26
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Why did the letters in the alphabet shift position?
The letter Γ was sometimes written 𐌂 and was taken into the Latin alphabet as C, so the position did not change. The letter G was only added later (3rd century BC) to the Latin alphabet, to ...
- 1,775
22
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Learn Ancient Greek or Latin first?
Learning Latin is (generally speaking*) easier than Greek; you don't need to learn a new alphabet, and if you know a little bit of Italian, French or Spanish, you might recognize some of the words. ...
- 556
22
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Why did the letters in the alphabet shift position?
The Etruscan alphabet you presented in your question is actually a transliteration. The actual Etruscan inscriptions are in one of the "Old Italic" alphabets derived from the Greek one.
Unicode now ...
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19
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Can one translate ἀθάνατος as 'living' rather than 'immortal'?
"Living" is an undertranslation of "ἀθάνατος."
"Living" has a straightforward translation from "ζῆν" (to live): the participle "ζῶν"; "ἀθάνατος," however, means "not mortal," as opposed to "not dead....
- 38.5k
17
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What errors did the Greeks typically make in Latin?
Well, here's one example I found:
nam contra Graeci adspirare ei solent, ut pro Fundanio Cicero testem qui primam eius litteram dicere non possit inridet.
the Greeks on the other hand ...
- 8,611
17
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Are "μπ" and "ντ" indicators that the word didn't exist in Koine/Ancient Greek?
Koiné Greek & earlier lacked initial <μπ>, <ντ>, or <γκ> although these strings are commonplace word-internally. There are however a small number of Modern Greek words beginning &...
- 412
17
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Is there an English word derived from τάσσω, with a similar meaning of arranging/organising?
The word you are looking for would be taxonomy, from τάσσω, fut. τάξω, to arrange in a certain order, e.g. of troops. Τακτικός is that which is required for the arrangement: the tactics.
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Are "μπ" and "ντ" indicators that the word didn't exist in Koine/Ancient Greek?
No, there are plenty of ancient Greek words that have μπ and ντ in there somewhere.
Two common words off the top of my head are ἀντί and πέμπω, thoroughly attested throughout ancient Greek.
If you ...
cmw♦
- 50.7k
16
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Evidence about pronunciation of ευ and αυ in Homeric Greek?
I would go further than Draconis's answer and say that we can be pretty certain that these diphthongs were indeed diphthongs in Homer's time. Here are some additional arguments:
The Homeric poems ...
- 30.6k
16
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Is there any rule for determining whether a verb beginning with ε- will augment to η- vs ει-, or must all verbs' behaviors be memorized?
You'll basically have to memorise them, yes, though there are patterns. Both the η- in ἠλευθέρουν and the ει- in εἶχον represent a contraction of ε + ε, but the former is much older than the latter.
...
- 8,638
14
votes
Learn Ancient Greek or Latin first?
The best choice depends on various things, like your goals, the time available, your language background, the courses you could attend, and probably other factors that did not occur to me.
I will give ...
- 110k
14
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Capital and non-capital letters in the Greek alphabet
It depends how hard they are to write with a pen!
The "capital" letters are based on ancient inscriptional forms, the way they were carved into monuments. This is why they're made of ...
- 64.6k
13
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What does this Latin phrase, from an ancient astrology wheel say?
Hemphta is the name of the deity.
The Latin Numen triforme means “threefold deity,” or “god having three forms.”
The Greek actually appears to say παντόμορφον (pantómorphon), which I take to mean “all-...
- 31.7k
12
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Can one translate ἀθάνατος as 'living' rather than 'immortal'?
ἀθάνατος uses the privative ἀ- (from [ἀν-][2] = "not"). Adding the privative prefix to a noun makes a compound meaning "one who is without [noun]". Since θάνατος means death, ...
- 3,490
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Where does the final -ς in genitive feminine singularis -ᾱς/-ης/τῆς come from?
It's the other way around, actually: Latin lost this -s, and Greek retained it! In older Latin, and fossilized phrases like pater familiās "father of the household", you see the genitive ...
