Re: Franj Travellers' Phrasebook

On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 03:32:06 -0500, Geoff Horswood
<geoffhorswood@...> wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 14:48:01 +0100, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
> wrote:
> >> But what did they call their language?  Greek, I assume.
> >
> >Nope. AFAIK, they called their language "Rhomaiika" /rO'mEika/ until
> >not so long ago (18th/19th century?); "Hellenika" /ellini'ka/ was what
> >people spoke in the time of Plato.
>
> Ok.  We can work with this.  "Hellenika" would be what the Greeks still
> call the Greek language, right?
Not sure what you mean. "Hellenika" ("Ellinika") is what modern Greek
use to refer to both Ancient Greek *and* Modern Greek; though the use
for "what we're speaking now" is comparatively new, it's the common
word.

I've heard that some "Romaiika" is still used colloquially sometimes,
but "Ellinika" is the usual term TTBOMK. Ancient Greek is called just
that, "Arhea Ellinika", to differentiate.

> BTW, where does the name "Greece/Greek" come from?  That it's an exonym
> seems obvious, but from whom?
dictionary.com / AHD4 says, "Middle English Grek, from Old English
Grēcas, the Greeks, from Latin Graecus, Greek, from Greek Graikos,
tribal name."

So a bit like Finns calling Germany "Saksa" or English calling the
Netherlands "Holland", I suppose.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
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