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

What my betters have said, with both the pros and cons from Don Grushkin’s answer. Be aware of the following constraints: Don’t get too caught up in what language you work on. A friend of mine came to Australia to write a grammar of an Aboriginal language, any Aboriginal language. There’s 20 healthy languages left, […]

Did the era of the ancient Greeks happened before the flood or during the biblical period and how long did their time last?

By: | Post date: 2016-04-30 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, History

Without getting into the issue of how much of Genesis is historical and how much is wishful thinking: The Babylonian captivity, which can be independently verified from archaeology, was 580 to 530 BC. That’s when the Hebrew Scriptures as we know them were consolidated. Omri is the first independently verified King of Israel, and he […]

What is the correct pronunciation of “Chobani”?

By: | Post date: 2016-04-29 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

The founder of Chobani is Turkish, and çoban is Turkish for “shepherd”. The final <i> is either decorative, or a link to Greek—which has borrowed the Turkish word as nominative tsopanis, oblique tsopani. Given çoban and tsopani, the intended pronunciation is presumably [tʃoˈbani], “choh-BAH-nee”. Answered 2016-04-29 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-is-the-correct-pronunciation-of-Chobani/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

Why does English not coin a word for New Zealanders’ nationality like making “New Zealand” as “Zeal,” (then) &/or adding to “Zeal” “i-s-h” or “i-a-n?”

By: | Post date: 2016-04-28 | Comments: 2 Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

Apart from the more reasonable answers from other respondents: English speakers can tell that the land in Zealand means land. (And they’re right.) They see that it’s Zealand not Zealland, so they’re not prompted to go from Zeal-(l)and to the backformation Zeal. Even if they were, zeal already means something in English. So instead, Zealand […]

How irregular is Ancient Greek?

By: | Post date: 2016-04-28 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

You say irregular, I say older regularities that have fallen out of fashion. For example, the second aorist corresponds directly to English strong verbs—they’re both Ablaut. Ablaut used to be the regular way of making past tenses; then suffixing took over. But yes, there’s a lot of those older unfashionable regularities as cruft in the […]

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