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Attic Numerals
The Attic numerals are a symbolic number notation used by the ancient Greeks. They were also known as Herodianic numerals because they were first described in a 2nd-century manuscript by Herodian; or as acrophonic numerals (from acrophony) because the basic symbols derive from the first letters of the (ancient) Greek words that the symbols represented. The Attic numerals were a decimal (base 10) system, like the older Egyptian and the later Etruscan, Roman, and Hindu-Arabic systems. Namely, the number to be represented was broken down into simple multiples (1 to 9) of powers of ten — units, tens, hundred, thousands, etc.. Then these parts were written down in sequence, in order of decreasing value. As in the basic Roman system, each part was written down using a combination of two symbols, representing one and five times that power of ten. Attic numerals were adopted possibly starting in the 7th century BCE and although presently called Attic, they or variations t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pi (letter)
Pi (; Ancient Greek or , uppercase Π, lowercase π, cursive ϖ; ) is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless bilabial plosive . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. It was derived from the Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician letter Pe (Semitic letter), Pe (). Letters that arose from pi include Latin alphabet, Latin P, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic Pe (Cyrillic), Pe (П, п), Coptic alphabet, Coptic pi (Ⲡ, ⲡ), and Gothic alphabet, Gothic pairthra (𐍀). Uppercase Pi The uppercase letter Π is used as a symbol for: * In textual criticism, ''Codex Petropolitanus (New Testament), Codex Petropolitanus'', a 9th-century uncial codex of the Gospels, now located in St. Petersburg, Russia. * In legal shorthand, it represents a plaintiff. * In Mathematical finance, it represents a portfolio. Greek letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering, In science and engineering: * The product (mathematics), product operator in mathematics, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Athens
Athens is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest named cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for perhaps 5,000 years. Situated in southern Europe, Athens became the leading city of ancient Greece in the first millennium BC, and its cultural achievements during the 5th century BC laid the foundations of Western world, Western civilization. The earliest evidence for human habitation in Athens dates back to the Neolithic period. The Acropolis of Athens, Acropolis served as a fortified center during the Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean era. By the 8th century BC, Athens had evolved into a prominent city-state, or Polis, ''polis'', within the region of Attica. The 7th and 6th centuries BC saw the establishment of legal codes, such as those by Draco (legislator), Draco, Solon and Cleisthenes, which aimed to address social inequalities and set the stage for the development of democracy. In the early 5th century BC, Athens played a central role in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numerals
A numeral is a figure (symbol), word, or group of figures (symbols) or words denoting a number. It may refer to: * Numeral system used in mathematics * Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English) * Numerical digit, the glyphs used to represent numerals See also * Numerology Numerology (known before the 20th century as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, ..., belief in a divine relationship between numbers and coinciding events {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard Modern Greek
The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolectal variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written forms on the other. Second, there is regional variation between dialects. The competition between the popular and the learned registers (see Diglossia) culminated in the struggle between '' Dimotiki'' and ''Katharevousa'' during the 19th and 20th centuries. As for regional dialects, variation within the bulk of dialects of present-day Greece is not particularly strong, except for a number of outlying, highly divergent dialects spoken by isolated communities. Diglossia Roots and history: Demotic and Katharevousa Ever since the times of Koiné Greek in Hellenistic and Roman antiquity, there was a competition between the naturally evolving spoken forms of Greek on the one hand, and the use of artificially archaic, learned registers on the o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Diacritics
Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The more complex polytonic orthography (), which includes five diacritics, notates Ancient Greek phonology. The simpler monotonic orthography (), introduced in 1982, corresponds to Modern Greek phonology, and requires only two diacritics. Polytonic orthography () is the standard system for Ancient Greek and Medieval Greek and includes: * acute accent () * circumflex accent () * grave accent (); these 3 accents indicate different kinds of pitch accent * rough breathing () indicates the presence of the sound before a letter * smooth breathing () indicates the absence of . Since in Modern Greek the pitch accent has been replaced by a stress (linguistics), dynamic accent (stress), and was lost, most polytonic diacritics have no phonetic significance, and merely reveal the underlying Ancient Greek etymology. Monotonic orthography () is the standard system for Modern Greek. It retains two dia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katharevousa
