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115-458: Meteorology ( Greek : Μετεωρολογικά ; Latin : Meteorologica or Meteora ) is a treatise by Aristotle . The text discusses what Aristotle believed to have been all the affections common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the Earth and the affections of its parts. It includes early accounts of water evaporation , earthquakes , and other weather phenomena. Aristotle's Meteorologica

230-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

345-441: A common and ultimate substrate. ( 339a36-b2 ) All terrestrial matter consists of these four elements . Various ratios of the elements combine to create the diverse materials found in nature. Aristotle explains this in terms of the four primary contrary qualities, heat, cold, dryness, and moisture ( Meteorology book 4 chapter 7); the first two being active causes and the latter being the underlying matter ( 378b10 ). Compositions of

460-558: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in

575-560: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

690-540: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near

805-462: A genuine Aristotelian text is disputed. ...four bodies are fire, air, water, earth. ( 339a15-16 )  Fire occupies the highest place among them all, earth the lowest, and two elements correspond to these in their relation to one another, air being nearest to fire, water to earth. ( 339a16-19 )  Fire, air, water, earth, we assert, originate from one another, and each of them exists potentially in each, as all things do that can be resolved into

920-526: A homogeneous natural substance (e.g., flesh, bone, or wood) could be divided and still retain its essential character. Unlike the atomism of Democritus, these Aristotelian "natural minima" were not conceptualized as physically indivisible. Instead, Aristotle's concept was rooted in his hylomorphic worldview, which held that every physical thing is a compound of matter (Greek hyle ) and of an immaterial substantial form (Greek morphe ) that imparts its essential nature and structure. To use an analogy we could pose

1035-466: A kind that can be perceived. Epicurus' ideas re-appear in the works of his Roman follower Lucretius ( c.  99 BC – c. 55 BC), who wrote On the Nature of Things . This Classical Latin scientific work in poetic form illustrates several segments of Epicurean theory on how the universe came into its current stage; it shows that the phenomena we perceive are actually composite forms. The atoms and

1150-453: A large amount of the element water, and smaller amounts of the other elements. But whatever water or other elements were left, they would no longer have the "nature" of flesh: in hylomorphic terms, they would no longer be matter structured by the form of flesh; instead the remaining water, e.g., would be matter structured by the form of water, not by the form of flesh. Epicurus (341–270 BCE) studied atomism with Nausiphanes who had been

1265-440: A plausible account of changes among the primary substances. Sometime before 330 BC Aristotle asserted that the elements of fire, air, earth, and water were not made of atoms, but were continuous. Aristotle considered the existence of a void, which was required by atomic theories, to violate physical principles. Change took place not by the rearrangement of atoms to make new structures, but by transformation of matter from what it

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1380-529: A proportioned combination. The theory of elements was meant to replace the Atomism of Democritus (which Aristotle refuted in On Generation and Corruption and De Caelo ). The elements are not, therefore, tiny building blocks like atoms, but rather the constitutive properties (i.e. contraries) of the simple bodies (fire, air, water, earth) found in sense-perception. Meteorology deals primarily with

1495-410: A rubber ball: we could imagine the rubber to be the matter that gives the ball the ability to take on another form, and the spherical shape to be the form that gives it its identity of "ball". Using this analogy, though, we should keep in mind that in fact rubber itself would already be considered a composite of form and matter, as it has identity and determinacy to a certain extent, pure or primary matter

1610-557: A student of Democritus. Although Epicurus was certain of the existence of atoms and the void, he was less sure we could adequately explain specific natural phenomena such as earthquakes, lightning, comets, or the phases of the Moon. Few of Epicurus' writings survive, and those that do reflect his interest in applying Democritus' theories to assist people in taking responsibility for themselves and for their own happiness—since he held there are no gods around that can help them. (Epicurus regarded

