Author: Nick Nicholas

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

What are some words shared between Albanian and other Balkan languages?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-06 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Other Languages

I answered a related question, and so did Dimitra Triantafyllidou: Do Greek villages near Albania use Albanian words, just like those in Albania use Greek loanwords? The Greek blog article Πενήντα ελληνικές λέξεις αλβανικής προέλευσης lists 50 common Albanian words in Greek; Dimitra being in Northern Greece, she knew most of them, whereas I being […]

In English, why does the letter “υ” from Greek loanwords appear in some words as letter “Y,” but as “U” in other words?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-06 | Comments: 1 Comment
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics, Writing Systems

The rule really is y, not u, for Greek upsilon. That really *really* surprised me. I went to the OED, and it didn’t tell me much: Etymology: First formed as French glucose (Dumas 1838, in Compt. Rend. VII. 109); compare Greek γλυκύς sweet and -ose suffix. The English Wikipedia didn’t tell me much more. But […]

Could Koiné be roughly divided into 6 declension types?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-06 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Mediaeval Greek

I *think* I read this in Signes-Codoñer, J. 2005. The definitions of the Greek middle voice between Apollonius Dyscolus and Constantinus Lascaris. Historiographia Linguistica 32: 1-33. The Ancient Greek authorities (actually Roman-era) came up with something like 60 declensions for Greek, because they were not trying to do internal reconstruction or look for regularities. (I […]

Are the vowels “ι, υ, and α” long by nature within a particular word in Greek poetry?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-06 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

My command of quantitative metre is non existent, but to my knowledge a particular instance of α, ι, υ in a particular word was almost always either long or short: it was a property of the phonology of the word, and not an artefact of the metre. The quantity of α, ι, υ in word […]

What is the schwa in linguistics and where can I find it in Ancient Greek?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-04 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

For what is a schwa, I refer you to What is the schwa in linguistics?, and Schwa – Wikipedia. It is the “neutral”, mid central vowel. You’ll find the schwa in lots and lots of languages, including English (uh…. ; about; and in fact most unstressed vowels of English). You won’t find it in Ancient […]

If Mandarin has a lot of homophones, how are the different meanings understood while speaking?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-04 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Other Languages

There’s no shortage of Chinese speakers here, and they’ll give better informed answers than me. But: Mandarin Chinese is not Classical Chinese. Classical Chinese was a bit of a scholarly game, and writers relished the ambiguity of the homophones and the overall oracularity of it all. People in real life don’t, and Mandarin has dealt […]

How do you translate “It is what it is” into Latin?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-04 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Latin, Linguistics

A non-trivial one. The meaning needs to be captured, and the meaning is that “it is no more than what it already is; we are stuck with it.” Which means I’d rather render the second is as ‘become’, ‘end up’. Est sicut factum est “it is as it has become” is a start. Ut fit […]

If Alexander was Greek, why was he famous as Macedonian Alexander?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-03 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, History

Because to the Greeks, the people who spoke about him the most, and whose historical accounts influenced the West’s understanding of Alexander the most, saying he was Greek wouldn’t mean anything: they were Greek themselves, after all. But saying he was from Macedon meant a lot to Greeks: Macedon had a marginal presence in Classical […]

Is there a language designed for use by both human and artificial intelligence?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-02 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

The artificial language Lojban was not expressly designed to be used by machines; it (or rather its antecedent Loglan) was designed as a test of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, its overt basis in predicate logic being sufficiently alien that its inventor thought it would serve the purpose. Lojban is something of a kitchen sink language in […]

If the Iliad is ‘Iliadic’, and the Odyssey is ‘Odyssean’, what is the Aeneid?

By: | Post date: 2017-05-02 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

Two ways of solving this: via Greek and via Latin. Greek first. I don’t care if the Aeneid is in Latin. Iliad: Nominative Iliás, Genitive Iliádos, so the stem is Iliad-. (The nominative in proto-Greek would be *Iliad-s.) Hence, Iliad-ic. Odyssey: Nominative Odússeia, Genitive Odusseías, so the stem is Odussei-. First declension, –ikos didn’t attach […]

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