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Category: Language
Kasos, 2023
Kasos is a sleepy, small place, with fishermen, old timers drinking beer, women running general stores, a couple of elderly Dutch tourists, and a few soldiers. Linguistically very heterogeneous: I did hear one local with a strong accent, as I walked past, drop a delta (ξα(δ)έρφια)—a local feature which make the local name of dolmadhes […]
Karpathos, 2023
I decided to visit Karpathos on my first holiday trip, for fairly trivial reasons. Karpathos is renowned in Greek linguistics for its archaism and its diversity of dialects. I had written a paper on the dialects of the Dodecanese, in which Karpathos had played a starring role (Nicholas, N. 2004a. Η γεωγραφική ιστορία του «ίντα […]
Why do the British and the Canadians spell check “cheque”? (Post deleted on Quora)
It is delicious when hundreds (literally) of Poms puffs their chests out in pride to assert that cheque was the original spelling, and dastardly Noah Webster simplified English spelling because Americans are stupid, and pip pip, we speak English and its our language, and the Yanks perverted it, and they can’t tell check and cheque apart… … only for historical fact […]
Why is “cunt” considered very offensive in the US but not in Australia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunt Originally Answered: Why is the word ‘cunt’ so offensive in America? Because in America, as distinct from the Commonwealth, cunt is a reductive description of women, when used as an epithet. In the Commonwealth, the epithet mainly refers to men. It is certainly strong, but it can and is used jocularly, and even as […]
Translation of the Greek New Testament began early on in the history of Christianity. Apparently no translations were made into Hebrew. Why?
To expand on Kenneth Bakke’s answer: the Jewish Christians who were the original Christian movement appear to have survived into the 5th century. We don’t know that much about them, but we do know that they had their own Gospels (Jewish–Christian gospels). They certainly would not have had any time for the Gospel of John, […]
Is it true that Americans don’t learn Old Greek, Latin, or German?
Ugh to many of these answers. The traditional European language curriculum was oriented to an elite, and had to do with instilling the cultural values of the West, which privileged Latin and Greek. Latin was still the lingua franca for European intellectuals up until the 18th century, but that does not explain Greek. I’ve written […]
What’s it like to study for a master’s in applied linguistics at the University of Melbourne?
Been A2A’d, but alas, I went through the general linguistics programme 20 years ago, and I haven’t stayed in touch. Some generalities: Melbourne Uni has the Language Testing Research Centre, which means that Language Testing is one of the core strengths of the department. The department also has three ESL specialists. The department includes Tim […]
Would you post a recording of yourself reciting Sophie Dockx’s Eulogia Hiphopia in Latin?
https://www.quora.com/profile/Sophie-Dockx Vocaroo | Voice message Backing track: Answered 2017-06-09 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/Would-you-post-a-recording-of-yourself-reciting-Sophie-Dockx’s-Eulogia-Hiphopia-in-Latin/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
Would you participate in Quora in Klingon if it existed?
Translation to Federation Standard follows: yItamchoH jay’ ’ej HuchwIj yItlhap! nuqDaq jIqI’? mach tlhIngan Hol mu’ghom, ’ej tlhIngan Hol Quora tu’lu’chugh, pIj DIvI’ Hol mu’mey lo’lu’ net pIH. jIHvaD qay’be’. cha’ Seng vIpIHlaH: tlhIngan Hol Quora lo’laHwI’ law’ law’, wa’maH law’ puS; ’a wa’vatlh law’ law’. Quoravetlh leHmeH yapbe’. meqna’mo’ tlhIngan Hol Wikipedia bot Jimbo […]
Are there any Esperanto users on Quora? If so, can you write in Esperanto what you did yesterday?
Hieraŭ? Nu, hieraŭ estis dimanĉo, do ripoztago. Kaj mi pli-malpli ripozis, laŭ mia kutimiĝinta maniero. Mi iris kun la edzino por matenmanĝo ĉe franca dolĉejo, kie ni kutimas dum la semajnofino. Mi tie legis du el la tri gazetoj de la urbo, kaj plendis kiel kutime pri la faŝismo de tiu kiun posedas Rupert Murdoch. […]