1725-497: A void that could divide it. Finally, he stated that the all encompassing Unity is unchanging, for the Unity already encompasses all that is and can be. Democritus rejected Parmenides' belief that change is an illusion. He believed change was real, and if it was not then at least the illusion had to be explained. He thus supported the concept of void, and stated that the universe is made up of many Parmenidean entities that move around in

1840-427: Is a great quantity of exhalation and it is rare and is squeezed out in the cloud itself we get a thunderbolt. ( 371a17-19 )  So the whirlwind originates in the failure of an incipient hurricane to escape from its cloud: it is due to the resistance which generates the eddy, and it consists in the spiral which descends to the earth and drags with it the cloud which it cannot shake off. It moves things by its wind in

1955-427: Is a sustained investigation of the properties and effects of heat and cold on organic processes. In "Meteorologica" (1, 2) in free translation as follows: "They boil the sea water and suspend large sponges from the mouth of a brass vessel to absorb what is evaporated, and after drawing the liquid from the sponges they find it to be sweet water." This is a practical application of Aristotle's theory of distillation and that

2070-478: Is advantageous, excludes them from his life. However, according to science historian Charles Coulston Gillispie: Encased in the Epicurean philosophy, the atomic doctrine could never be welcome to moral authority. ... Epicurean gods neither created the world nor paid it ... attention. "Nature," says Lucretius, "is free and uncontrolled by proud masters and runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods." Only

2185-804: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout

2300-773: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system

2415-479: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During

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2530-453: Is completely unformed, unintelligible and with infinite potential to undergo change. Aristotle's intuition was that there is some smallest size beyond which matter could no longer be structured as flesh, or bone, or wood, or some other such organic substance that for Aristotle (living before the invention of the microscope) could be considered homogeneous. For instance, if flesh were divided beyond its natural minimum, what would be left might be

2645-442: Is composed. In general, however, the belief that a vacuum is impossible was almost universally held until the end of the sixteenth century. ... The time was certainly ripe for the revival of the belief in the possibility of a vacuum, but to the clerics the very name of the vacuum was anathema, being associated with the atomistic theories of Epicurus and Lucretius, which were felt to be heretical. While Aristotelian philosophy eclipsed

2760-414: Is known from journeys by sea and land, the length [of the inhabited earth] is much greather than the width; indeed the distance from the pillars of Heracles [at Cadiz] to India exceeds that from Aethiopia [Sudan] to Lake Maeotis [Sea of Azov] and the farthest part of Scythia is the proportion of more than five to three ( 362b19-23 ) The Red Sea, for instance, communicates but slightly with the ocean outside

2875-519: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to

2990-828: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Atomism References to

3105-526: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around

3220-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

3335-650: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with

3450-428: Is the oldest comprehensive treatise on the subject of meteorology. Written around 340 B.C, it consists of four books; three pertaining to meteorology, and one to chemistry. Despite its ancient origins, Meteorologica was the basis for all modern day meteorology texts throughout Western Civilization up to the 17th century. Throughout this treatise, Aristotle outlines two theories: Meteorologica does not only contain

3565-764: The Abhidhammattha-sangaha , a text dated to the 11th or 12th century, postulates the existence of rupa-kalapa , imagined as the smallest units of the physical world, of varying elementary composition. Invisible under normal circumstances, the rupa-kalapa are said to become visible as a result of meditative samadhi . Atomistic philosophies are found very early in Islamic philosophy and were influenced originally by earlier Greek and, to some extent, Indian philosophy. Islamic speculative theology in general approached issues in physics from an atomistic framework. The most successful form of Islamic atomism

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3680-872: The Charvaka , and Ajivika schools of atomism originated as early as the 7th century BCE. Bhattacharya posits that Charvaka may have been one of several atheistic, materialist schools that existed in ancient India. Kanada founded the Vaisheshika school of Indian philosophy that also represents the earliest Indian natural philosophy . The Nyaya and Vaisheshika schools developed theories on how kaṇa s combined into more complex objects. Several of these doctrines of atomism are, in some respects, "suggestively similar" to that of Democritus. McEvilley (2002) assumes that such similarities are due to extensive cultural contact and diffusion, probably in both directions. The Nyaya – Vaisesika school developed one of

