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Nick Nicholas’ answer to How much writing from ancient Greece is preserved? Is it a finite amount that someone could potentially read?, 20 Aug 2015.

A topic I am a world expert on, since I was still working then at the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (which had digitised all that writing), and I’d written a post about it on my inactive Greek linguistics blog, six years previously.

I’ve got enough arrogance in me that all my posts since have been as confident as that one—though it took me a month to answer another question, and I didn’t become prolific until 2016.

My first answer outside of my core competencies (Byzantium, music, language, Greece, Australia) was Nick Nicholas’ answer to What culture first created books as they exist today, with spines and bound into covers?, 24 Nov 2015.

I’ll answer this question for English, rather than cross-linguistically; I’ve A2A’d users who are more across the right typological databases.

Markedness (the linguistic notion of what is the default value between two alternatives) is a confluence of several factors, and in all of them, voiceless wins.

Refer Is there a rule for pronouncing “th” at the beginning of a word? and Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩ – Wikipedia.

• In frequency within the lexicon (frequency of types), θ is by far more frequent. ð is very frequent in tokens, because of its prevalence at the start of very common function words; but if you pick a random word of English with a <th>, it will almost always be voiceless.
• If you look at the synchronic rules for how <th> is pronounced, in both the Stack Exchange and Wikipedia links, the “else” rule is the voiceless. That makes the voiceless the default value in speakers’ internalised rule system.
• For what it’s worth, θ diachronically was also the unmarked value: ð was restricted to occurring between vowels.
• This means that in peoples’ intuitions of English, θ is the unmarked reading of <th>. If they are confronted with a new random word with <th> in it, θ is how they will pronounce it by default.
• In collaboration of that, look at how Modern Greek δ is transliterated into English. You will occasionally see the spelling dolmathes for ντολμάδες, but you almost always see the spelling dolmades instead. And there is a straightforward reason for that: because ð is so marked in English, no one would assume it is the pronunciation of a novel loanword with a <th> in it.

My command of quantitative metre is non existent, but to my knowledge a particular instance of α, ι, υ in a particular word was almost always either long or short: it was a property of the phonology of the word, and not an artefact of the metre.

The quantity of α, ι, υ in word roots is given in larger Ancient Greek dictionaries such as LSJ or DGE. If you scroll through, you will see entries where​ there are exceptions (hence the “almost” above), where one poet once will have used a different quantity for one of those vowels in the stem. Linguists to my knowledge have not treated that as metrical licence, but as linguistic variation: if a poet used the “wrong” length for a vowel, the assumption is that some speakers really were pronouncing it like that.

Again: that’s my outsider linguist impression. Specialists in metre may know better.

I *think* I read this in

• Signes-Codoñer, J. 2005. The definitions of the Greek middle voice between Apollonius Dyscolus and Constantinus Lascaris. Historiographia Linguistica 32: 1-33.

The Ancient Greek authorities (actually Roman-era) came up with something like 60 declensions for Greek, because they were not trying to do internal reconstruction or look for regularities. (I don’t know much about the Sanskrit grammarians, but what little I know tells me they were centuries ahead of the Greeks.)

The Latin grammarians did do internal reconstruction and looked for regularities. They got the Latin declensions down to five.

When the Greeks rediscovered Latin grammars in the Renaissance, they did a double take. Then, they took another, embarrassed look at their own grammar.

They worked out that with some pushing, they could get it down to ten.

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With a lot more linguistics and reconstruction, we now have Greek declensions down to three; and if you’re aware of proto-Greek, the three make a lot of sense.

You can come up with more vowels, splitting off the contracted first and second declensions, and differentiating the third declension with vowel stems, which don’t look close to the consonant stems. If you do that, I’d be getting closer to 10 than 6: I’d want to break up several third declensions that don’t look obviously similar. (See Appendix:Ancient Greek third declension.)

If it makes you happier to think of βασιλεύς, -εως and τέλος, -ους as a completely different declension from πτέρυξ, -γος, because you don’t want to go via proto-Greek and Attic sound rules, well, you can *shrug*. People don’t do that, because Koine grammar teaching derives from Classical Greek grammar teaching: they use the same declensions, and just treat those odd forms as subclasses.

In Melbourne:

“Pure” Armenian? There was an Armenian Cafe restaurant before I got together with my wife, but that’s long closed.

There’s Sezar | Modern Armenian Restaurant, which is Nouveau Armenian (Nouveau, as most upmarket ethnic restaurants in Melbourne are). We’ve been once, and it wasn’t strikingly “pure”. Pleasant, though rather heavy.

It’s next door to Armenia, and the cuisine is quite different, but I have much affection for the Georgian cuisine of the Umbrella Lounge Bar.

Originally https://insurgency.quora.com/Wel… .

