Well, there used to be more news at Akropolis World News; now it’s mainly essays—the site’s author, Catalan classicist J. Coderch [more current link as of 2020], has just finished a series on “Burned libraries along History” (sic) and is beginning one on “Finland in WWII.” But if you click on the “Former News” button (it’s a damn Flash site, so I don’t know how to link to individual pages) you can get nice Attic versions of stories like “The Who play again after 21 years” (Hoi Tines meta eikosi kai hen etê palin diskon kharattousin). Lots of fun for anyone who ever studied Greek! (Via Nephelokokkygia.)
… it’s a damn Flash site, so I don’t know how to link to individual pages
It isn’t, actually. It does look a bit that way, but it’s just in a frame, and using some graphical links… and the Greek text is presented as images. (What you want to do, in this situation, is right-click and “copy link location” (details will vary according to your browser and OS)).
Latest News
Former News
The Who
Ah, thanks. You can see what an ignoramus I am when it comes to techie/geek stuff. It’s a miracle this site even exists.
P.S. Page down to Britney Spears. A full page.
P.P.S The Finnish snow troops used reindeer as draft animals during WWII.
OT: Here‘s a site run by and extremely irascible Finn about correct spelling of names and the correct (Finnish) transliteration of Cyrillic.
Except for the bad attitude, it’s probably only of moderate interest. But I’m a connoisseur (sp.) of irascibility.
Wow, that’s great! “Also, the list is in Finnish alphabetical order, just to annoy foreigners.” I’m a fan of irascibility myself, so I thank you for this.
How could anyone possibly misspell “Liisa Keltinkangas-Järvinen”? Barbarians!
Finland actually exports secretaries to the US because their English spelling and grammar are better than the average American’s. I worked with one, and I’ve read that it’s a trend.
in.gr has a semi-permanent column, with news in ancient Greek (though a lot of it is about Greek news and much of it is quite tongue in cheek).
The latest headlines can be seen here (the top teasers, the rest is in modern Greek), while the archives can be found here.
Not sure what your first link was supposed to be; this is the front page, but I don’t see any ancient Greek.
“At thirteen I wrote Greek with ease; and at fifteen my command of that language was so great, that I not only composed Greek verses in lyric metres, but would converse in Greek fluently, and without embarrassment — an accomplishment which I have not since met with in any scholar of my times, and which, in my case, was owing to the practice of daily reading off the newspapers into the best Greek I could furnish extempore; for the necessity of ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and combinations of periphrastic expressions, as equivalents for modern ideas, images, relations of things, etc., gave me a compass of diction which would never have been called out by a dull translation of moral essays, etc.”
Sorry for the long quote–it’s from DeQuincey’s Confessions. But The Role of Finland in World War II certainly beats it all.
I’m not sure what went wrong, anyway this is the front page…
The Finns strike again!
“The folks at the Finnish Broadcasting Company are keeping at least one dead language alive. That and they’re even supplying an RSS feed of it. The Transcriptio Nuntiorum Hebdomadalis or News in Latin feed, is a transcription of the audio broadcast. That broadcast, heard around the world on various shortwave and satellite channels is a weekly review of World News, spoken in Classic Latin.”
http://www.syndic8.com/~wkearney/blogs/syndic8/archives/000032.html
Really, though, isn’t Latin a bit nouveau?
By the way, in case anyone doesn’t know (but is pedantic enough to care), De Quincey (the author of Alexei’s excellent quote) is properly pronounced with a /z/ for -c-: KWIN-zee. (As also is the town of Quincy, Mass.)
And how about this?
No, that’s just plain /kwins/. I’ll take the opportunity to note that the fruit is ultimately named for the Cretan town called Cydonia in ancient times, now known as Khania, a very nice place that I highly recommend to travelers.
“A quinsy, also known as a peritonsillar abscess, is an abscess between the back of the tonsil and the adjoining wall of the throat”.
why is the finn characterised by some as “irascible”? irascible doesn’t mean angry, it means “prone to outbursts of temper; easily angered”. and since when is expressing anger a synonymous with having a bad attitude? what i see in “oops… you did it again” is a man, expressing his anger at the laziness of mostly americans in the writing of “foreign” names. why is it so difficult for us to get off our lard-arses and consult a dictionary or even “the finn’s” guide?! it’s almost as bad as the japanese rather contemptuous disregard for accuracy in foreign language matters. the prevalent attitude here seems to be “why pay for the services of a professional translator when i have a bunch of mexicans working in the kitchen”. i would reply by asking when was the last time they consulted the sous-chef at their restaurant during a medical emergency or for legal advice… seems to drive the point home nicely.
and on to other fun… there’s a couple of recent “language”-related entries at arcana imperii you might wish to read: «multi-lang» and «new suth effrican deekshunry» among others. cheers!
Jay is irascible too.
The irascible Finn seems to have vanished into thin air…
We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.
The Wayback Machine amusingly (…well, for connoisseurs of computer errors a least) shows three different error messages among the three last snapshots of the ärtyväinen suomalainen; the early 2005 snapshots still function at least.
Try this link for the Finn:
http://www.mlang.name/oops.html
because the letters Š and Ž and Ё give rise to laziness and misconceptions
So true.
I found a couple of errors in his correct forms and then got bored. Still, I approve of his fervour.
Try this link for the Finn
Thanks! I’ve substituted it in zizka / John Emerson’s comment to make things easier for future readers.
Glad to see that the News in Ancient Greek is itself alive and well; pleased also that the excellent Coderch hangs out at my wife’s alma mater.
I tried citing the snippet about Boris Ionson and his Sclerobrexit but Akismet disapproved.