3795-495: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It

3910-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

4025-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in

4140-531: The nova translatio , which was widely read, as it survives in numerous manuscripts; it received commentary by Thomas Aquinas and was often printed during the Renaissance . In On the Universe (a possibly spurious work), Aristotle writes: ...the motion of these latter bodies [of four] being of two kinds: either from the centre or to the centre. ( 339a14-15 )  So we must treat fire and earth and

4255-746: The "distinction which the Eleatic school drew between the Absolute , or the only real existence, and the world of change around us." Democritus believed that atoms are too small for human senses to detect, that they are infinitely many, that they come in infinitely many varieties, and that they have always existed. They float in a vacuum, which Democritus called the "void" , and they vary in form, order, and posture. Some atoms, he maintained, are convex, others concave, some shaped like hooks, and others like eyes . They are constantly moving and colliding into each other. Democritus wrote that atoms and void are

4370-757: The 17th century, a renewed interest arose in Epicurean atomism and corpuscularianism as a hybrid or an alternative to Aristotelian physics . The main figures in the rebirth of atomism were Isaac Beeckman , René Descartes , Pierre Gassendi , and Robert Boyle , as well as other notable figures. One of the first groups of atomists in England was a cadre of amateur scientists known as the Northumberland circle, led by Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland (1564–1632). Although they published little of account, they helped to disseminate atomistic ideas among

4485-470: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into

4600-412: The 7th century, was very different from the atomist doctrines taught in early Buddhism. Medieval Buddhist philosophers Dharmakirti and Dignāga considered atoms to be point-sized, durationless, and made of energy. In discussing the two systems, Fyodor Shcherbatskoy (1930) stresses their commonality, the postulate of "absolute qualities" ( guna-dharma ) underlying all empirical phenomena. Still later,

4715-635: The Antiochene scholar Yahya ibn al-Batriq , was widely circulated among Muslim scholars over the following centuries. This was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 12th century – and by this means, during the Twelfth-century Renaissance , entered the Western European world of medieval scholasticism . Gerard's "old translation" ( vetus translatio ) was superseded by an improved text by William of Moerbeke ,

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4830-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

4945-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than

5060-495: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

5175-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow

5290-685: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community

5405-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

5520-464: The adjacent table. The cube, with its flat base and stability, was assigned to earth; the tetrahedron was assigned to fire because its penetrating points and sharp edges made it mobile. The points and edges of the octahedron and icosahedron were blunter and so these less mobile bodies were assigned to air and water. Since the simple bodies could be decomposed into triangles, and the triangles reassembled into atoms of different elements, Plato's model offered

5635-465: The aggregation and nature of these atoms was predetermined by cosmic forces. The school founder's traditional name Kanada means 'atom eater', and he is known for developing the foundations of an atomistic approach to physics and philosophy in the Sanskrit text Vaiśeṣika Sūtra . His text is also known as Kanada Sutras , or Aphorisms of Kanada. Medieval Buddhist atomism , flourishing around

5750-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of

5865-446: The atomism of Epicurus had fallen out of favor in the centuries of Scholasticism , the minima naturalia of Aristotelianism received extensive consideration. Speculation on minima naturalia provided philosophical background for the mechanistic philosophy of early modern thinkers such as Descartes, and for the alchemical works of Geber and Daniel Sennert , who in turn influenced the corpuscularian alchemist Robert Boyle , one of

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5980-700: The atomism of the Asharites and expounded on many Greek texts, especially those of Aristotle. An active school of philosophers in Al-Andalus, including the noted commentator Averroes (1126–1198 CE) explicitly rejected the thought of al-Ghazali and turned to an extensive evaluation of the thought of Aristotle. Averroes commented in detail on most of the works of Aristotle and his commentaries became very influential in Jewish and Christian scholastic thought. According to historian of atomism Joshua Gregory, there

