Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 May 15

= May 15 =

approximately how many ancient Greek writers would we have any material at all from?
Hi, Approximately how many ancient Greek writers would we have any material from, even quoted by someone else? Are we talking dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands?

According to this part of Classical_demography, there were only some 700,000 people in all of Greece in the eighth century, which increased to only perhaps 3m as late as the fifth century (the "Golden age of Greece").

that's not that many people - nothing like America these days, and in addition I don't know how high the literacy rate was, but people wouldn't have had as much free time to write, I imagine, and there would have been no Internet to make it very easy to do so, etc, etc. And finally, there is 2000 years in which manuscripts could have gotten lost or misplaced.

So, it seems, that out of the "hundreds of thousands" or "several million" ancient Greek people who existed, we certainly wouldn't have writing by hundreds of thousands or several million people?

so how many people do we have writing in any form by? It must be more than dozens, but is it hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of ancient Greek writers? 188.157.228.177 (talk) 09:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * A lot of the Greek writings stems from the Hellenistic period, where Greek culture and language had spread over a vast area, prompting many non-Greeks to write literature in Greek (this continued in the Roman era as well). --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:54, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * so that's what, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of writers...? 188.157.228.177 (talk) 10:07, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Regarding the number of Greek-language authors from the archaic period to the 5th century AD (just to make an arbitrary division, since Greek literature flourished in the Eastern Empire much longer than that), it was certainly in the thousands, but I wouldn't dare make a more precise estimate. However I should think scholars in the field would be able to narrow it down further, since a lot of the scholarship has revolved around registering lost authors through the use of citations and quotations in extant works. I have seen claims made that only 10% of all ancient Greek literature has survived to this day, but I can't find any precise citation for it at the moment. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:52, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The German WP has a featured article on the loss of books in late antiquity. It says that around 2000 names of Greek authors active before 500 CE are known and (parts of) writings of 253 authors are extant. The source (quoted in English) for "less than 10%" is given in a footnote. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:04, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * This is the exact kind of response I was looking for. Wow, we only have [even] a single sentence of original ancient Greek writing from 253 authors in total??  That can't possibly be right, can it?  I could just download ALL of ancient Greek literature as one big volume with no more than 253 authors? 188.157.228.177 (talk) 12:23, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "a single sentence"? Plato alone fills a decent book shelf, Aristotle another. --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:39, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've changed the sentence to be clearer by adding the word "even". I mean that even a single sentence second-hand (but a direct quotation, not just an oblique reference or paraphrase) is enough for me for that author to qualify as "extant".  So, even by that very loose standard, it appears that there are 250 or so Ancient Greek authors who I could read in their original words, however few.  94.27.166.8 (talk) 14:38, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Good find, Wrongfilter. Yes, according to the German article you linked it is the 2000 remaining known authors which today only exists in a single sentence of reference, while the 253 are authors with one of more relatively extant works. If we take the "less than 10%" extant literally that would mean that there was approximately 20.000 active Greek authors in during the period (of course this is conveniently disregarding the fact that the 10% is mentioning written works, not individual authors, and the amount of works extant by each author varies greatly, so it could be even less). --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:21, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No, 2000 names are known, and for the majority of these we have nothing. For Greek authors, we have writings (unclear how much we need to count them) of a little more than 10%. If Latin authors are included, we have writings for less than 10% of antique writers. --Wrongfilter (talk) 14:52, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You could look at the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae site, or ask them... AnonMoos (talk) 13:44, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * This is one of those tragedies of the humanities that is usually forgotten. There were playwrights who won numerous prizes and of whom we have nothing more than their names ... or so I've heard. Is anyone up for translating the German FA? (Is there a movement or policy to translate FA articles from all languages into the English Wikipedia?) Please post this request elsewhere, if you can think of any useful place. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:12, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * A lot of miscellaneous information about now-lost books of antiquity is preserved in Suidas. Before the battle of Manzikert, Anatolia was actually kind of the center of gravity of the Greek-speaking world within the Byzantine empire (with a far greater number of Greek speakers there than in Greece itself), so a lot was lost in the early Turkish invasions, and then of course the 4th crusade... AnonMoos (talk) 15:46, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I once asked this question of a friend studying Classics at Oxford. He waved at a shelf-full of Loeb and said (paraphrasing from memory), "everything we have from the ancient Greeks is there". Matt's talk 15:00, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Prooemium
Years ago I read a book that had a preface, a foreword, and an introduction. Today I was pleased to discover another word meaning more or less the same thing. Prooemium, or prooemion (when I looked it up, I found both spellings.)

-Are there other words that mean an introductory section in a book before the main body, or have I now found them all?

-Prooemium or prooemion?

-Are these words interchangeable or do they have shades of difference, in the past if not now?

Acknowledgements and dedication also come to mind as "preliminary sections" before the main text of a book, though I think they are not introductory in the same way. Are there other rarer "things" of this sort? Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 14:08, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Prooemium/prooemion is often anglicized as proem. See Preface for some distinctions commonly drawn. Deor (talk) 14:44, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary lists the following words under the category "prologue or introduction": forespeech, prologue, preface, proemy, preamble, proem, exordy, prolocutory, forespeaking, prooemium, preparation, introduction, induction, introducement, prelude, proposition, foretalk, exordium, prolegomenon, epistle, inducement, isagoge, propylaeum, motto, programma, foreword, foretalking, programme.


