Author: Nick Nicholas

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

Who are the hardest Greek and Latin authors to read?

By: | Post date: 2016-01-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Literature

Second hand answer, based more on what I’ve heard than what I’ve read.  Agreed with Dimitra Triantafyllidou in general, but it’d be good to hear from more classicists. Homer is extremely far away from Attic in time and (to some extent) dialect. So in terms of vocabulary and grammar, it might as well be Phrygian […]

What is the etymology of “archetypal”?

By: | Post date: 2016-01-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

As the Googles will tell you, from Greek arkhetypon (ἀρχέτυπον):  arkhē, meaning start, beginning, and typos, stamp, impression (originally: a blow). Literally: an initial stamp, an initial impression. And  the meaning the word had  was pretty close to “archetype” from the beginning: LSJ Adjective: “first-moulded as a pattern or model, archetypal”, used by Philo  to […]

What is the difference between Illocutionary act and Illocutionary force?

By: | Post date: 2016-01-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

Per Illocutionary act  and What is an illocutionary act? , it’s always been messy. One take is: The illocutionary act is a speech act: something that the speaker does by speaking. It often expresses an intention that the world matches what the speaker says—that their assertions are accurate, their promises sincere, their commands obeyed. But […]

What are the difference between illocutionary acts and implicature given the sense that both suggest implied meaning or are they just the same?

By: | Post date: 2016-01-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

Implicature is a kind of implied meaning. It’s a default assumption underlying what you are saying, though it can be cancelled out. An illocutionary act is what kind of change in the world you are trying to realise through what you are saying. The implied meaning is not really part of it; it’s more about […]

Is there anywhere on the Internet a scheme of the Greek names and of the elements of which they are formed?

By: | Post date: 2016-01-26 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_name Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, University of Oxford , the online dictionary of all attested Ancient Greek names (which are overwhelmingly from inscriptions) has some materials on their publications list and announcements list, but nothing as methodical as what you have in the Wikipedia page you gave. The most awesome Dr. W. PAPE’s Wörterbuch […]

What are the pros and cons of the Erasmian pronunciation?

By: | Post date: 2016-01-24 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

For this answer, bear in mind that there are three current pronunciations of Ancient Greek: Erasmus’ reconstruction of Ancient Greek phonology, as modified in practice for teaching Greek in Western schools: Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching The scholarly reconstruction of Ancient Greek phonology: Ancient Greek phonology Modern Greek pronunciation applied to Ancient Greek (“Reuchlinian” […]

What is the equivalent of Do Re Mi for other languages/cultures?

By: | Post date: 2016-01-22 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Modern Greek, Music

In the 1832 revision of  Byzantine music, Chrysanthus of Prusa came up with a Greek equivalent of solfège, using the same derivation from acrostics of a hymn. So: Pa Vou Ga Di Ke Zo Ni. To my surprise, there’s no decent online source on this (https://thmodocumentation.files…. p. 6 has the info in Greek). EDIT: I […]

What is the name for the ‘condition’ that sometimes occurs when people wake from a coma and can speak a foreign language without any prior study?

By: | Post date: 2016-01-21 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

There is indeed Foreign accent syndrome . And the simplest explanation is the easiest: people wake up with a kind of speech disorder, which listeners match to whatever accents they are familiar with. It does not mean they are speaking a different languages, or that they have been exposed to another accent natively. Pareidolia, the […]

What is the best Greek New Testament?

By: | Post date: 2016-01-21 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Literature, Mediaeval Greek

The Textus Receptus  is the traditional Orthodox Greek bible, as passed down from Byzantine copyist through Byzantine copyist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By… ),  into one particular manuscript that Erasmus got hold of, and missing one page that Erasmus translated from the Vulgate. It is distinguished for being the first widely disseminated Greek text in the age of printing. […]

What does the Romanian language sound like to a foreigner?

By: | Post date: 2016-01-20 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Other Languages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUnFDbRClBI My prejudice going in, as someone exposed through Greek linguistics to written Aromanian language  (which I know is not quite the same thing): Too many diphthongs Central vowels? How odd It’s Romance, it’s just got some odd sound changes My prejudice on hearing this: Too many diphthongs. I can’t hear the Romance at all. […]

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