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Greek speakers, I have a question for you (trying to name an application)
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Mithras
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Jan 2, 2008, 02:11 PM
 
Preface: I know nothing of Greek's grammar, lexicon, or literature. However, like anybody who's taken calculus, I can find my way through the alphabet, and like anybody who speaks English, I can spot a cognate or three

I'm trying to understand better the word ἀνεξέταστος, as in Plato/Socrates' famous line from the Apology, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

I gather that ἀν is a negating prefix, akin to English's un-.
The -τος at the end, I presume, is an adjectivizing (?) stem that agrees in number and gender with βίος (life).

So, what is the root form of the verb? (How are these usually presented in Greek, anyway? In the infinitive?) I found an English-Greek dictionary that lists, as the first translation of "examine":

εξέταζειν

Is this the root, then? What's with the zeta jumping in there in place of the sigma? How would it be conjugated, in say, the first person indicative present, "I examine", or the imperative, "You there! Examine this!"?

And finally, is there either a cognate, or a transliteration or any of these forms, that sounds okay in English? I like "Exetas" okay, but dunno whether that's a reasonable rendering of the original word...

As for where I'm going with all this -- I'm working on a freebie application that tracks how much time you spend on various activities -- how long reading teh MacNN, how long fiddling with iTunes album covers, and how long actually getting some work done. I think "Exetas" or some variant thereof would make an interesting name for said application...

Much thanks!
     
BlueSky
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Jan 2, 2008, 02:56 PM
 
Have you considered "Chaff 'n Guff"?
     
Person Man
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Jan 2, 2008, 03:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by Mithras View Post
Preface: I know nothing of Greek's grammar, lexicon, or literature. However, like anybody who's taken calculus, I can find my way through the alphabet, and like anybody who speaks English, I can spot a cognate or three

I'm trying to understand better the word ἀνεξέταστος, as in Plato/Socrates' famous line from the Apology, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

I gather that ἀν is a negating prefix, akin to English's un-.
The -τος at the end, I presume, is an adjectivizing (?) stem that agrees in number and gender with βίος (life).

So, what is the root form of the verb? (How are these usually presented in Greek, anyway? In the infinitive?) I found an English-Greek dictionary that lists, as the first translation of "examine":

εξέταζειν

Is this the root, then? What's with the zeta jumping in there in place of the sigma? How would it be conjugated, in say, the first person indicative present, "I examine", or the imperative, "You there! Examine this!"?

And finally, is there either a cognate, or a transliteration or any of these forms, that sounds okay in English? I like "Exetas" okay, but dunno whether that's a reasonable rendering of the original word...

As for where I'm going with all this -- I'm working on a freebie application that tracks how much time you spend on various activities -- how long reading teh MacNN, how long fiddling with iTunes album covers, and how long actually getting some work done. I think "Exetas" or some variant thereof would make an interesting name for said application...

Much thanks!
I speak Greek, however your questions relate to classical Greek. What I speak is Modern (Demotic) Greek (Δημοτική), but I might be able to help you since the word you're discussing survives into the language today.

First off, in modern Greek there is no infinitive form of verbs, so what you'd find in a dictionary for verbs is usually the first person form, as in "I examine." Second, from what little I know about classical Greek, the infinitive form of "to examine" is indeed εξέταζειν. The reasons behind changing from ζ to σ in certain forms of the word are beyond the scope of this discussion. But I will provide you with the modern equivalents and conjugation of the word, as well as a few derivative words and their meanings.

The prefix "αν" is indeed negating, BTW. And the -τος at the end does agree in gender and number to the noun it's modifiying. In Modern Greek, "unexamined life" would be ανεξέταστη ζωή, since ζωή (life) is a female noun.

Unexamined = ανεξέταστος.

I examine = εγώ εξετάζω
You (familiar) examine = εσύ εξετάζεις
He/She examines = αυτός/αυτή εξετάζει
We examine = εμείς εξετάζουμε
They examine = εκέινους εξετάζουν
You (plural) examine = εσείς εξετάζετε
You (formal) examine = εσείς εξετάζετε
Imperative = εξετάσε το (literally, "(You,) examine it!"

(Also note that you can omit the articles εγώ, εσύ, etc).

Examination = εξέταση
Examinations (plural) = εξετάσεις

Examinable = εξετάσιμος

Examiner = εξεταστής

Examinee = εξεταζόμενος

From what you're trying to do, "exetas" sounds more Latin.

