Author: Nick Nicholas

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

If having 2 words for same thing seems logical, then why have 2 meanings out of 1 word? That’s also logical, and why would this happened in a rich language like Arabic?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-11 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

As Mohamed Essam has commented, linguists are reluctant to accept that there are ever absolute synonyms, precisely because that kind of redundancy isn’t really logical. Usually, there will be some slight nuance of difference between them; if not in their etymology, then in their social register, or their connotations, or even just their sounds. As […]

How many Greek dialects are there in the Balkans?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-11 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

A2Q (as opposed to A2A) by Peter J. Wright. Are we including Greece in the Balkans for the purposes of this question? If so, the breakdown of dialects is pretty arbitrary, but the dialect groupings from Newton, which I accept, are: Peloponnesian–Ionian Northern Old Athenian (including Maniot and Kymiot) Cretan (including Cycladean) South-Eastern (including Cypriot) […]

Does one accentuate French capital letters?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-11 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Other Languages, Writing Systems

From this forum: France Forum Canadian French routinely accents capital letters, and Microsoft Word obliges them. The Academie Française says you should accent capital letters. France French usually nowadays don’t accent capital letters. Which means the Quebecois, once again, are being more royalist than the king… Answered 2016-09-11 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/Does-one-accentuate-French-capital-letters/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

Do the isolated pockets of Greeks in Russia have a dialect very different from Standard Greek?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-11 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

A2Q (as opposed to A2A) by Peter J. Wright. There are two Greek dialects spoken in the former Soviet Union. The larger population speaks Pontic Greek, spoken in southern Russia, southern Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia. The population is descended from Pontic Greek speakers from their original homeland, on the southern shore of the Black Sea, […]

Did the ancient Greeks have to or were commanded to love their gods?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-11 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Culture

I humbly thank Amy Dakin for her A2A, but I am a dunce as to Ancient Greek religion. I’ll note one odd thing though. I’m not sure of this one thing, and I’m happy to be shown to be wrong. In a few questions, I tackled the question of “what’s with the meaning of agape”, […]

Which variant of Greek is being used in Alexandros Pallis’ translation of the Iliad?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-10 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

Original wording: Which dialect (hesitate to call it that) of Greek is being used in this translation of the Iliad? You do well, my synonomatos [fellow Nick], to hesitate: “dialect” is not quite the right thing to call it. This is the 1904 translation of the Iliad by Alexandros Pallis. A Liverpudlian Greek like our […]

If is correct,what a Quoran wrote,that Ottomans saved Orthodox from Catholics,its not better to add,that they saved also antiquities of Greece,from the same people?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-07 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: History, Modern Greek

Well, let’s put it this way: I don’t know of many instances when the Ottomans destroyed Greek antiquities. I do know of instances when Catholics did. Including the bombing of the Parthenon by the Venetians, and that nutter French monk who went and leveled Sparta: Greek treasures destroyed and stolen by Michele Fourmont; Michel Fourmont. […]

I know nouns and verbs can have declension and conjugation, but is there something similar for adjectives and adverbs, in varying languages?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-07 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

In languages where adjectives are inflected for case, number or gender, they are indeed considered to be declined. Note that the distinction between nouns and adjectives is not particularly old: it’s 18th century. In the traditional grammar I know, adverbs are considered indeclinable by definition. They don’t have number, case, or person. So they are […]

How do I join Latin and Greek base words to form a new word for a lover of jewelry?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-07 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, English, Latin, Linguistics

As others have said: mixing Latin and Greek is no longer a problem; mixing English and Greek is not that much of a problem, as you can see in Category:English words suffixed with -phile I admit: I find brandophile, a lover of brands, and foodophile, horrible (foodophile? really?). And computerphile is way too close to […]

Do ancient languages have an equivalent word to “cool”?

By: | Post date: 2016-09-07 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

Do modern languages have an equivalent word to “cool”? Cool is a peculiarly Modern American artefact, celebrating at first emotional detachment, and then the chic of youth, and being up to date with fashion and other trends. The Esperanto rendering of cool (Mark A. Mandel’s answer to What is the word for “cool” in your […]

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