Katharevousa (, , literally "purifying anguage) is a conservative form of the Modern Greek language conceived in the late 18th century as both a literary language and a compromise between Ancient Greek and the contemporary vernacular, Demotic Greek. Originally, it was widely used for both literary and official purposes, though sparingly in daily language. In the 20th century, it was increasingly adopted for official and formal purposes, until minister of education Georgios Rallis made Demotic Greek the official language of Greece in 1976, and in 1982 Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou abolished the polytonic system of writing for both Demotic and Katharevousa. Katharevousa was conceived by the intellectual and revolutionary leader Adamantios Korais (1748–1833). A graduate of the University of Montpellier, Korais spent most of his life as an expatriate in Paris. As a classical scholar credited with both laying the foundations of Modern Greek literature and a major figure in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spiritus Asper
In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( or ; ) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or after rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even after the Hellenistic period, when the sound disappeared from the Greek language. In the monotonic orthography of Modern Greek phonology, in use since 1982, it is not used at all. The absence of an sound is marked by the smooth breathing. The character, or those with similar shape such as , have also been used for a similar sound by Thomas Wade (and others) in the Wade–Giles system of romanization for Mandarin Chinese. Herbert Giles and others have used a left (opening) curved single quotation mark for the same purpose; the apostrophe, backtick, and visually similar characters are often seen as well. History The rough breathing comes from the left-hand half of the letter H. In some archaic Greek alphabets, the letter was used for ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristophanes Of Byzantium
__NOTOC__ Aristophanes of Byzantium ( ; Byzantium – Alexandria BC) was a Hellenistic Greek scholar, critic and grammarian, particularly renowned for his work in Homeric scholarship, but also for work on other classical authors such as Pindar and Hesiod. He soon moved to Alexandria and studied under Zenodotus, Callimachus, and Dionysius Iambus. He succeeded Eratosthenes as head librarian of the Library of Alexandria at the age of sixty. His students included Callistratus, Aristarchus of Samothrace, and perhaps Agallis. He was succeeded by Apollonius "The Classifier" (not to be confused with Apollonius of Rhodes, a previous head librarian of Alexandria). Aristophanes' pupil, Aristarchus of Samothrace, would be the sixth head librarian at the Library of Alexandria. Work Aristophanes was the first to deny that the " Precepts of Chiron" was the work of Hesiod. Inventions Accent system Aristophanes is credited with reducing the accents used in Greek to desi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mina (unit)
The mina (; ; ; ; ; ; ) is an ancient Near Eastern unit of weight for silver or gold, equivalent to approximately , which was divided into 60 shekels. The mina, like the shekel, eventually also became a unit of currency. History Sumerian From earliest History of Sumer, Sumerian times, a mina was a unit of weight. At first, talents and shekels had not yet been introduced. By the time of Ur-Nammu (shortly before 2000 BCE), the mina had a value of Talent (weight), talent as well as 60 shekels. The weight of this mina is calculated at , or 570 grams of silver (18 troy ounces). Semitic languages The word mina comes from the ancient Semitic root / 'to count', Akkadian language, Akkadian , (), / (/), (), . It is mentioned in the Bible, where Solomon is reported to have made 300 shields, each with 3 "mina" of gold (), or later after the Edict of Cyrus II of Persia the people are reported to have donated 5000 minas of silver for the reconstruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Drachma
In ancient Greece, the drachma (, ; Grammatical number, pl. drachmae or drachmas) was an ancient currency unit issued by many city-states during a period of ten centuries, from the Archaic Greece, Archaic period throughout the Classical Greece, Classical period, the Hellenistic period up to the Roman period. The ancient drachma originated in Greece around the 6th century BC. The coin, usually made of silver or sometimes gold had its origins in a bartering system that referred to a drachma as a handful of wooden spits or arrows. The drachma was unique to each city state that minted them, and were sometimes circulated all over the Mediterranean. The coinage of Classical Athens, Athens was considered to be the strongest and became the most popular. Origins The name ''drachma'' is derived from the verb (, "(I) grasp"). It is believed that the same word with the meaning of "handful" or "handle" is found in Linear B tablets of the Mycenaean Greece, Mycenean Pylos. Initially a dra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
