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Category: Linguistics
Are there languages which refer to the President of the USA as “ruler of the planet”?
As OP hinted, Greek is one. English is not one. The difference between the two is, I believe, instructive. Greek planitarkhis πλανητάρχης means “planet ruler” (or “planet leader”); the Classicising form of it in English would be planetarch. The term was coined in Greek in the early 1990s, when the fall of the Soviet Union […]
What are some languages/dialects whose speakers call male bus drivers “master”?
Russian: Addressing taxi/bus driver by “шеф”/”командир” – where does it come from? A taxi, and particularly a bus driver, is the “chief” or “commander” of a small mobile unit with a lot of “horsepower.” Such a driver is also responsible for the safety of several passengers. At least in New York City, this person is […]
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 does the last name “Galifianakis” mean?
-akis is the patronymic suffix used in Crete; it’s a diminutive, like most patronymics in Greek surnames are. The surname in Greek is Galifianakis Γαλιφιανάκης or Galyfianakis Γαλυφιανάκης; I see the upsilon surname much more frequently online (except with reference to Zach himself). Galifianos means “from Galifa”; there are references online to a Galifian carnival, […]
Could someone tell how electric power resembles juice?
The analogy is not with juice as in orange juice, as suggested by Dobhran Black’s answer to Could someone tell how electric power resembles juice?. Clearly there’s an analogy with fluids to be made; but why juice and not water? Or quicksilver? Or blood? The analogy is with vital juices, a concept that was kicking […]
Why do we learn languages at school that most of us will never remember, be fluent in or use (coming from Australian education background)?
The fact that you are Australian is significant here. Foreign languages are taught in school because foreign languages have been decided to be useful to a country’s citizens. They can be useful practically, or they can be useful culturally. Classical languages were initially taught because they are useful practically as well as culturally. Latin was […]
How long would it take an isolated group of people to develop what would be considered their own language?
This is a question linguists don’t want to answer, because it raises the spectre of glottochronology. Glottochronology is an assumption made in the fifties, that a core 100 or 200 words of vocabulary in all languages would be lost at a constant rate. The figures that a study came up with was 86% retention per […]
How long would it take for English from anglophone countries to become separate languages?
I’m pretty much agreeing with Dmitriy Genzel’s answer: Dmitriy Genzel’s answer to How long would it take for English from anglophone countries to become separate languages?. If you look at my related answer to How long would it take an isolated group of people to develop what would be considered their own language?, you’ll see […]
Is there any word which cannot become a conceptual metaphor?
I’m not strong on cognitive linguistics, but it’s an intriguing A2A. What does it take for a word to become a conceptual metaphor? The meaning it expresses needs to be transferred to an analogous conceptual domain from its normal meaning; as a result of this, some of its meaning is preserved (the meaning that survives […]
How can I, as an 18-year-old first year college student, help in Kumaoni language conservation?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumaoni_language There will be different answers depending on who speaks the language, where, what the community attitudes are to it, and what kinds of resources you have access to. One starting point is Kat Li’s answer to How can modern society preserve dying languages? From Wikipedia, it seems Kumaoni is in the same category as […]