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Category: Linguistics
The correct pronunciation of ‘H’ is aych, so why do people say ‘haytch’?
Is there a /h/ in aitch? No? Well, you won’t be surprised why someone thought it was a good idea to insert one, then. Every other letter names has something to do with the letter sound it represents. Even allowing for English orthography. Answered 2017-02-27 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/The-correct-pronunciation-of-H-is-aych-so-why-do-people-say-haytch/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
What are some differences between the Greek of Greece and Cypriot Greek?
Cypriot Greek is one of the South-Eastern group of Greek dialects, along with Chios and the Dodecanese. So the differences between the Greek of Rhodes (in Greece) and the Greek of Cyprus are less far apart than the Greek of Athens and the Greek of Cyprus. In fact, if you aren’t finely attuned to the […]
What is the plural of specimen?
The Latin plural is specimina. specimina – Wiktionary reports it as an alternative to specimens, but I have never seen it used. The examples it gives are from a 1949 textbook on colour perception. Answered 2017-02-27 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-is-the-plural-of-specimen/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
In Early Modern English the pronunciation of “housewifery” was /’ʔɤzɪfɹəi/. What caused the apparent (partial) reversal in modern pronunciation?
Why did housewifery used to be pronounced uzzifrie, and now it’s pronounced house-wife-ree? Well, let’s look at housewife itself. I’m looking up OED. OED reports that the usual pronunciation in the second half of the 18th century of housewife, as given in pronunciation dictionaries, was /ˈhʌzwɪf/, huzzwiff, with its start matching hus-band (which has the […]
What are some characteristics of the Greek dialect spoken by Sarakatsani?
Stand back everyone, I’ll handle this one. 🙂 The Sarakatsani are traditionally nomadic shepherds in Northern Greece and Bulgaria, who speak Greek. Their origins have excited interest, because the Vlachs are traditionally nomadic shepherds through the southern Balkans, who speak Aromanian, and there has been speculation about whether the two populations are related. The most […]
Are second Aorist tenses in Ancient Greek more frequent that first Aorist?
More frequent? No. But certainly very noticeable! The second and first aorists are equivalents of the strong and weak verbs of Germanic. Strong verbs and second aorists form their past tense by ablaut, vowel change. Weak verb and first aorists form their past tense by suffix. The older pattern is the ablaut; the newer and […]
How likely is it that the Cypriot Greek word for ironing board is related not only to horse but also to the English “apparatus”?
Not likely. Not impossible. But not likely. Let’s think this though, and the considerations for us thinking this through are not specific to Cyprus; they are pretty generic in etymology. English was a donor language to Cypriot Greek while the British ruled Cyprus, from 1878 through 1960, and as an international language since. While there […]
What names were historically used to refer to your spoken language before assuming their current form?
http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~coby/essays/gloss.htm As Names of the Greeks – Wikipedia details, the name that the Byzantines gave themselves, and the name that Modern Greeks traditionally gave themselves as a result, was Romans: Romioi, with Hellene reserved for the Ancient Greeks (or for pagans in general). It follows that the name Greeks traditionally gave their vernacular was Roman, […]
What was your first scientific published paper?
Nicholas, N. 1998. To aper and o opios: Untangling Mediaeval Relativisation. In Joseph, B.D., Horrocks, G.C. & Philippaki-Warburton, I. (eds), Themes in Greek Linguistics II. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 159) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 283-323. Τὸ ἄπερ and ὁ ὁποῖος: Untangling Mediaeval Greek Relativisation This was a very tangled paper, that kept tripping itself over. […]
Why is this language still called English, when the majority of its speakers are not even English?
It’s a good question, Mehrdad, and it deserves a serious answer. Language has functioned as a cohesive social force, much longer than the nation state has. Language has long bound people within an ethnic group, and those outside the ethnic group who also speak it. Language, it is true, is emblematic of ethnic groups, and […]