Author: Nick Nicholas

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

Is an accent sufficient in forming a dialect?

By: | Post date: 2016-02-14 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

If the accent deviates only in intonation, probably not: intonations are difficult to capture schematically; and by the time you have a different intonation, typically there’ll be a whole lot of other differences anyway. If (as your question posits) you have only phonetic differences, but not phonological (so the same spelling system does just fine […]

Why do we learn Ancient Greek and Latin using the modern alphabet and not the ancient ones used at the time?

By: | Post date: 2016-02-13 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Writing Systems

It’s an interesting question, with a boring answer. Because there’s no point. Let’s break that down though. 1. Right up until the 19th century, the main language being written in Greek script was Ancient Greek; and right up until the 17th, the main language being written in Roman script was Latin. The script hands and […]

How was Athens chosen as capital for the Greece?

By: | Post date: 2016-02-13 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: History, Modern Greek

Ancestor worship. The first capital of Greece was Nafplio (Nauplia), which was an important port in Ottoman times, while Athens was an insignificant village that attracted the odd Western tourist. In 1834, King Otto (himself a Western tourist) decreed that the capital of Greece shall be the most important city of Ancient Greece. For after […]

What is the Greek word for heaven?

By: | Post date: 2016-02-11 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

Ouranos for “sky, heaven”, and pre-Christian and proto-Christian notions of heaven. It’s what “Our father who art in Heaven” uses. And yes, that is the same word as Uranus; Uranus was the sky god. Once Christianity was entrenched, Heaven as in where the virtuous dead go is Paradeisos, Paradise, as it is in Catholic languages […]

Has anyone got any ideas for a simple grammar design?

By: | Post date: 2016-02-08 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

Look at Interglossa. Minimal number of verbs (a dozen?), which basically only encode thematic structures (feel, act, react, become…); and lots of verb modifiers, which capture the actual verb semantics. A thing of beauty, which has not really been followed up. Answered 2016-02-08 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/Has-anyone-got-any-ideas-for-a-simple-grammar-design/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

Is the modern pronunciation of Greek accurate for koine?

By: | Post date: 2016-02-07 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Mediaeval Greek

It’s close. This is from memory, so I could be wrong in a couple of details. 1st century AD Koine was the same as Modern Greek in the following: Stress accent, not pitch accent Diphthongs pronounced as single vowels Most vowels with modern values Most consonants with modern values No aspiration It differs as follows: […]

Would the Byzantines have spoken Ancient Greek or something closer to modern Greek?

By: | Post date: 2016-02-06 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Mediaeval Greek

Modern Greek. Being literate in Greek has always meant being literate in Ancient Greek; so all our evidence of the vernacular is tainted, right up until the Cretan Renaissance (and there it’s tainted in a different direction, of conventionalised dialect). In the period between the Arab conquest of Egypt (when the papyri run out) and […]

Can you create your own rules in conlangs?

By: | Post date: 2016-02-06 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

What others said. Yes, but make sure there is an internal logic to your rule, and that you’re applying it consistently and meaningfully. Klingon has an internally consistent story with its zero copula constructions: the pronouns in copula constructions (“he — teacher”, ghojwI’ ghaH) have been reanalysed as verbs, and take verb aspect endings (“he […]

Why do people say, “Call it pedophilia, not childlove” when the word “pedophilia” is Greek for “childlove”?

By: | Post date: 2016-02-04 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

Just because two words have identical semantics, does not mean they have identical connotations. Pedophilia in modern society has extremely negative connotations. It didn’t have negative connotations when it was coined in Ancient Greece, because it was coined under different cultural norms. Words carry with them the connotations that a culture puts on them. Advocates […]

What is the difference between Orthodox Christianity and other forms of Christianity?

By: | Post date: 2016-02-04 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Mediaeval Greek

Oriental Orthodoxy and Church of the East have Christological differences from other Christian churches. The Church of the East (Assyrian) rejects the Council of Ephesus  (Christ–God is the same being as Christ–Man), and Oriental Orthodoxy rejects the Council of Chalcedon (Christ–God is a distinct nature from Christ–Man). This diagram in Non-Chalcedonianism  helps: Non-Chalcedonianism . The […]

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