Subscribe to Blog via Email
April 2025 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Category: Linguistics
Where did the names of the gods come from in Greek mythology?
Many are Greek, though they’re old and obscure enough to be headscratchers. If they aren’t Greek, they certainly aren’t going to be Hebrew or Persian (Greeks were in Greece a long time before they were anywhere near either); the origins of non-Greek names are more readily sought in old Anatolian and Middle Eastern civilisations, like […]
Is eudaimonia the only word for happiness in ancient Greek?
Nicomachean Ethics OP’s excerpt: “Verbally there is a very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and faring well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same […]
Should Greek write Tαβου instead of Tαμπου (for taboo) and Bιδεο instead of Bιντεο (video), as done in Cyprus?
A: no. 🙂 Transliteration reform has already happened in Greek, and it’s concentrated around simplifying vowels. No more omega for long o’s or eta for long i’s or <ai> for long e’s, as in Φλωμπέρ <Flōmper> = Flaubert, Σαίξπηρ <Saixpēr> = Shakespeare. But at least those reforms have made phonological sense. This wouldn’t. And B: […]
What is the Greek name of violet?
The flower violet is ἴον /íon/ in Ancient Greek. In Modern Greek, μενεξές /menekses/ < Turkish menekşe < Persian بنفشه /banafše/ and βιολέτα < Italian violetta are more common. Βιολέτα – Βικιπαίδεια EDIT: the colour: in Ancient Greek ἰάνθινος “violet-flowered” or ἰόεις. Just as well, because ἰώδης is “rust-coloured = verdigris, green” (from the similar […]
What language did the ancient Minoans of Crete speak? Was ancient Greek, or something very different?
Other respondents have answered about Linear A, of which we know only that is probably inspired Linear B, and it was very unlikely to have been Greek. We also have a few inscriptions, from Classical times, in Eteocretan language, a non-Greek language written in Greek characters. It’s reasonable to assume it’s the same language was […]
What linguistic studies have been done on the words spoken when “speaking in tongues”?
Christine Kenneally (born in Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian-American journalist who writes on science, language and culture. Trained as a linguist, she has written for the New York Times, the New Yorker, Slate, New Scientist, and Australia’s Monthly, among other publications. Christine Kenneally is someone I resent the hell out of, because she went to […]
Why do Latin second declension neuter nouns look like singular feminine nouns in plural nominative and accusative?
I went to Sihler: New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin Indo-European fem sg: –e[math]H_2[/math]. Indo-European neuter o-stem plural: –e-[math]H_2[/math]. They are the same; as Sihler notes (p. 263) “identical in form with the nom.sg of -e[math]H_2[/math] stems (=first declension) and probably the point of departure for the creation of that stem.”— (p. 266) “a […]
Is the word Synagogue Greek and the word Havra Spanish?
Thanks to all respondents. As Dimitris said, χάβρα is the colloquial Greek word for synagogue, typically derogatory (unsurprisingly 🙁 ). It is used in two expressions I know of: (Antisemitism alert, with apologies to respondents) 1. As Dimitris also said, χάβρα Ιουδαίων, “a synagogue of the Judaeans”, meaning “confusion, free for all”. Pretty rich, you’d […]
What is the relationship between syntagmatic and paradigmatic?
They are the two relationships between linguistic elements that define how language works, according to structuralism. They are complementary. The syntagmatic relationship is how linguistic elements can be sequenced. It’s syntax. And morphology. And phonotactics. The paradigmatic relationship is which linguistic elements behave in the same way in syntagmatic relationships. It’s lexicon. And phonetics. And […]
Why does Grecani language not exist in Sicily (Magna Grecia)?
We know from Salvatore Cusa’s collection of church deeds from Sicily that Greek remained in use in official contexts until at least the 1300s—with the “correctness” of the Greek gradually degrading. We know that the use of Greek in Calabria and Salento steadily declined, with much wider areas using Greek in the 16th century. If […]