Using "Exetasi" (εξέταση), or Examination, might work fairly well. Although some people might misread it as "Extasi" (έκσταση), which means in Greek exactly what it sounds like in English.

Hope this helps.
     
Oisín
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Jan 2, 2008, 04:07 PM
 
From my very limited knowledge of Classical Greek, I can say that the first person singular is identical in CG to its Modern Greek counterpart; the other persons in the present are not, though I wouldn’t be able to tell you how the verb conjugates properly in CG.

If you want, you can break the verb up a bit more, into ἀν-ἐξ-ἔτασ-τος. ἀν- is, as you say, the negator; ἐξ- means the same as in Latin or English, ‘out of’; ἔτασ- (would you write ἔτασ- or ἔτας- when it’s before a hyphen?!?) is the aorist root of the root verb meaning ‘view’ (ἐξάζ- is the present, non-aorist stem); and -τος is the inherited deverbialising suffix that forms passive perfect participles (same ending as -(ā)tus in [the first declension in] Latin, in [the first declension in] French, and -d in English). So the word as a whole means ‘not examined

I like Person Man’s suggestion of using ἐξέταση for the name, but if you’re going for the Plato connection, I wouldn’t use the MG word, but the CG one: ἐξέτασις (gen. ἐξετᾶσεος) ‘exetasis’. This is also slightly less likely to cause confusion by muddling up with ‘ecstasy’.

(If we’re talking about this word in connection with βίος, though, you should know that apparently ἐξετᾶσις βιῶν refers to a census, more specifically the Roman Census.)

And ‘exetas’ would definitely be Latin—anyone with a smattering of Latin would expect it to have a genitive ‘exetatis’, which sounds more like a home-made formation to the verb exēdō ‘to devour completely’; or possibly a very late-Latin corruption of exaetatis, which doesn’t exist, but sounds like it means ‘the act of throwing someone out of your country’ (from ex- ‘out of’ and aetas/aetate- ‘state’).
( Last edited by Oisín; Jan 3, 2008 at 02:37 AM. )
     
Person Man
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Jan 2, 2008, 06:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by Oisín View Post
I like Person Man’s suggestion of using ἐξέταση for the name, but if you’re going for the Plato connection, I wouldn’t use the MG word, but the CG one: ἐξετᾶσις (gen. ἐξετᾶσεος) ‘exetasis’. This is also slightly less likely to cause confusion by muddling up with ‘ecstasy’.
I think he's just going for the meaning of "Examination," in Greek. The plural of εξέταση is εξετάσεις, which would be transliterated into English as "exetasis," like you suggest. And since most people in Greece talk about "examinations," in the plural, (i.e. "Ο γιατρός έκανε τις εξετάσεις του." -- literally "The doctor did his examinations.") the transliteration would fit either a Modern or a Classic Greek scenario.

He could always take the Classical Greek infinitive and transliterate that too: "Exetazein" (But I think that looks kinda Germanic)
     
olePigeon
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Jan 2, 2008, 08:07 PM
 
I like the Greek alphabet. It's squiggly and fun to write. (Astronomy. )
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
Person Man
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Jan 2, 2008, 10:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by olePigeon View Post
I like the Greek alphabet. It's squiggly and fun to write. (Astronomy. )
Arabic is squigglier.
     
Uriel
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Jan 3, 2008, 02:24 AM
 
I can ask my wife a bit later she took 3 years of koine Greek.
     
Oisín
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Jan 3, 2008, 02:39 AM
 
Originally Posted by Person Man View Post
I think he's just going for the meaning of "Examination," in Greek. The plural of εξέταση is εξετάσεις, which would be transliterated into English as "exetasis," like you suggest. And since most people in Greece talk about "examinations," in the plural, (i.e. "Ο γιατρός έκανε τις εξετάσεις του." -- literally "The doctor did his examinations.") the transliteration would fit either a Modern or a Classic Greek scenario.

He could always take the Classical Greek infinitive and transliterate that too: "Exetazein" (But I think that looks kinda Germanic)
Yeah, I thought about that, too, but it just looked too weird.

(I just noticed that I misspelled ἐξέτασις last night—the accent is only supposed to be over the α in the genitive, not the nominative, as in MG)
     
Mithras  (op)
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Jan 3, 2008, 01:16 PM
 
Thanks, guys All very interesting.
     
   
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