Author: Nick Nicholas

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

Do Greeks who came from Turkey in 1960 have a different accent?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-08 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

1960 in the question certainly alludes to Istanbul Greeks. There has been minimal attention paid to the dialect of Constantinople/Istanbul, because it was an urban dialect, and historical linguists were interested in the countryside, as more archaic material: Constantinople itself had all unstressed vowels, like Southern Greece, and unlike the villagers of Thrace, who reduced […]

What is the right way to say “congratulations” in Greek?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-06 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

Sofia Mouratidis is right. She’s also right in the formal synonyms, and in one of the informal synonyms. I’ll add a second informal synonym: συγχαρίκια. Amusingly (to me anyway), the original meaning of συ(γ)χαρίκια is “congratulatory gift”. When you brought someone good news, they were expected to reward you with a synkharikin. In fact, before […]

What is the correct pronunciation of dysania? I have found it in three references and all three listed different pronunciations.

By: | Post date: 2016-10-05 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

Peter J. Wright is correct that it is [dɪsˈeinia], but doesn’t explain why. And I knew he was right, but I also confirmed that the first -a- in the Greek word ἀνία is short. So is the first -a- in the Greek μανία. So why is it a long a? Traditional English pronunciation of Latin […]

What does Georgian sound like to foreigners?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-05 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Other Languages

What Sven Williams said. I have listened along to Chakrulo, that greatest of Georgian songs, with the transliterated lyrics; and I just could not hear the crunchy clusters. In fact, I’m going to do the same with some lyrics I just found: Hai, Khidistavs shevkrat piroba,chven gakhvdet ghivdzli dzmaniachaukhtet Mukhran Batonsa.Tavs davangriot bania! Hai, hai, […]

What did your language sound like 500 years ago?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-05 | Comments: 1 Comment
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Mediaeval Greek

https://www.quora.com/What-did-your-language-sound-like-1-000-years-ago OP, following up on Nick Nicholas’ answer to What did your language sound like 1,000 years ago?. Modern Greek 500 years ago sounded, well, pretty much like an archaic dialect of Modern Greek. In many ways, there’s much more variation between dialects than between 500 year old Greek and Greek now. The Cypriot of […]

Has e-mail, Twitter and texting caused people to forget or ignore the rules of grammar and punctuation?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-05 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/do-commas-still-matter/2016/10/04/afed2c72-8a74-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html?utm_term=.a1a2edc54a4c&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1 Read less Lynn Truss (Eats, Shoots & Leaves) and more David Crystal (Making a Point)! (That was a genius move of Profile Books, btw: to publish both the Punctuation Panic book, and its Refutation.) As Crystal argues compellingly, Internet and SMS discourse don’t make people forget the rules of formal punctuation they have been […]

Why does Greek Wikipedia use the two different spellings (and pronunciations) Όθων ντε Σικόν and Οτόν ντε Σικόν for the Frankish noble Othon de Cicon?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-04 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Modern Greek, Writing Systems

https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%8C%CE%B8%CF%89%CE%BD_%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%B5_%CE%A3%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD What Billy Kerr said. To elaborate: the <Otón> transcription is a phonetic transcription from French. The <Óthōn> transcription is the longstanding traditional hellenisation of Otto; it was used inter alia for King Otto of Greece. It incorporates the –th– of the old spelling Otho; and it ends in –ōn, which makes it declinable. (In […]

How widespread among languages the usage of the word for “where” as a general relative pronoun (meaning persons or objects)?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-04 | Comments: 3 Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

That would be the standard modern Greek relativiser I did my PhD on, in fact. Add Hebrew ašer > še, Bulgarian deto. Anon (you didn’t need to Anon this time, Anon), I can rule out Albanian: që in standard Albanian, çë in Arvanitika are not locative. Answered 2016-10-04 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/How-widespread-among-languages-the-usage-of-the-word-for-where-as-a-general-relative-pronoun-meaning-persons-or-objects/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

Why is an Acadian French accent considered funny compared to Quebecois French, which also has a funny accent?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-01 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Other Languages

Answer written with no knowledge of Acadien French other than that gathered through episodes of Acadieman. Remember. Dialects never sound funny because of something intrinsic to the local phonetics. It’s always political. It’s always about the relative prestige of the speakers. And it’s not about how dialects are supposedly ill-lettered corruptions of the pristine standard […]

Why does Greece not try to retake Anatolia and Constantinople?

By: | Post date: 2016-10-01 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: History, Modern Greek

See also the related questions: Should Thrace and Constantinople be given back to Greece? Is there any chance of Constantinople reuniting with Greece any time in the near future? Is there any chance of Anatolia reuniting with Greece any time in the near future? Never mind it being an unwise military venture. Never mind NATO. […]

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