 * Great Scott!  Wanderer57 (talk) 22:45, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

German estzett versus Greek beta?
Could you compare the difference between the German estzett and the Greek letter beta for me? They look the same to me, I'm trying to copy the Greek alphabet and it seems I should be writing the same letter (German estzett), which I know. What's the difference? This is where I'm copying from:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Greek_Handwriting.jpg

and here's the German estzett: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F

It just looks the same to me. 94.27.166.8 (talk) 14:27, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * In Code page 437 they were exactly the same, but in various fonts they have different forms... AnonMoos (talk) 14:37, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * They look coincidentally similar, but they're not literally the same thing. Estzett is literally a combination like ʃ + Ʒ  (I've written U+0283 Latin letter Esh (s) and U+0292 Latin small letter Ezh (z), but I don't know if those are actually the most appropriate comparison).  By comparison, of course, the Greek beta is one letter. Wnt (talk) 18:09, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It's ſz (ſʒ) or ſs. Read eszett: the derivation is obvious in Fraktur. It's only in Roman that it becomes obscure. — kwami (talk) 05:40, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Know thyself
I've read the article, but I'm still not sure what "know yourself" is suppossed to mean either in classical times or now. 1) Does it mean "know your place", do not be ambitious or have pretentions? 2) What is one suppossed to know if one does "know yourself"? Some idea of one's own personality perhaps, or other things? 3) What is suppossed to happen to a person who does not "know themselves"? Thanks 92.15.25.241 (talk) 16:26, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The full quotation is "Know thyself - nothing else". I agree, it is a bit confusing, but considering where it was written, I suppose modern man shouldn't be surprised! There is another quotation "The proper study of man is man himself" (Alexander Pope), which I guess is related. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:15, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The exact quotation from Pope is "The proper study of mankind is man", which is in fact preceded by the line "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan" and therefore seems closer to "know your place" than any more modern idea of self-knowledge.  AndrewWTaylor (talk) 22:01, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * And then there's what Socrates supposedly said: "The unexamined life is not worth living". Also, hippies always used to say they needed to "find themselves". StuRat (talk) 04:57, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Not for some ways you could "know yourself":


 * 1) Know who you are attracted to, so whether you are heterosexual, homosexual or something in-between.


 * 2) Know your capabilities and limitations. As Clint Eastwood said (or rather his Magnum Force character, Dirty Harry, said) "A man's got to know his limitations".


 * 3) Know your likes and dislikes.


 * 4) Know your opinions on all issues. This may seem simple, but many people have no opinions at all on many issues.


 * 5) Know your religious beliefs.


 * 6) Know your political beliefs.


 * 7) Know your philosophical beliefs. StuRat (talk) 05:03, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it is meant to suggest that one should not just form opinions from emotion, but should adjust them in the light of knowing one's own biases and jealousies. 92.28.245.12 (talk) 15:03, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The writings of the Baha'i Faith equate knowing oneself to knowing God: --dragfyre_ ʞןɐʇ c 15:24, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

O My servants! Could ye apprehend with what wonders of My munificence and bounty I have willed to entrust your souls, ye would, of a truth, rid yourselves of attachment to all created things, and would gain a true knowledge of your own selves -- a knowledge which is the same as the comprehension of Mine own Being.


 * "Know thyself? If I knew myself I'd run away." - Goethe


 * I found this quote a few years ago. Whether Goethe actually wrote or said it I do not know.  Wanderer57 (talk) 22:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

very pregnant
How does "very pregnant" compare with simply "pregnant"? (The phrase "very pregnant" is used 86 times in article mainspace).Smallman12q (talk) 18:47, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Any woman who is "with child" is pregnant, whether her condition is noticeable to a casual observer or not. "Very pregnant" is usually used to describe a woman whose condition is glaringly obvious, with a huge belly. Deor (talk) 18:56, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * deor is correct, but there is another sense in which it can be used. Applying qualifiers like "very" or "a little bit" to "pregnant" is used idiomatically to indicate that there's no such thing as a matter of degree when you're talking about something.  generally it takes the form of the first speaker asking a question, like so
 * Man 1: "did you make a mistake?"
 * man 2: "a little bit"
 * man a: "so you did! don't tell me 'a little bit' that's like saying 'she is a little bit pregnant!'"
 * that might be a midwestern US thing but I've heard it fairly often HominidMachinae (talk) 07:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't follow this conversation at all, HM. Not at all.  What roles do the three men play in relation to each other?  Why are two of them known by numbers but one by a letter? Why are two of them merely "men" but the other is a "Man"?  Why is "man a" very sure "man 2" made a mistake but Man 1 is so unsure, he has to ask a question?  If the mistake was not obvious to Man 1, how can "man a" be so sure there even was a mistake?  I just don't get it.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  08:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It looks to me like "Man a" was supposed to be "Man 1", too. There's no reason why the speakers need to be men, of course.  The rest makes perfect sense.  I don't understand your "men" versus "man" comment.  They all say "man" now.  Maybe it was changed (or do you refer to only "Man 1" being capitalized) ? StuRat (talk) 16:37, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, that. The whole thing reminded me of the infamous "1, b, 4" sequence.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  19:27, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * If one is describing the fact that a pregnant woman is close to the time of delivery, it might be better to say that or to describe her as "heavily pregnant", rather than as "very pregnant". — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 07:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No woman wants to be described as heavy! I find "very pregnant" always presents exactly the image I want - someone who is very large out front through being near delivery time. It takes fewer words or syllables than any alternatives I can think of, and doesn't seem to offend anyone. HiLo48 (talk) 08:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary notes, in its "pregnant" entry: "a heavily pregnant woman (= one whose baby is nearly ready to be born)". Gabbe (talk) 21:23, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * @ HominidMachinae: It’s not only a midwestern US thing. In Germany we also say that “there is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant”.-- Irene1949 (talk) 16:10, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The word 'gravid' looks like it refers to a woman heavy with child, but it simply refers to the state of pregnancy. A woman in the very early stages of gravidity may not even know she is gravid.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  06:50, 19 May 2011 (UTC)