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Clarissa Lohr:

I’ve wondered why Quora picked German and Italian, of all languages, to internationalize, because they aren’t spoken by that many people (compared to, say, languages like Arabic), and particularly Quora in German doesn’t make sense going from how many active users it could reach:

• The target demographic of active Quora users who contribute content are educated, curious, internationally-minded netizens who don’t mind wasting their time on the internet.
• While it’s true that not all native German speakers speak English, the subset of native German speakers that fit the above criteria does generally have advanced English skills. Educated, curious, internationally-minded internet-savy people in D-A-CH countries do speak English.
• So in terms of active contributors, Quora in German can’t reach many more people than Quora in English.

But after I read Scott Welch’s answer about Quora’s strategy, it all made sense.

• Quora doesn’t care so much about active contributors, Quora cares about views and about showing up in Google search results.
• That means the target demographic is not educated, internationally-minded people who spend a lot of time on the internet – the target demographic is everyone who uses Google once in a while.
• This target demographic is much broader. As good as everyone uses Google once in a while, even people who wouldn’t want to spend much time on Quora and really contribute content. It includes German speakers who don’t speak English.
• German speakers usually phrase their Google queries in German. Including people who speak English. It’s one thing to resort to English in order to write something if you already know about Quora and want to participate in it and it’s not available in German. It’s another thing to Google a question if you don’t know about Quora in first place. People who might be okay with writing in English because the Quora rules say so still won’t find Quora in English in first place because their Google searches won’t direct them to Quora in English.
• That means that for Quora it’s essential to have questions that match German search queries out there on the internet. And maybe it doesn’t even necessarily need good answers in German, because the link to the same question in English is available, and if people’s passive English skills are okayish they might be okay with just following the link to the English question and read answers in English. That means that maybe Quora can benefit if the translation bots just translate the most-googled questions from English into German, and the entire purpose is directing people to Quora in English, because German speakers won’t find Quora in English as long as the questions exist only in English.
• D-A-CH countries have a strong economy and are a good target for advertising.

A non-trivial one. The meaning needs to be captured, and the meaning is that “it is no more than what it already is; we are stuck with it.” Which means I’d rather render the second is as ‘become’, ‘end up’.

Est sicut factum est “it is as it has become” is a start.

Ut fit sic sit “as it becomes, so let it be” is catchier, though perhaps it goes in a different direction (“if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”).

Est id, quidquid fit “Whatever it is becoming, it’s that” is maybe a bit closer.

Quora raises $85 million to expand internationally and develop its ads business. Bérénice Magistretti wrote this piece.

Highlights:

Founded in 2009, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company has grown steadily over the years, unfazed by the enticing allure of startup stardom.

… I concede, this is true.

“There’s this media hype a lot of companies in Silicon Valley go for,” said D’Angelo. “I think it gets in the way of the mission and it’s not in our culture or values. We’re just really focused on making a good product.”

… with the proviso that Good Product does not mean “pleasant for its users”, but rather “effective at what D’Angelo wants to see happen”: (1) profits, (2) training bed for AI, (3) some notion of democratised knowledge, that I *still* don’t understand, even after reading Mills Baker’s answer to Why should designers work at Quora?.

And it seems users are responding, as the platform currently has 190 million monthly unique visitors, according to D’Angelo. The user base has nearly doubled since he last reported the metrics a year ago.

And remember: those are Googlers, not active Quora users. Which is where the advertising money is going to come from.

D’Angelo believes translating Quora helps democratize information online. “The English ecosystem on the internet is very strong, as there are various blogs and forums out there,” he said. “When you go into some of these other languages, however, there’s really not as much.”

… I like the untapped advertising market explanation better. And the “blogs and forums” quote has amused me when this was cited here two weeks ago, since that’s emphatically what Quora says it is not in English.

When asked about a Chinese version, D’Angelo answered: “It’s very hard for U.S. internet companies to make it in China.”

Zhihu (Q&A website): a Quora knockoff that beat Quora to the Chinese market.

Competition-wise, Quora is often compared to Wikipedia, even by our account. But D’Angelo doesn’t view the online encyclopedia as a direct competitor. “We’re trying to be a primary source of information, and they’re a secondary source,” he said. “And Quora is more about people’s opinions and analysis rather than factual information.”

There’s a lot of Quora users I’d love to wave that quote under. Including, I suspect, the 2010 version of D’Angelo.

Q for quality

… Wha?

Last year, D’Angelo answered a question about Quora’s user base, explaining that the company doesn’t focus much on these numbers because it usually optimizes for quality, which comes with a tradeoff against volume.

… OK…

Rather than burn cash and scale too quickly to show off inflated metrics, the company says it has been cautious when deploying new products.

… Cautious?

And the quality of the content shows.

… Wha?

In addition to implementing stricter rules to ban bad actors from the platform,

… Jack Fraser, how have those stricter rules been working out for Mike Cavedon? 😐

And why does Magistretti assume that copy pasting a press release on anonymity controls counts as journalism?

Quora has put in place a series of carefully curated editorial formats, which include “Writing Sessions.” World leaders such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former U.S. President Barack Obama, and more recently, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have all been hosts and answered questions.

