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Category: Modern Greek
Are there any true Spartans in Greece today?
There are two subgroups of Greeks in the general neighbourhood of Sparta, which were isolated from the Greek mainstream for a while, and who speak more archaic variants of Greek. You’ll hear people call them the descendants of Spartans. I don’t think it’s a meaningful thing to say; there’s been a lot of DNA traffic […]
Does an equivalent of cursive exist in other alphabets?
Greek: there was a cursive modelled after Western cursive in the 19th/20th century. It fell out of use long before computers (I was never taught it in school); I have seen it in letters from the 50s. The main differences to what you might expect: kappa looking like a <u>; pi as an omega with […]
What is one random thing you like about Albania?
The way familiar words (Greek or Turkish) look in Albanian. xham. suxhuk. trëndafill. And the word you just gave me: sufllaqe. Answered 2016-07-02 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-is-one-random-thing-you-like-about-Albania/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
Greeks, which do you identify most with: Ancient Greece or the Byzantine Empire?
(Nice question, Aphrodisia Xanthopoulos! You and Aziz Dida should get together and plot more questions; the Greece feed has been getting boring lately.) OP’s question touches on the old dichotomy in Greek identity between Hellene and Romios (Roman); see for example Romios or Hellene? It’s a dichotomy that may be dying down now, as the […]
What does ‘Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.’ mean?
I’ve actually been puzzled by this myself. I mean, I know the answer, obviously. It’s a politeness plural, patterned after French Vous (and Early Modern English you). And it’s been mainstream in Greek since the 19th century, although Greeks in practice avoid out when they can—because to them it’s much more about distance than respect. […]
What is the variation in the Greek pronunciation of ντ, μπ, γκ?
In brief: The prenasalised pronunciation is older, as the spelling shows. There are dialects that prenasalise and ones that lose the preceding nasal. E.g. Cyprus for the former, Crete for the latter. Within Standard Modern Greek, prenasalisation has been associated with Puristic Greek, and un-prenasalised stops are becoming more common in casual speech; there are […]
In which countries are Greeks not well liked?
Καλώς ήρθες, Αφροδισία! Not many countries now. If you dig into other questions, such as the perennial favourite What do the Balkan nations think of each other? What are the stereotypes? or What do Albanians think of Greeks?, you’ll see there’s some animus in (FYRO) Macedonia and Albania, and a lot less than there used […]
Which area of modern Greece, proceeded in preparation for statehood (independance), that was cancelled, in later stages?
Crete was autonomous, though the Cretans always intended union with Greece as far as I can tell. Samos was autonomous as well, though I have no reason to think they intended statehood. There was a very short lived Provisional Government of Western Thrace, set up in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, to try and […]
How do you translate the word ‘dreamer’ in Greek?
This couldn’t be another Google Translate question from… …. yes! Anon! Strikes again! ονειροπόλος. Which actually originally meant interpreter of dreams. The Triantafyllides dictionary Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής says the meaning switch is via French rêvasseur—which implies, at least, that this Homeric word was reimported into Modern Greek, incorrectly, to fill a gap identified by […]
Why does the Greek language sound like Spanish?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MxbBaVK1KKk Originally Answered: Why do Spanish and Greek sound so similar? OP is right, and Joseph Boyle gets it, while Yiannis Tsiolis and Eve Vavilis are in fact being misled by already knowing Greek. (Ditto Laura Hale for already knowing Spanish, porque tiene una mujer española). The question can’t be answered by someone who already […]