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Category: Linguistics
What is the origin of the surname Piliafas?
Interesting. Pilafás is a real Greek surname. Googling, the most famous instance of a Pilafas is some businessman’s son cum DJ who’s married the actress Katerina Papoutsaki. Παναγιώτης Πιλαφάς βιογραφικό – iShow.gr Whatevs. Pilafas means, straightforwardly, “Pilaf guy”. and the -as suffix weighs towards “Pilaf maker”. Pilaf, rice in broth, is an exceedingly popular dish […]
Where in the Balkan sprachbund did the invariable future tense marker originate?
A capital question. You were right, Zeibura, in the discussion that prompted this: the Balkans is a big mess of not continuously attested languages and dialects; and the only hints of whether a feature originated in one place rather than another is whether the feature is also present in Koine Greek or Old Church Slavonic—both […]
Does modern Greek still use the six tenses of classical Greek?
No, thank God. Although there’s some noteworthy continuities in what has survived: the morphology and semantics are pretty much the same. In the indicative: Present: yes. Imperfect: yes. The imperfect shows up in subjunctive contexts, to do the work of the erstwhile optative. Aorist: yes. Future: no. Replaced by a succession of auxiliary formations (μέλλω, […]
What if sign language was compulsory in schools in the same way that English, science and maths are?
Then we’d be properly acknowledging sign language speakers as our fellow citizens. Hell, even exposure once in your schooling would help with that. And I’d be able to borrow my deaf neighbours’ ladder without them them shooing me away because they assume I’m a salesperson. (It happened the once.) Plus, a lot more parents would […]
Do Ancient Greek verbs in the Simple Present tense ever imply grammatical modality?
Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges : §1876 on οὗτος μὲν γὰρ ὕδωρ, ἐγὼ δ᾽ οἶνον πίνω for this man drinks water, whereas I drink wine. (habitual) ἄγει δὲ πρὸς φῶς τὴν ἀλήθειαν χρόνος “time brings the truth to light” (gnomic) “προδίδοτον τὴν Ἑλλάδα” they are trying to betray Greece (conative = attempt: […]
Does how a language sound represent the character of the nation?
When I was lecturing historical linguistics, I addressed this notion as follows: “Just picture the 19th century German linguist, captured by cannibals and boiling away in a cauldron, saying: [German accent] ‘Hah! Zis is ein joke! You people are all pussies! You do not even haff ein alveolar affrikat!’” And beware of cause and effect […]
If the scientific study of language is by its very own nature descriptive not prescriptive, why is linguistics a science?
Well, as Zeibura S. Kathau has commented, Science is by nature descriptive. And linguistics is a science. A very soft science, I’ll grant you, but no less of one than geology or astronomy. There’s a word for fields of study that say how things should be, rather than how things are. That word is not […]
Is it correct that the Isle of Wight and Albion owe their name inGoddess of Barley?
Any Goddess of Barley in Greek would be named for the Greek for barley: alphi. That derives from proto-Indo-European *albhi- , and Albanian elp is a cognate. Albion is the Celtic name of Britain, which survives as the Gaelic for Scotland, Alba. Its cognates are Welsh elfydd < *elbid ‘world, land’ and Gaulish albio– ‘world’. […]
What languages and dialects are spoken in Corfu?
Greek. Heptanesian dialect, which is rather close to Standard Modern Greek. A hundred years ago, Judeo-Italian and Judaeo-Greek. Two hundred years ago, Italian (Venetian) among the nobility. I’ve seen no evidence of Albanian ever spoken in Corfu. Answered 2016-10-17 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-languages-and-dialects-are-spoken-in-Corfu/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
What words/phrases in your language have funny, beautiful or weird direct translations into English?
Originally Answered: What expression from your language would English speakers find really funny if translated word for word? Ah, you remind me of the Golden Treasury of Greek-English expressions: we have not seen him yet, and we have removed him John I posted an analyses of a few of these on my Greek linguistics blog […]