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Category: Linguistics
Updated post on “Which formerly Ottoman-occupied peoples understand “s–tir” today?”
I have had an updated version of my old Quora post Which formerly Ottoman-occupied peoples understand “s–tir” today? published in Greek on Nikos Sarantakos’ blog, as Η υστεροφημία του σιχτίρ, “The legacy of sixtir”.
Updated post on “Does the Greek word for watermelon, karpouzi, come from Ancient Greek?”
I have had an updated version of my old Quora post Does the Greek word for watermelon, karpouzi, come from Ancient Greek? published in Greek on Nikos Sarantakos’ blog, as Από πού βγαίνει το καρπούζι;, “Where does karpouzi come from?”.
Updated post on “Why do English-speaking people not prefer to say natrium, silisium, kalium, and use other Latin names of elements instead?”
I have had an updated version of my old Quora posts Why do English-speaking people not prefer to say natrium, silisium, kalium, and use other Latin names of elements instead? and Where do the distinctive Greek names for chemical elements come from? published in Greek on Nikos Sarantakos’ blog, as Τα ελληνόψυχα χημικά στοιχεία, “Greek-souled […]
Updated post on “How are Rumi’s poems in Greek?”
I have had an updated version of my old Quora post How are Rumi’s poems in Greek? published in Greek on Nikos Sarantakos’ blog, as Τα ελληνικά ποιήματα του Τζελαλεντίν Ρουμί, “The Greek poems of Jalal ad-Din Rumi”.
Fifty shades of paraphilia, followup
My original post on the clumsy coinages of terms for paraphilias was a bit of careless venting on Quora, and did not bother researching the creation of the words too deeply. It was, as commenters at Nikos Sarantakos’ blog correctly identified, some xavales, “goofing off”. (Sarantakos did say when I sent him the post, “I […]
Updated post on “What is it called when you get aroused by watching people die?”
I have had an updated version of my old Quora post What is it called when you get aroused by watching people die? published in Greek on Nikos Sarantakos’ blog, as Οι πενήντα αποχρώσεις της παραφιλίας, “Fifty shades of paraphilia”.
Greek -eza ethnonyms
I’m sure someone somewhere has already written about this. In fact, I’m sure multiple people have. But I enjoy reinventing the wheel. (And getting inspiration from Quora, as well as Nikos Sarantakos’ blog, for articles here. My thanks to Evangelos Lolos for prodding me on this.) Modern Greek used to have a lot of ethnonyms […]
o-vocatives: Analogical Account, IV: What Henrich said
I’ve finally taken the time to read Günther Henrich’s 1976 thesis on the spread of the -o vocative and -o genitive in Greek. My blog series has been something like 15 pp written off the cuff, with minimal research. Henrich’s is 270 pp of meticulous historical and dialectal research. He has orders of magnitude more […]
o-vocatives: Analogical account, Part III
In the last few posts, I’ve worked through the analogies that have extended the o-vocative into proper names: M1–M5, O2–O6. There was to-ing and fro-ing, there was nebulous definition and redefinition of rules, there was a whole ballet of criteria. But the ballet orchestration can be formulated: the rules for the analogy are sweeping, even […]
o-vocatives: Analogical account, Part II
So far we have accounted for: M1: Bisyllabic common nouns that used to be third declension: ˈɣeros “old man”, ˈðjakos “deacon”. (Ancient ɡérɔːn, diákɔːn). M2: Bisyllabic truncated, informal given names: ˈɣjorɣos, ˈnikos, ˈðimos (corresponding to the formal forms ɣeorɣios, nikolaos, ðimitrios) “George, Nick, Dimitri” M3: The trisyllabic (truncated) name aˈlekos “Alec” O2: Bisyllabic formal given […]