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Category: Linguistics
How do I teach myself the Byzantine/Medieval Greek language, i.e., around the 9th century?
Hm. Noone teaches Byzantine Greek as something distinct from Ancient Greek. That’s because for most purposes, it isn’t distinct. I’m going to go through a potted history of Byzantine Greek for others who might stumble on this question. There are three registers of Mediaeval Greek to consider; I’ll use Mediaeval to include Greek under Latin […]
Is it possible to make a language out of only one type of word (noun, verb, adjective etc)?
Logan R. Kearsley has written a comprehensive answer on one angle. I will throw a hint on another angle: if you have enough Noun Incorporation (linguistics) and polysynthesis at a language, you’re going to end up with languages where what European languages treat as nouns or adjectives usually end up as affixes—so what look like […]
Modern inventions have made it possible to hear how our great grand parents spoke. Will this influence how the language and dialects change?
*Probably* not. Language change is influenced by several things, in both a conservative and a innovative direction. Input from older versions of the languages demonstrably has an effect in holding back language change — or at least, in promoting use of the older version’s features in parallel. Outright reversing language change doesn’t happen that often, […]
Did the ancient Greeks use a different language for a special purpose like it was the case with Latin in Europe and Sanskrit in India?
Did the Ancient Greeks have a different *language* for sacred purposes? No, Ancient Greek was their language. But the Ancient Greeks did use different dialects for different genres of literature, to an extent that has not been paralleled since. Epic dialect (a mix based on archaic Ionic) for epic poetry, and allusions to it, is […]
How was the term “utopia” coined, and by whom?
The Sir Thomas More answer is correct. However, the 14th century Byzantine theologian Neophytus Prodromenus independently coined the term in his treatise Against the Latins [Catholics]. In his text, it was a variant of ἀτοπία “un-placed-ness”, which was the Greek word for absurdity, fallacy. Answered 2016-01-13 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/How-was-the-term-utopia-coined-and-by-whom/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
Is there a term for borrowings from a language’s own proto-language?
There’s lots of these—Modern Greek from Ancient Greek, Russian from Old Church Slavonic—but I’m not aware of a generic term. In Greek. for example, these are referred to as learnèd loans (λόγιο δάνειο)—but a learned loan in English is a loan from Latin, not Old English. (In fact we do have a term for learned […]
What does Felidae mean? How was the term coined?
Felidae is the Family (biology) that cats and great cats belong to. All animal families are formed with the suffix –idae. In this case, –idae is suffixed to the Latin word felis, meaning cat. The –idae suffix is a Latin plural counterpart to Greek –idai (singular –idēs), meaning offspring. In the plural, the –idai suffix […]
What’s your favorite word etymology?
This is NSFW. Kinda. The Greek word for a porn film is tsonta. The word comes from the Venetian word zonta, which is cognate with Italian giunta and English joint. The original meaning of tsonta was the same as Louisianan lagniappe: it’s an extra helping, an extra portion of the merchandise you’re buying, that the […]
What is the answer to a multiplication problem called? Who coined the term?
Product (mathematics) . The Greek for it is the participle γενόμενον, “what has become, what has come into existence”, which I would assume was calqued into Latin as “what is produced”. The LSJ dictionary lists the participle “what has become” for product as being used in Euclid ; but the verb “becomes” for “adds up […]
Who coined the term ‘polity’?
the definition of polity 1530-40; < Latin polītīa < Greek polīteía citizenship, government, form of government, commonwealth, equivalent to polī́te-, variant stem of polī́tēs citizen Online Etymology Dictionary 1530s, from Middle French politie (early 15c.) or directly from Late Latin polita “organized government” (see policy (n.1)). Policy and Police ultimately derive from the same Greek […]