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Category: Modern Greek
How did Greek language survive despite centuries of foreign domination?
For all that Greek was spoken in areas of foreign domination, It was the prestige and government language in the East Roman Empire—Latin never had a serious chance of displacing it. It was the acknowledged and prestige language of the Rum millet under the Ottomans—Turkish never had a serious chance of displacing it, except in […]
If I learned modern Greek, would I be able to read the New Testament in its original language?
Like the others said: no. Certainly not the more educated writing, like Paul or Luke. You’d know what was going on, more or less, but you would be liable to be confused, by the syntax or by the false friends. I’ve just gone through an exercise in Nick Nicholas’ answer to How much of a […]
What is the relationship between Greek nationalism and the Greek Orthodox Church?
Before the Greek War of Independence: the Orthodox Church was hostile to nationalism. Nationalism was this newfangled, godless French thing that set the people against their god-appointed ruler. The Patriarchate was particularly outspoken against it, and described it as a heresy. That’s nationalism. Yes, you can say the Orthodox church helped preserve a notion of […]
How heated was the Greek Language Question?
https://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-biggest-enemies-of-Greek/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5/comment/27674526 If you don’t know about the Greek language question, look at the link: this won’t really make sense otherwise. Neeraj Mathur asked in comments to Nick Nicholas’ answer to Who were the biggest enemies of Greek? So in a sense, the Katharevousa partisans would have portrayed the Demotic advocates as the enemies of Greek […]
How much of a text by Aristotle or Procopius would speakers of modern Greek get?
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0055 Nick, what are you doing responding to this question?! You’re a PhD in Greek linguistics, with 18 years of working at the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae! Yes, but I never did formally study Ancient Greek. And I know enough linguistics that I can filter out stuff about Ancient Greek that I’m not supposed to know. […]
Should I take that some Cypriot Greek speakers do call Pounds sterling as “λίρες εγγλέζικες” (English pounds) because the notes…?
Cypriots refer to English pounds, for the simple reason that colloquial Greek refers to English rather than British exclusively. Note that your phrase uses the colloquial εγγλέζικη, rather than the formal αγγλική for “English”. The formation of the United Kingdom never made much of a popular impression on Greeks. In fact even in more formal […]
Why are Greek cities so ugly?
As usual, there is a better answer than this answer. Vote #1 Yiannis Papadopoulos: Yiannis Papadopoulos’ answer to Why are Greek cities so ugly? Two factors that have to be added though: The deluge of refugees coming to Greece in 1924. Athens was a beautiful city in the 19th century, as you can tell if […]
Who were the biggest enemies of Greek?
Originally asked: Who were the biggest enemies of Greek? Austin R. Justice writes in his excellent answer (Vote #1 Austin R. Justice’s answer to Who were the biggest enemies of Greek? ): I’m going to assume that you meant “enemies of the Greeks” or “of Greece.” Personally, I don’t know anyone opposed to the language! […]
How would you use a different alphabet to write your native language?
This is a much-beloved topic of mine. There are a suite of ad hoc romanisations of non-Roman alphabets, devised for the ASCII-based internet (and phones). Greeklish is the Greek one. And Greeklish varies widely from practitioner to practitioner, mainly as to whether it’s a transcription (capturing the sounds of letters in Roman characters), or a […]
Why are Greeks so extreme nationalist?
OP is Albanian, and I’m not surprised he got attitude from Greek-Americans. Dimitris Almyrantis is a Greece Greek, and I’ll presume he hasn’t spent time in Australia or America. That is not intended as a veiled attack on Dimitris, whom I esteem even when I disagree with him. (Especially when I disagree with him!) But […]