Author: Nick Nicholas

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

What is the origin of the surname Piliafas?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-21 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

Interesting. Pilafás is a real Greek surname. Googling, the most famous instance of a Pilafas is some businessman’s son cum DJ who’s married the actress Katerina Papoutsaki. Παναγιώτης Πιλαφάς βιογραφικό – iShow.gr Whatevs. Pilafas means, straightforwardly, “Pilaf guy”. and the -as suffix weighs towards “Pilaf maker”. Pilaf, rice in broth, is an exceedingly popular dish […]

Is Facebook called a different nickname in your country?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-21 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

The literal calque Fatsovivlio has shown up in Greek, but only in jocular use. (47k hits on Google.) It’s all the more jocular, because it uses the Italian loanword fatsa < faccia, rather than the Greek prosopo, for face. Loanwords are usually pejorative; Fatsovivlio sounds more like “ugly mug book”. SLANG.gr went one better, using […]

What are some Greek folklore stories?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-20 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Modern Greek

Category:Greek fairy tales – Wikipedia Category:Greek folklore – Wikipedia That’s a start. We’ve got Christmas goblins (kalikantzaros), we’ve got vampires (vrykolakas), we’ve got mermaids (gorgona). Fairy tales involve, interchangeably, fairies (neraida), ogres (drakos), and black men (arapis). And saints. My favourite fairy tale rather incongruously involves Jesus Christ. The Blessed Card Deck, from Kephallonia. Let […]

Does modern Greek still use the six tenses of classical Greek?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-20 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

No, thank God. Although there’s some noteworthy continuities in what has survived: the morphology and semantics are pretty much the same. In the indicative: Present: yes. Imperfect: yes. The imperfect shows up in subjunctive contexts, to do the work of the erstwhile optative. Aorist: yes. Future: no. Replaced by a succession of auxiliary formations (μέλλω, […]

How was 1360 Byzantium a shadow of its former self?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-19 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: History, Mediaeval Greek

The Byzantine navy had already been dissolved in the 1320s; Venice and Genoa ruled the waves. The crown jewels were pawned off in 1343, never to be redeemed. Byzantium had been wracked by civil war for decades; and the civil wars were being fought on behalf of the factions by Serbs and Turks. Gallipoli was […]

Do other countries have an Uncle Sam figure?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-19 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Modern Greek

Besides the Positive personification of Greece, Athena, there’s also the negative personification of Greece, Ψωροκώσταινα Psorokostena, “Kostas’ Mangy Wife”. In fact the cartoonist Bost (Chrysanthos Mentis Bostantzoglou) in the ’60s drew Psorokostena as a Mangy Athena: Although the contemporary blog Psorokostena has adopted a homelier figure: The story of the historical Kostas’ Mangy Wife is […]

Why do some Albanians hate the 500 year of Ottoman rule but no hate against Roman and Byzantine rule which was more than 800 years?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-18 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: History, Mediaeval Greek

Hello. Neighbour here. I know Greeks’ opinion on this question might not be welcome, but it’s reminded me of a very similar question: Why do Greeks (fairly unanimously) hate the 500 years of Ottoman rule but no hate against Venetian rule which was 400–600 years? You could argue rather convincingly that Venetian rule in the […]

What is the oldest Greek New Testament manuscript and how was it written?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-18 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Literature, Mediaeval Greek

In the world of scholarly consensus, the earliest fragment of a Greek New Testament gospel is Rylands Library Papyrus P52, containing a few lines of the Gospel of John, and dating anywhere between 125 and 170 AD. As one might expect, there’s a lot of controversy around the exact date. It’s a fragment of a […]

What is the most beautiful writing system (script)?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-18 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Other Languages, Writing Systems

Originally Answered: What is the most beautiful written script according to you? Armenian. Not because my wife’s Armenian. She doesn’t speak the language. Not because the alphabet’s well-designed. I think all the letters look the same. In fact, precisely because I think all the letters look the same. The results look like this: Beautifully flowing. […]

What if sign language was compulsory in schools in the same way that English, science and maths are?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-18 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Other Languages

Then we’d be properly acknowledging sign language speakers as our fellow citizens. Hell, even exposure once in your schooling would help with that. And I’d be able to borrow my deaf neighbours’ ladder without them them shooing me away because they assume I’m a salesperson. (It happened the once.) Plus, a lot more parents would […]

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