12 Comments
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So many words came from glorious Greek to Latin, and then kept coming to new latin languages, and now it is also good to see this case of Latin word which Greeks accepted for their... CULTURE!! :D
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For troll1995:
Thank you for your answer. I consider native the words of Proto-Greek, because they are inherited vocabulary. I don't consider the non-native words negatively; when I speak about non-native words, I mean only the acquired vocabulary.
Πολιτισμός = civilization
Κουλτούρα = culture
These two are not always interchangeable. For some more info, check this article here http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/culture-sociology/difference-between-culture-and-civilization-9-points/31264/
I hope this was a bit helpful ^.^
Πολιτισμός can be used as a synonym and mean "civilization" or "culture" in context. You can also use ήθη (or ήθη και έθιμα) for culture. I would like to ask: How far should a word go for it to be "really native"?
Κουλτούρα is a Greek word for almost 2000 years.
I think that it is a much more recent term and all the evidence I can find points to that. Could you give some more information?
To J.C.M.H.:
It is curious that the Greeks borrowed this word from Latin, being culturally superior to the Romans.
Superior or not, loanwords result from exchanges, i.e. interaction is not a not one-sided process. You win some, you lose some. :)
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Thank you for your answer. Since κουλτούρα is a rather recent term, would be an italianism?
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Seriously? For me, it is clear that κουλτούρα is a Latin loanword. The literal meaning of Latin cultura was "farming", "cultivation", derived from verb colo "to cultivate". It is curious that the Greeks borrowed this word from Latin, being culturally superior to the Romans.
I know that κουλτούρα was taken from Latin. My point is: what makes a native word? What is the starting point in time where the words are Greek and loanwords from this point will never be "native"? Many of the words of Ancient Greek where not words of Proto-Greek. Should we consider those not "native"? The Greeks because of the position of Greece contacted many people and exchanged words over the (ancient and not only) years. Anyway, maybe I took what you said in a wrong way. About loanwords from Latin: It's not that curious considering that the official language of the state that Greece belonged to was the Latin language for 650 years.