That is a highlight feature of Quora? Really?

I’ll admit to disappointment. But of course, the casual random surfing Google really is impressed by that kind of thing.

Investors in the Valley apparently believe Quora is a good bet and seem to trust D’Angelo’s steady leadership. Backers include Benchmark Capital, Peter Thiel, and Y Combinator (Quora is a YC alumnus from 2014). The company has raised a total of approximately $235 million to date.

I hate it when David S. Rose is right.

The fresh money will be used to expand the platform internationally, grow the business side,

Well, that had to happen, and it *is* a good thing.

and make new hires, especially machine learning engineers, to help personalize the content users see.

… Shit. More bots.

Today’s funding announcement begs the question of when Quora will file for an initial public offering (IPO). “Our goal is to be a long-term, independent company,” said D’Angelo. “We expect that we will go public at some point.”

Not surprised Magistretti misuses “beg the question”. She was impressed by Clinton’s interns hosting a writing session. 🙂

One indication of a gradual shift into exit mode is the implementation of a self-service advertising model on Quora. “I think ads is a very good way to be a sustainable business and become cashflow positive,” said D’Angelo. “And it’s very compatible with our mission to provide a free service to everyone in the world.”

Yup. Ads are going to be the way of the future. They’ve just gotten a smidgeon more obtrusive on the mobile version; there’s going to be a lot more of that. Emmanuel-Francis Nwaolisa Ogomegbunam, your theory on why there is so much blank space in the Quora margins is about to be tested.

Quora’s recent hires also suggest a future IPO. Shortly after its head of business and community, Marc Bodnick, left last year, the company went on a hiring spree.

… An interesting juxtaposition by Magistretti…

In the past six months, Quora has recruited a group of powerhouse women, including Kelly Battles — who is on the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation — as Quora’s first chief financial officer (CFO), and tapped Karen Kramer to be the company’s first general counsel. Other hires include Helen Min, Quora’s first head of marketing (who joined from Dropbox), and Tami Rosen, who will be joining from Apple in May as vice president of people, responsible for HR and recruiting.

Hey! We can add these to that question about what Quora’s Org Chart looks like!

Oh wait. Quora already locked it.

And they didn’t even do so on the advice of counsel.

There’s no shortage of Chinese speakers here, and they’ll give better informed answers than me. But:

Mandarin Chinese is not Classical Chinese. Classical Chinese was a bit of a scholarly game, and writers relished the ambiguity of the homophones and the overall oracularity of it all. People in real life don’t, and Mandarin has dealt with homophony the way many languages do, by adding disambiguating words. Though people still have fun with Homophonic puns in Mandarin Chinese.

So the word for bat, fú 蝠, is homophonous with the word for good fortune, fú 福, and as a result bats commonly feature in Chinese art. But people who actually speak the language don’t call bats fú. They call them 蝙蝠 biānfú, combining two words for bat.

For another instance of ambiguity, look at Megan Cox’s answer to What are some homophones in Mandarin Chinese?. As Megan points out, there is homophony between bīng 冰 ‘ice’ and bìng 病 ‘illness, esp. mental illness’.

That’s not as homophonous as it gets; bīng 兵 (soldier) is a true homophone, and Wikipedia’s article on homophonic puns reports that in 1882, when there was fear of rebellions around Beijing, the sale of ice was banned as a result.

But even with that near homophony of bīng and bìng, Megan as a learner of Chinese may have been confused, yelling 你有病吗？ “Have you got a mental illness?” at the convenience store when she thought she was asking for ice. But the shop owner worked out what was going on, and he wouldn’t have been confused if she was fluent in Chinese. Ice as a noun is not bīng 冰 , but bīngkuài 冰块 ‘ice piece, ice cube’. So it would never be ambiguous with the noun bìng 病 ‘illness’.

Spam detectives

Steven de Guzman, who was the main poster to the blog and spam detective, got banned three times. The third ban has stuck.

Quora does not like this blog, and in fact thinks that it is getting in the way of them doing their own job. See the arguments between Timothy Wingerter (Quora employee at the time) and Guzman in comments; e.g. https://spamdetectives.quora.com…, https://spamdetectives.quora.com…, and especially https://spamdetectives.quora.com….

(Do read that last comment, even if it is quite long. It’s very rare that we hear anything from Quora employees about what they’re doing, and Wingerter does make a cogent argument for why they don’t want their spam process usurped by users.)

Not to mention Is Spam Detectives at risk of being deleted? by Steven de Guzman on Spam detectives, and Incorrectly banned on @Quora for allegedly having sock puppet accounts (Part 2) —Steve’s second ban was rescinded on the condition that he did not continue to report spam, which he did not adhere to. (His return prompted Wingerter’s comment that he’d rather the blog did not exist.)

Read the blog and comments, talk to other posters there, and make your own assessment; but anecdotally, if you link to or repost too much spam, the bots and/or mods will mistake you for a spammer, or find that your efforts are getting in the way of their efforts, and take action against you.