Eg : αὐλέω to αὐλητής, actually. 🙂 For a list of suffixes and how they work in Ancient Greek, see Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges from §833 on for more detail than you’ll ever want on the mechanics. The list starts at §839. That list is for Ancient Greek; Koine is substantially […]
Translating your surname into Latin was in fashion in the 16th through 18th centuries for many Germans and Swedes; Linnaeus (von Linné), for example, or Neander (as in Neanderthal; Neumann). EDIT: Philip Newton points out Neander is Greek. True dat. OK, try Faber (surname), Latin for “Smith”. Or Schmidt. Sometimes, it has stuck around. I’m […]
A2A by Rahul. Ah, Rahul. This hurts. Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is it like to be a kabeinto? What was it like to leave Esperantujo? But, you asked. The lingua franca? Of course not, not any more. There might have been a brief window with the League of Nations, maybe even the UN, but […]
Modern Greek? In terms of vocabulary, Italian (including Venetian), but not by much; toss-up between Italian and Turkish. Then Latin, then French, then English. In terms of grammar, any significant influence was through the Balkan Sprachbund. A lot of the Sprachbund features originated in Greek (and we can tell through the history of Greek and […]
The Magister tripped me up this morning with the very first sentence I saw from him. Michael Masiello’s answer to How do I avoid atheists? I have this fear that atheists will ridicule me for being a theist. Andrew Weill and others have bewrayed the remarkable difficulty of your undertaking. Bewrayed? Bewrayed? Obviously no typo […]
I have been invoked by Heinrich Müller, and I corroborate him. Sociolinguistics, after all, is sociology. (Vote #1: Heinrich Müller’s answer to Is there an inverse relationship between social mobility and prevalence of formality in language?) The classic study of formality and social level is Labov’s “4th floor” study, in 1966 New York. Or should […]
I have attempted to recuse myself from answering this, being ethnic Greek myself. But Desmond James has importuned me to answer with my Australian hat on, and I do appreciate a challenge. So I will meet this challenge with generalities, reflecting on the hellenophiles and/or philhellenes that I have encountered. Hellenophile is not an established […]
Another little word that gave me pause. I recognised it just fine, from ontology, I just didn’t know that philosophy had done away with the –ology. Do Greeks even say ontikós? *googles* Phew. Theologians do, at least: Η οντική εκδοχή του Είναι: Αιτιοκρατία και αξιολογία. “The ontic version of Being: Determinism and Axiology.” The Magister […]
I’m an arrogant overeducated effete sumbitch. I’m looking at the contributions so far, and going, ha! I know that word. That word too. But the Magister has tripped yours truly up as well. And not with big words (Greek and Latin are my gig, after all), but with really small ones. The Magister loves limn. […]
Love this word, because it comes from my sister’s name, Irene. Love this word, because it describes the attitude I aspire to having on the Quoras, and I use it a fair bit myself as a disclaimer. Love this word, because while I had seen it ages back, the Magister reintroduced me to it. Michael […]