Author: Nick Nicholas

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

How long would it take linguists to decode a language like Lojban if no speakers or reference grammar existed, but several original texts did?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-13 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

Great answer from Roman Huczok: see Roman Huczok’s answer. Getting an undeciphered text with no Rosetta stone is, as Roman said, hard work, though not impossible. The question is after the peculiarities of Lojban which would make the decipherment harder—particularly given the whole exoticism that Lojban claims to, of encoding predicate logic as something quite […]

Why does the Greek “αγγε” transliterate to “ange” and not “agge” in English?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-12 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, English, Linguistics, Writing Systems

Ah, a Modern Greek perspective in the question details. I answered the corresponding Ancient Greek question at Nick Nicholas’ answer to Why has the word συγγεής two γ? I know it comes from σύν + γεν, and that later the ν disappeared, but why putting two γ? And why has the ν disappeared at the […]

Why had Middle English dropped the leading e- in words borrowed from Old French that began with es-[plosive]-?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-11 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

I’ll start by giving the passage on this change from Elementary Middle English grammar : James Wright, as a change specific to French loans. §231. Initial e– disappeared before s + tenuis as Spaine, spȳen, staat beside estaat, stüdien, scāpen beside escāpen, squirel (O.Fr. escurel). Initial vowels also often disappeared before other consonants, as menden […]

In ancient Greek, how is the root determined in τὸ τεῖχος?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-11 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

Humphry Smith’s answer is right, but let me spell it out a bit more. We come up with stem suffixes in proto-Greek, to explain the diversity of case endings of classes of nouns—a diversity between dialects of Greek, as well as trying to make intuitive sense of where they came from. The nouns in your […]

Did Caesar say “I could kill you faster than I could threaten to kill you?”

By: | Post date: 2017-05-11 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Literature

At a first stab (so to speak): Plutarch • Life of Caesar After this speech to Metellus, Caesar walked towards the door of the treasury, and when the keys were not to be found, he sent for smiths and ordered them to break in the door. Metellus once more opposed him, and was commended by […]

Since Cyamites is probably an epithet for Hades, could the scythe/sickle be the meaning of the digamma missing from his name?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-10 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

As OP clarified elsewhere, the prevalent account for the name Hades is that it originally had a digamma in it, and meant Unseen: Hades – Wikipedia. Ἀϝίδης A-wídēs > Ἀΐδης Ā-ï´dēs > ᾌδης Ā´idēs. The archaic wid– stem for ‘see’ is the same as the stem vid– in Latin, and wit in English. (The terms […]

How different do dialects of the same language feel to you?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-09 | Comments: 2 Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Linguistics, Modern Greek

I was brought up in Crete. I read Cretan Renaissance literature as an adult, and was taken aback at the notion that the kinds of conceit you might find in Shakespeare (common Italian antecedents) were being expressed in the language my grandmother used to yell at her chickens. Greece is a country run on the […]

Will we ever decode Linear A or Cretan Hieroglyphs?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-08 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Writing Systems

We can actually read Eteocretan language, because it’s in Greek characters; and we even have enough bilingual text that we know the Eteocretan for ‘cheese’. And we still can’t make head or tail of it. A lot of Linear A and Linear B characters are shared, which means we can guess at the pronunciation of […]

What does “not for nothing” mean?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-08 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=not%20for%20nothing&defid=4426994 Contra the other two answers here, “not for nothing, but” is indeed used, as Urban Dictionary defines it, as a hedge. It is in fact a verbal tic of Aaron Sorkin’s that drew attention through its overuse on The West Wing: Inside Aaron Sorkin’s Brain, Sorkinisms II: Not for Nothing. Most famously in the […]

I recently reread Jack London’s “White Fang” and noticed the phrase “not for nothing” therein. Where did that phrase originate?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-08 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

Jack London’s example, as usage in What does “not for nothing” mean?, is: “Not for nothing had he been exposed to the pitiless struggles for life in the day of his cubhood, when his mother and he, alone and unaided, held their own and survived in the ferocious environment of the Wild.” Note that this […]

  • Subscribe to Blog via Email

  • January 2025
    M T W T F S S
     12345
    6789101112
    13141516171819
    20212223242526
    2728293031