Re: [XeTeX] Σχετ: Re: Σχετ: Re: Off topic (interesting) question

[Philip Taylor (Hellenic Institute)]

On 20/08/2022 13:23, Julian Bradfield wrote:

I have no axe to grind in this intra-Hellenic debate, but may I ask the
two protagonists whether they view the current American practice of both

Come, come: you mean "the protagonist and deuteragonist" !


Sir, I can only adduce the OED in my humble defence —

Plural use in sense 1 
 
with reference to characters in a single work has frequently been 
criticized on the grounds that the word referred only to a single 
actor in the ancient Greek drama (compare deuteragonist n. 
 and tritagonist n. 
), but it is 
nonetheless frequently found (compare e.g. quot. 1950 at sense 1 
).

Re: [XeTeX] Σχετ: Re: Σχετ: Re: Off topic (interesting) question

[Julian Bradfield]

> I have no axe to grind in this intra-Hellenic debate, but may I ask the
> two protagonists whether they view the current American practice of both

Come, come: you mean "the protagonist and deuteragonist" !

Re: [XeTeX] Σχετ: Re: Σχετ: Re: Off topic (interesting) question

[Philip Taylor (Hellenic Institute)]

On 20/08/2022 12:28, Apostolos Syropoulos via XeTeX wrote:

My question is if English language speakers
learn in school why they write history and
not istory. The answer seems to be: No.
What you say is completely irrelevant. BTW,
languages evolve and brathings were
introduced for a reason that does not
exist today. So it was to eliminate breathings
from Modern Greek. In ancient Greek the
letter β  was pronounced as  b but today
it is pronounced as v. So this is yet another
mistake according to your position. For me
it is evolution.


I have no axe to grind in this intra-Hellenic debate, but may I ask the 
two protagonists whether they view the current American practice of both 
pronouncing and spelling the phrase "want to" as "wanna" (as in "I wanna 
go to the mall" — see Youtube captions, for countless examples) as 
evolution or crass ignorance ?


--
/Philip Taylor/

Re: [XeTeX] Σχετ: Re: Σχετ: Re: Off topic (interesting) question

[Julian Bradfield]

On 2022-08-20, Apostolos Syropoulos via XeTeX  wrote:
> My question is if English language speakerslearn in school why they write
> history andnot istory. The answer seems to be: No.What you say is completely

What do you expect us to learn?
The word is pronounced with /h/ and written with h-.
It's written with h- because we borrowed it from languages which wrote
it with h-, some of which pronounced it (classical Latin, Greek) and some of
which no longer did (French); we borrowed it in writing and pronounced
it accordingly.

That doesn't seem like something one has to learn - it's the obvious.
What one has to learn is why we write some words with an h that we
*don't* pronounce.
The answer to that is a fairly complex sociolinguistic explanation
plus random chance in evolution.

[XeTeX] Σχετ: Re: Σχετ: Re: Off topic (interesting) question

[Apostolos Syropoulos via XeTeX]

My question is if English language speakerslearn in school why they write 
history andnot istory. The answer seems to be: No.What you say is completely 
irrelevant. BTW,languages evolve and brathings were introduced for a reason 
that does notexist today. So it was to eliminate breathingsfrom Modern Greek. 
In ancient Greek theletter β  was pronounced as  b but todayit is pronounced as 
v. So this is yet anothermistake according to your position. For meit is 
evolution.

Στάλθηκε από το Ταχυδρομείο Yahoo σε Android 
 
  Στις Σάβ, 20 Αυγ, 2022 στις 14:10, ο χρήστηςYannis 
Haralambous έγραψε:   Not at all. The question why 
writing history instead of istory is the same as why writing ἱστορία instead of 
ιστορία…


Le 20 août 2022 à 13:08, Apostolos Syropoulos  a écrit :
Well this is off-topic to my off-topic question.
Στάλθηκε από το Ταχυδρομείο Yahoo σε Android 
 
  Στις Σάβ, 20 Αυγ, 2022 στις 13:34, ο χρήστηςYannis 
Haralambous έγραψε:   English (and French and German and 
many other languages) respect words of Greek origin andrepresent the rough 
breathing in some way (`H' in Latin alphabet, `Г' in Cyrillic alphabet, `ه' in 
Arabic,'ハ' in Japanese, etc.).
Greeks themselves have chosen to destroy this cultural heritage by adopting the 
monotonic system…(because of the Saussurian doctrine that only oral language 
deserves to be considered, and therough breathing has not phonetic realization 
anymore so, according to Saussure and his Greekfollowers it should better 
disappear…) See https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02480230/document
Yannis


Le 20 août 2022 à 11:21, Apostolos Syropoulos via XeTeX  a écrit 
:

Hi everybody,
Many readers of this mailing list arenative English language speakers andthe 
following question is for them.
Someone claimed that English people (I saymore generally English language 
speakers) learn at school why you write history andnot istory. Since I do not 
know I'd this holds, Iam asking: Is this true? Does someone whohas graduated 
from high-school know thereason why this happens?
Kindest regards, 
Apostolos Syropoulos

Στάλθηκε από το Ταχυδρομείο Yahoo σε Android


|  |
|  | Yannis HARALAMBOUS
Professor
Computer Science Department
UMR CNRS 6285 Lab-STICC
Technopôle Brest-Iroise CS 83818
29238 Brest Cedex 3, France
Une École de l'IMT |
|  |


‌Le tact dans l'audace, c'est de savoir jusqu'où on peut aller trop loin.‌(Jean 
Cocteau, ‌Le Coq et l'Arlequin)‌
  



|  |
|  | Yannis HARALAMBOUS
Professor
Computer Science Department
UMR CNRS 6285 Lab-STICC
Technopôle Brest-Iroise CS 83818
29238 Brest Cedex 3, France
Une École de l'IMT |
|  |


‌Is it writing? N-no. It doesn't mean what it looks like.‌(Lewis Padgett, 
‌Mimsy Were The Borogoves)‌