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Category: Linguistics
How irregular is Ancient Greek?
You say irregular, I say older regularities that have fallen out of fashion. For example, the second aorist corresponds directly to English strong verbs—they’re both Ablaut. Ablaut used to be the regular way of making past tenses; then suffixing took over. But yes, there’s a lot of those older unfashionable regularities as cruft in the […]
Why does English not coin a word for New Zealanders’ nationality like making “New Zealand” as “Zeal,” (then) &/or adding to “Zeal” “i-s-h” or “i-a-n?”
Apart from the more reasonable answers from other respondents: English speakers can tell that the land in Zealand means land. (And they’re right.) They see that it’s Zealand not Zealland, so they’re not prompted to go from Zeal-(l)and to the backformation Zeal. Even if they were, zeal already means something in English. So instead, Zealand […]
Can someone identify a particular Ancient Greek word in this text by Strabo?
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D4%3Asection%3D1 Nothing to add to my esteemed colleagues, Lyonel. “Like a marine lung” is what it literally says; and the different relevant senses of “lung” (πλεύμων) that apply here, from Liddell-Scott, are: lungs sea-lungs = jelly fish The “jelly fish” meaning of πλεύμων is attributed to Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and—surprise—Pytheas, as cited in Polybius. i.e. […]
Can we let a language die if we record, document and translate it?
If you have to ask the question, it’s already doomed. Linguists can only record the language; only the language community can give up on it. If the language community wants to hold on to it, linguists can give them tools. But it’s not easy. EDIT: OP also asks: Also, why should we teach our childs […]
What is the best part about learning modern Greek?
How much more regular and simple the grammar is, compared to Ancient Greek. Downside: extensive borrowings from Ancient Greek have messed it all up again. The bits of Latin, Venetian, Turkish, Slavic, and even Catalan in the vocabulary, that show you how Greek history did not end with Alexander. Downside: a lot of these have […]
Does the Greek word for obey in Ephesians 6:1 and Colossians 3:20 mean obey without question or is there room for discussion?
Ephesians 6:1: Τὰ τέκνα, ὑπακούετε τοῖς γονεῦσιν ὑμῶν ἐν κυρίῳ, τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν δίκαιον Colossians 3:20: Τὰ τέκνα, ὑπακούετε τοῖς γονεῦσιν κατὰ πάντα, τοῦτο γὰρ εὐάρεστόν ἐστιν ἐν κυρίῳ Naive answer: certainly in Modern Greek, υπακούω is straight out “obey”. Etymologically it means “under-listen”; and the first gloss given in Liddell–Scott is “hearken, give ear”: […]
Why is profanity often based on bodily functions or God?
The point of profanity is to break social taboos to demonstrate intensity of emotion. Social taboos are real, so profanity has the desired effect of shock by messing with those taboos. Most societies have strong taboos around religion. Most societies have taboos about excretion, and a lot of societies have taboos about sex. The West […]
How do you cheer or say “Hooray!” in your language?
Greek. Ζήτω! Zito! Now, have I ever written a Quora post on how you say something in Greek, without a detailed disquisition on etymology and alternate expressions? I won’t this time either. Zito! is a third person imperative of zo, “to live”: so “may he live!” The third person imperative would certainly have died out […]
How was Biblical Greek pronounced?
What they all said. In the modern-day context it doesn’t matter all that much; in terms of historical reconstruction, you’re trying to pin down jelly, since the pronunciation was in flux during the period, though it seems to have been closer to Modern than Attic (though far from identical). The reconstructions in Greek: A History […]
For what reason is the Czech ř hard to pronounce for most foreigners?
It’s a genuinely difficult phoneme to articulate. Back in the 80s, when the Guinness Book of Records was more than a picture book, it was listed as the most difficult to acquire—kids are supposed not to pick it up until they’re 7, and our own Zeibura S. Kathau says they have cram schools for it. […]