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Category: Linguistics
Why do all languages sound different?
I’m going to answer a different interpretation of this question. If all languages have access to the same, finite repertoire of segments (phonemes), then why do they sound as different as they do? There are several answers to this. The repertoire of phonemes may be finite, but the realisation can be phonetically different. A Dutch […]
Do most Greek speakers articulate the distinction between single (άμα, αλά) and double consonants (γράμμα, άλλα) in careful, enunciated speech?
No. Gemination is preserved, but only in the South-Eastern group of dialects (the most prominent member of which is Cypriot). And the gemination of those dialects does not always coincide with the orthographic gemination preserved from Ancient Greek. In all other dialects, and in Standard Greek, double consonants are for spelling only. (Just like in […]
Is a phonosematic matching word domestic in origin?
I’m having a lot of difficulty understanding your question, but what I think you’re asking is: can a word be both onomatopoeic (or otherwise iconic in some way), and borrowed? The lazy answer, which is in fact the default answer from what I can tell, is no: if a name is an onomatopoeia, then its […]
We have Francophile, Anglophile and Sinophile but what do we call someone who loves The Netherlands?
Nederlandia – Vicipaedia Country Name in Latin: Nederlandia or Batavia Name of inhabitants: Batavi or Nederlandenses The Dutch may well want to avoid Batavia these days, but Batavophile is less of a mouthful than Nederlandophile. Marginally more hits on Google too (438 vs 299). Hollandophile has 711 hits, which just shows how insensitive the world […]
When was it a rule that double rhos (Greek letters – ῤῥ) should be written with smooth and rough breathing marks and when did the rule change?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rho#Greek There’s a reason Konstantinos Konstantinides never heard of this practice: it had dropped out of use in Modern Greek early in the 20th century. As in fact had the initial rough breathing on rho. The ῤῥ orthography used to be regular in Western typography, but has long since fallen out of use; from memory, […]
Where can I find a reference for Greek vocabulary in Katharevousa?
Any dictionary of Greek before 1970 is going to be biased towards Katharevousa, and that includes any Greek dictionary you find online (legally). That includes, for example, the 1868 Contopoulos English–Greek dictionary, Νέον λεξικόν ελληνόαγγλικόν. It includes the 15 volume Dimitrakos monsterpiece (not linked, since bootlegged). It also includes any number of Greek–Greek or Greek–French […]
Why do Greek words in -της sometimes have the accent on the final syllable and sometimes on the penultimate? (e.g. υπολογιστής, ουρανοξύστης)
I wish I was happier with the answer. Went through Smyth and Kühner–Blass. If the -της suffix is applied to a noun, and indicates someone associated with the noun, e.g. ναύ-ς ‘ship’ > ναύ-της ‘sailor’, the stress is penult. If the -της suffix is applied to a verb, and indicates the agent of a verb, […]
Is there a difference between asking which language is older and asking which species is older?
Will you take a “Yes… and No”? 🙂 The Cladistics of biological species was inspired by the cladistics of languages; the cladistics of languages, in turn, was inspired by the cladistics of classical manuscripts. All three fields have similarities. In all three fields, the classical tree model of divergence is an oversimplification; in fact, in […]
Which conjugation is Gnōthi ‘know’, as in Gnōthi sauton ‘know thyself’?
This is the aorist imperative active, 2nd person singular, of γιγνώσκω ‘to know’ Alas, γιγνώσκω ‘to know’ is one of the many irregular verbs of Greek. The particular irregularity here is that while its present tense is thematic (a normal -ω verb), it forms its aorist stem γνω- according to the older, athematic paradigm (represented […]
Does your language have a word for “hoick”, the noisy action of clearing phlegm from your throat to spit it out?
Yes, Modern Greek has the noun ρόχαλο or ροχάλα. Etymologically, the word ultimately derives from the Ancient verb ῥέγχω ‘to snore; to snort’. In fact, the corresponding verb in Modern Greek, ροχαλίζω, only means ‘snore’ and not ‘hawk and spit’. ρόχαλο, ροχάλα are a back-formation from ροχαλίζω, just like donate in English is a back-formation […]