Author: Nick Nicholas

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

How heated was the Greek Language Question?

By: | Post date: 2016-12-16 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

https://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-biggest-enemies-of-Greek/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5/comment/27674526 If you don’t know about the Greek language question, look at the link: this won’t really make sense otherwise. Neeraj Mathur asked in comments to Nick Nicholas’ answer to Who were the biggest enemies of Greek? So in a sense, the Katharevousa partisans would have portrayed the Demotic advocates as the enemies of Greek […]

Why are Greek cities so ugly?

By: | Post date: 2016-12-16 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Modern Greek

As usual, there is a better answer than this answer. Vote #1 Yiannis Papadopoulos: Yiannis Papadopoulos’ answer to Why are Greek cities so ugly? Two factors that have to be added though: The deluge of refugees coming to Greece in 1924. Athens was a beautiful city in the 19th century, as you can tell if […]

Which language is older, Persian or Arabic?

By: | Post date: 2016-12-15 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Other Languages

Mehrdad, unlike the other respondents, I will disappoint you with a meta-answer. But it is the truer answer. There’s no such thing as an older language. Let me transpose the question to Iberia. People often say, “Woah, man, Basque is like, the oldest language in Europe, man! It’s like, as old as the Cro-Magnon!” That’s […]

Who were the biggest enemies of Greek?

By: | Post date: 2016-12-15 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

Originally asked: Who were the biggest enemies of Greek? Austin R. Justice writes in his excellent answer (Vote #1 Austin R. Justice’s answer to Who were the biggest enemies of Greek? ): I’m going to assume that you meant “enemies of the Greeks” or “of Greece.” Personally, I don’t know anyone opposed to the language! […]

What is the Latin translation for “I am broken, the only one who can fix me is the one who broke me”?

By: | Post date: 2016-12-14 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Latin, Linguistics

Fractus sum: solus qui me fregit me reparabit. (or, less elegantly: me reparare potest: “can fix me”, as opposed to “will fix me”.) Answered 2016-12-14 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-is-the-Latin-translation-for-I-am-broken-the-only-one-who-can-fix-me-is-the-one-who-broke-me/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

How many countries in the world say “Tata” when you say bye. And how did that happen?

By: | Post date: 2016-12-13 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

It’s almost a word when we were kids. It is a word from when you were kids. It originated as a “nursery word”, as the OED puts it (i.e. baby talk), meaning both “good bye” and “walk”: 1823 S. Hutchinson Let. Sept.–Oct. (1954) 261 Baby I believe has not learnt any new words since Mrs […]

How would you use a different alphabet to write your native language?

By: | Post date: 2016-12-13 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Modern Greek, Writing Systems

This is a much-beloved topic of mine. There are a suite of ad hoc romanisations of non-Roman alphabets, devised for the ASCII-based internet (and phones). Greeklish is the Greek one. And Greeklish varies widely from practitioner to practitioner, mainly as to whether it’s a transcription (capturing the sounds of letters in Roman characters), or a […]

Why are Greeks so extreme nationalist?

By: | Post date: 2016-12-13 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Modern Greek

OP is Albanian, and I’m not surprised he got attitude from Greek-Americans. Dimitris Almyrantis is a Greece Greek, and I’ll presume he hasn’t spent time in Australia or America. That is not intended as a veiled attack on Dimitris, whom I esteem even when I disagree with him. (Especially when I disagree with him!) But […]

What was the reason people created the Europe Idea while it is not separate from Asia?

By: | Post date: 2016-12-13 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Culture

What people created the notion of Europe? Ancient Greeks. Where did the Ancient Greeks live? On the border between Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greeks had not circumnavigated the Arctic (and they didn’t believe a word Pytheas said). The Ancient Greeks did not know anything about the Urals. The Ancient Greeks did not even know […]

Why are most poems written with rhymes?

By: | Post date: 2016-12-12 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

As Jakobson once said, though artlessly,poetry claims th’ axis of combination. The repertoire of sounds, in crafty array,are how the Muse stakes her signification.Without form woven in sonority,poetry loses its essential claim:ends up as prose with gilded metaphor,but does not merit the enchanter’s name. The Homeoteleuton as a devicewas known to Greeks as such a […]

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