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Category: Ancient Greek
What are all the Greek star names?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arabic_star_names Drawing on: History of Constellation and Star Names In Greek astronomy the stars within the constellation figures were usually not given individual names. (There are only a few individual star names from Greece. The most prominent stars in the sky were usually nameless in Greek civilization. If there was a system of Greek star […]
Who has invented the word philosophia?
The word is all over the place in Plato and his contemporaries and it’s not in Homer. Philosophy – Wikipedia guesses that Pythagoras probably came up with it first. The basis for that guess, from what I can tell, is that as cited in LSJ (s.v. φιλόσοφος), both Cicero (Tusc. 5.3.9) and Diogenes Laertes (prooem […]
Who invented the word “Mathematics”?
In its modern meaning of mathematics, the earliest citation Liddell–Scott give is the treatise of the same name by Archytas. (However, the German Wikipedia doubts that was the original title of his work.) The term comes into its own in its modern meaning in Aristotle, a generation later, who uses it extensively. Plato was the […]
In Ancient Greek, how common is this declension? It’s in the second declension group but called “attic declension.”
To add to the others: Vote #1: Humphry Smith’s answer to In Ancient Greek, how common is this declension? It’s in the second declension group but called “attic declension.” Vote #1: Robert Todd’s answer to In Ancient Greek, how common is this declension? It’s in the second declension group but called “attic declension.” The Attic […]
Ancient Greek: why is there no neuter first declension nouns?
The original Indo-European declensions were thematic (corresponding to the Greek second declension) and athematic (corresponding to the Greek third declension). The first declension was a late innovation in Proto-Indo-European, involving a suffixed –e[math]h_2[/math] > -ā. It postdates the split of Hittite. The masculine first declension nouns were an even later innovation, and they were specific […]
How far did the influence of Ancient Greek spread?
OK, let’s dispense with hora quickly. Not to belabour it, but yes, coincidence. Probabilities add up pretty quickly in real life, in a way that clashes with our seeking of patterns: See Birthday problem – Wikipedia. If you put 23 randoms in the same room, there is a 50% probability that two of them will […]
If “gnothi seauton” is “know thyself”, what would “love thyself” be in ancient Greek?
OK: ἀγάπα σεαυτόν agápa seautón. That’s the imperative. Konstantinos Konstantinides’ ἀγαπᾶν σεαυτόν agapân seautón is the infinitive “to love yourself”. The quote from St Matthew in Evangelos Lolos uses the future indicative agapēseis: “you shall love your neighbour like yourself.” Chad Turner went with the middle voice imperative of philéō: φιλέου “be loved [by thyself]”. […]
Why are the Latin and Greek alphabets the only ones with capital/minuscule letters?
There are a few others, but they are mostly neighbours of Greek and Latin, or else motivated by them. Letter case – Wikipedia Writing systems using two separate cases are bicameral scripts. Languages that use the Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, Adlam, Varang Kshiti, Cherokee, and Osage scripts use letter cases in their written form […]
Is Greek language an Illuminati language; it can be used to translate the earliest languages where as Latin cannot, is that true?
Of course any Illuminati that you have in mind as relating to Ancient Greece will have precious little to do with the historical freethinkers of Bavaria. So in answering this question, I am safely untethered from historical fact, and find myself adrift in a world of which Meek Mill raps “I don’t have to join […]
What led to Ancient Greeks to create such a fascinating history and culture?
It’s a good question, and a question that has been posed and discussed by many before. The history of Classical Greece is more interesting than that of other places, because it had more conflict and more players: it wasn’t a steady-state, stable empire. (That came later, with the successors of Alexander.) Of course, being more […]