Day: September 26, 2016

Without looking it up?

Yes, yes, misspelling of birthist, but what would a birthist be?

Birthist. Latin counterpart: natalist.

It’s an –ist, so it’s either a profession or a profession of ideology, and with a Germanic stem preceding it, it’s likelier to be an ideology.

I’d guess someone who advocates being born as something special. The closest we have to that in the real world is nativist: being born in the country should give you priority over immigrants to the country.

There’s also birther, someone who advocates the conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the US; that could easily have ended up as birthist instead, but it hasn’t.

Here’s some data, from Gyula Moravcsik’s Byzantinoturcica, a dictionary of all Turkic names and words that ended up in Byzantine Greek. The names are in roughly chronological order.

Osman is named as:

• Atman (George Pachymeres, Nicephorus Gregoras)
• Atouman Atoumanos Atoumanes (Notitiae Chronicae, Chronicon Turcorum)
• Otmanos Otmanes (Hierax, Chronica Minora)
• Otoumanos (Chalcocondyles)
• Othmanos Othman Otthmanos Otthmanes Otthamanes
• Osouman

From Turkish Atman, Ataman, Azman, Tuman? ~ Arabic Otmān.

So Moravcsik accepts that the name originated as Atman, with abundant bibliography, and the very earliest mentions are as Atman. The versions with an initial O- and with a -th- are 15th and 16th century.

Can’t find the link, and I don’t want to awaken any demons in invoking it, but Tatiana Estevez did once say that obscene language is not encouraged on Quora, even if it wasn’t directed aggressively at anyone in particular. The rationale given was that Quora did not want third parties to get the impression that that kind of language and tone was welcome on Quora.

User, I think the context was your edit-blocking, but I could be wrong.

Quora is decidedly not a free-speech zone; moderation here is quite heavy (when your transgression is brought to their attention). But I, and many others, would object to the policing on Quora of obscene language that is expressive, rather than aggressive. Dan Holliday would be left speechless, for one. 🙂

Quora has a community norm of language. As in much of the world, that community norm allows obscene language, and it disallows aggressive language. Tatiana has voiced the opinion that both are discouraged, and people may have even been blocked on occasion for it (how can you tell?); but I haven’t seen it as an ex cathedra policy that it is disallowed, and any policing is clearly unenthusiastic.

The World has moved on in its taboos. The World certainly has taboos, but they are different now; in the US, for example, racism rather than sexuality.

In participating in Quora, you are engaging with the World. Its norms may well not be your norms; and more power to you for having your norms. But your norms are not its norms either. And I’d really rather Quora not get into trigger warnings.

Other than that, what McKayla Kennedy said. As ever.

• Wrath: I enjoy it a little too much, though it really is more as a performance piece than a reality. The Magister Optimus Michael Masiello circulated the rage performance pieces of Eddie Pepitone recently (Michael Masiello’s answer to Who’s the best stand-up comedian whose act is awkward and funny?); they had me in stitches. Gratias tibi, bene enim me docuisti.
• Greed: Nah.
• Envy: Nah.
• Gluttony: 1.68 m tall, 95 kg. Some of that is muscle. Most of it isn’t.
• Sloth: Comes and goes, but more than I’m happy about.
• Lust: It’s annoying to be turning middle-aged, but, well, yeah, and let’s leave it at that.
• Pride: just look at my bios on language topics. And DO NOT call me “Mr Nicholas”. I did not spend six years in Evil Medical School, etc, etc…

I stand with Jake Williams. Pride: boom, there it is.

Pro ludo aut pro lucro? Pro alterutro laboro; pro utroque malim.

Alberto Yagos?

See: Edward Conway’s answer to What was the Spartan motto?

Well, Chad Turner, Frisk and Chantraine are on the internet…

Frisk (Lakōn): Krahe, in Indogermanische Forschungen 57:119, relates the name as suspected Illyrian to Lacinium, a promontory in Southern Italy, and Juno Lacinia.

Chantraine (Lakedaimōn): Etymology unknown. There have been unsuccessful attempts to use the gloss in Hesychius “lakedama: bitter water made in the sea [poured out in salt flats] which the peasants of Macedonia drink”. […] Szereményi, Glotta 38 (1960): 14–17 invokes the Mycenaean anthroponym Rakedano, dative Rakedanore, which he reads as Lakedanōr “Laked-man”, which would yield the same first part of the compound Laken-daimōn: ingenious, but still dubious. One can also interpret Lakedaimōn as an indigenous prehellenic term.

OP, get a hold of Frisk’s and Chantraine’s etymological dictionaries of Ancient Greek. Which may or may not currently be at archive.org—although they are both under copyright, so of course, you should be going to your local university library instead.

Hēlios is simply a reflex of the Indo-European word for Sun, via proto-Greek *sāwélios. See sóh₂wl̥ at Wiktionary. Since Indo-European already had a word for Sun, the etymology of Zeus as a sky god is irrelevant: the bright sun is not the same as the bright sky.

Different regions and/or time periods of Greek culture. Not all of them involving ethnic Greeks.

• Mycenaean: Greek culture of 1500–1200 BC. Associated with the site of Mycenae.
• Cretan: Culture of Crete. No timeframe. Initially non-Hellenic.
• Cypriot. Culture of Cyprus. No timeframe. Initially non-Hellenic.
• Rhodian. Culture of Rhodes. No timeframe.
• Asia Minor. Culture of Asia Minor. No timeframe. Different bits Hellenised at different times. The Lydians and Trojans and Cilicians (whoever they were—likely Hittite) were not Hellenic. The Pontians were not initially Hellenic.
• Classical. Greek culture of 600–300 BC.
• Hellenistic. Greek culture of 300–50 BC. A lot of Hellenistic culture was superposed on people nothing to do with Greek ethnicity:
• Bactrian. Modern Afghanistan.
• Indo-Greek. Modern Pakistan.
• Ptolemaic. Modern Egypt.
• Seleucid. Modern Syria, Palestine, Turkey.
• Byzantine. 300 AD-1500 AD Eastern Roman Empire, whose main language was Greek.
• Modern Greeks. Greek culture of modern times. Let’s not get into DNA.
• Hellenic. Greek.

Lots of the Rebetiko tradition of music is to do with hashish, if that helps. This song in particular references gambling rather than hash, but it certainly sounds like it’s performed under the influence, and it’s hypnotic in its simplicity.

Recorded by Yannakis Ioannidis with Manolis Karapiperis on bouzouki, New York, 1928. Τούτοι οι μπάτσοι, These Cops:

Τούτ’ οι μπάτσοι που ‘ρθαν τώρα,
τι γυρεύουν τέτοιαν ώρα;

Ήρθανε να μας ρεστάρουν,
και τα ζάρια να μας πάρουν.

και μας ψάξανε για ζάρια,
και μας βρίσκουν οχτώ ζευγάρια.

παίζω ζάρια και κερδίζω,
και στην πόκα τα τοκίζω.

έρχομαι το φράχτη, φράχτη,
και σε βρίσκω μ’ ένα ναύτη.

These cops that have just got here,
what do they want this time of night?

They’ve come to clean us out
and take our dice.

They searched us for dice,
and they found eight pairs.

I play at dice and win,
and put my winnings down on poker.

I come along the fence,
and find you with a sailor.

With exclamations like κακούργα μάνα, “Mother you villain!”, redolent of the underworld.

This modern performance, like many modern performances of rebetiko, is much more technically proficient, and much less charming.