- 64.6k
12
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Meaning of "τρίχας" in Anacreon's Περι Γέροντος
Accusative of respect: 'He's old/an old man with respect to his hair(s)' – i.e., his hair is that of an old man.
Draconis has alluded to this in the other answer, but it's worth making explicit that ...
- 19.1k
12
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In the etymology of 'physics', what is the ultimate Greek root?
The Greek word for 'nature' was indeed φύσις. It is derived from the Greek word φύειν, which means 'to grow,' and was used for a variety of things, including natural appearance, natural character, and ...
cmw♦
- 50.7k
12
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What would the ancient Romans have called Hercules' Club?
I'm not sure we have direct evidence of this particular pendant, but we do have what the Romans called the club and what they called pendants in general.
The club is called the clava. Varro (LL 8.26.6)...
cmw♦
- 50.7k
12
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Why study a classical language?
Does learning a classical language help to improve one's mastery of other languages (and how much beyond word etymology)?
As you've noted, most classical language teaching is 'head-on' (explicit, ...
- 1,251
11
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Can one translate ἀθάνατος as 'living' rather than 'immortal'?
Short answer: no, athanatos means "immortal", not just "living".
Longer answer: compare the English word "immortal". It comes from the Latin in- ("not") + mort- ("death"). So you could argue ...
- 64.6k
11
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Are there minimal pairs between the acute and circumflex accent?
Two examples come to mind:
λῦσαι (aorist masculine imperative 2nd person singular, or aorist active infinitive, of λύω) contrasts with λύσαι (aorist active optative 3rd person singular of the same ...
- 1,332
11
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Meaning of "τρίχας" in Anacreon's Περι Γέροντος
To add on a bit to cnread's (completely valid) answer: this is a form that's also called the "accusative of body parts" or the "Greek accusative" (since it wasn't common in Latin ...
- 64.6k
11
votes
Why no relative pronoun in ἄνθρωπος ἐξηραμμένην ἔχων τὴν χεῖρα?
Whether a relative pronoun is ‘needed’ depends, in part, on how the participles ἔχων and ἐξηραμμένην are functioning.
ἐξηραμμένην (withered) is functioning as a verbal adjective, modifying τὴν χεῖρα (...
- 8,611
11
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Are "μπ" and "ντ" indicators that the word didn't exist in Koine/Ancient Greek?
CMW is completely correct, but to add on a bit:
The reason ΜΠ and ΝΤ are used for /b/ and /d/ nowadays is because, historically, the voiced stops Β Δ Γ turned into fricatives, and then later the ...
- 64.6k
11
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Why -ώς in αἰδώς?
"Is this just a phonetic thing in this word, rather than a semantic one?" Yep. In fact, as Smyth says, αἰδώς is the only such "-οσ- stem" word in Attic. (In Homer you will also ...
- 30.6k
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Greek quote source
The line is, in fact:
Τα γ’αριστα ουδεν ημιν αμεινονα
It would seem that, somewhere along the line, it has been transcribed incorrectly. I can just imagine a harried reporter hearing the line and ...
- 8,611
10
votes
The pronunciation of Eta (η)
Sources that say Ancient Greek eta was pronounced like the vowel in English "delay" or "hair" are only providing a loose approximation of the vowel.
Greek η was always a ...
- 26.5k
10
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Is Greek ἀρά, prayer, cognate with Latin ara, altar?
The etymology of ἀρά is unclear. There is an Arcadian inscriptional form καταρϝος which shows that it had a digamma (which actually confuses things further since if so, the Attic form should regularly ...
- 30.6k
10
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Did Plato describe man as "a being in search of meaning"?
As is often the case with these quotes, it's actually a summary of a summary of Plato.
We see an early version in Ernst Cassirer's 1944 essay An Essasy on Man:
It is impossible—says Plato in the ...
cmw♦
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10
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Horace quotes a Greek proverb in Ars Poetica, what does it mean?
The Greek proverb is very straightforward:
ὤδινεν ὄρος, εἶτα μυν ἀπέτεκεν
A mountain is in labor, then gives birth to a mouse.
As your commentary notes, Horace transposed it into the future. The ...
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