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Category: Ancient Greek
Is it correct that the word “Dune” comes from a very old Greek root?
A dune is a heap of sand. We can track it to Gaulish *dunom. Maybe. A θίς can be a heap of several things, including sand. A relation between the two has been suggested, but it’s not certain. To quote Frisk: No satisfactory explanation. Wackernagel compares Old Indic dhíṣṇya– ‘situated on a knoll’, ‘knoll strewn […]
Did people in the first century have last names?
Romans had nomen and cognomen, which were inherited names like surnames. Greeks and Jews, like contemporary Icelanders, just had patronymics: John son of Zebedee. (See also the list of high priests of Israel.) Less often, they had nicknames indicating jobs or characteristics: Simon the Zealot, Judas of Kerioth, Jesus the Nazarene. In narratives, those distinctions […]
What are some famous Greek sayings?
Some highlights from List of Greek phrases. See the Wikipedia page for more detail and other phrases. ἀγεωμέτρητος μηδεὶς εἰσίτω. Ageōmétrētos mēdeìs eisítō. “Let no one untrained in geometry enter.” ἀεὶ ὁ θεὸς γεωμετρεῖ. Aei ho theos geōmetreî. “God always geometrizes” αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν. aièn aristeúein. “Ever to Excel” γηράσκω δ᾽ αἰεὶ πολλὰ διδασκόμενος. Gēraskō d’ […]
Is the theory that Hebrew and Arabic words descend or derive from Greek correct?
https://www.scribd.com/doc/309363407/Joseph-Yahuda-Hebrew-is-Greek-pdf Already posted this as a comment: … The business with Yahuda’s supposedly suppressed book is a longstanding urban legend in Greek nationalist circles (such as Davlos magazine). An urban legend uninformed by the existence of Worldcat: Hebrew is Greek (Book, 1982) [WorldCat.org] Hebrew is Greek. Or Amazon: Hebrew is Greek: Joseph Yahuda: 9780728900134: Amazon.com: […]
Did the ancient Greeks have to or were commanded to love their gods?
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”, […]
Do ancient languages have an equivalent word to “cool”?
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 […]
How do I join Latin and Greek base words to form a new word for a lover of jewelry?
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 […]
Does the Greek word for Palaces, Megara, come from the Aramean word Magharat or Zagharat “caves”?
Maybe. There is a plural megara word in ancient Greek, which means “a kind of crypt into which live pigs were thrown during the Thesmophoria festival”. This is related by both Chantraine and Frisk to Hebrew me‘ārā “cavern”, meaning it is Semitic (in all likelihood), and thus related to Arabic Magharat. The singular megaron “hall” […]
Was Ionian the mother dialect of Herodotus?
Inasmuch as we can trust the ancient sources, Herodotus’ native dialect was Doric, and he may well have been a Carian speaker. As Wikipedia says, we can’t trust the ancient sources anyway: Herodotus Herodotus wrote his ‘Histories’ in the Ionian dialect, yet he was born in Halicarnassus, originally a Dorian settlement. According to the Suda […]
Why was a Greek city with the name Mαρωνεια written Marogna in Latin and not Maronia?
As far as I can tell, you are referring to Maroneia in Thrace, and the rendering Marogna appears in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) Maroneia is reckoned among the towns of Macedon. The modern name is Marogna, and it has been the seat of an archbishopric. Cramer (1828) also gives the name […]