6095-404: The atomists among ... Greek science ... was the one view of nature quite incompatible with theology. Like a pair of eighteenth-century philosophers, Epicurus and Lucretius introduced atomism as a vehicle of enlightenment. They meant to refute the pretensions of religion ... and release men from superstition and the undignified fear of capricious gods. Consequently, a hint of Epicureanism came to seem

6210-828: The burgeoning scientific culture of England, and may have been particularly influential to Francis Bacon , who became an atomist around 1605, though he later rejected some of the claims of atomism. Though they revived the classical form of atomism, this group was among the scientific avant-garde: the Northumberland circle contained nearly half of the confirmed Copernicans prior to 1610 (the year of Galileo's The Starry Messenger ). Other influential atomists of late 16th and early 17th centuries include Giordano Bruno , Thomas Hobbes (who also changed his stance on atomism late in his career), and Thomas Hariot . A number of different atomistic theories were blossoming in France at this time, as well (Clericuzio 2000). Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)

6325-727: The composition of the space between earth and stars, the double nature of exhalation, and the composition of clouds. This chapter also contains Anaxagoras' analysis of the element ether Ch.4 Shooting Stars Ch.5 The Aurora Borealis and its affects Ch.6 Comets, including the analyses of Anaxagoras, Democritus, the Pythagoreans. Refutation of these findings by Hippocrates of Chios and Aeschylus Ch.7 Comets, their nature and causes Ch.8 The Milky Way, including Aristotle's new theory Ch.9 The formation of rain, mist, and clouds Ch.10 Dew and hoar-frost Ch.11 Rain, snow, hail and their connection to hoar-frost Ch.12 Hail, why it occurs in

6440-442: The concept of atomism and its atoms appeared in both ancient Greek and ancient Indian philosophical traditions. Leucippus is the earliest figure whose commitment to atomism is well attested and he is usually credited with inventing atomism. He and other ancient Greek atomists theorized that nature consists of two fundamental principles : atom and void . Clusters of different shapes, arrangements, and positions give rise to

6555-665: The curriculum in the universities of Europe was based on such Aristotelianism for most of the Middle Ages. In medieval universities there were, however, expressions of atomism. For example, in the 14th century Nicholas of Autrecourt considered that matter, space, and time were all made up of indivisible atoms, points, and instants and that all generation and corruption took place by the rearrangement of material atoms. The similarities of his ideas with those of al-Ghazali suggest that Nicholas may have been familiar with Ghazali's work, perhaps through Averroes ' refutation of it. In

6670-410: The different packings and scatterings of the atoms in the void that compose the object that organisms sense as being "hot" or "cold". The work of Democritus survives only in secondhand reports, some of which are unreliable or conflicting. Much of the best evidence of Democritus' theory of atomism is reported by Aristotle (384–322 BCE) in his discussions of Democritus' and Plato 's contrasting views on

6785-564: The direct result of God's constant intervention, without which nothing could happen. Thus nature is completely dependent on God, which meshes with other Asharite Islamic ideas on causation, or the lack thereof (Gardet 2001). Al-Ghazali also used the theory to support his theory of occasionalism . In a sense, the Asharite theory of atomism has far more in common with Indian atomism than it does with Greek atomism. Other traditions in Islam rejected

6900-504: The direction in which it is blowing in a straight line, and whirls round by its circular motion and forcibly snatches up whatever it meets. ( 371a9-15 ) Aristotle describes the properties of tornadoes and lightning . So it is clear, since there will be no end to time and the world is eternal, that neither the Tanais nor the Nile has always been flowing, but that the region whence they flow

7015-642: The earliest forms of atomism; scholars date the Nyaya and Vaisesika texts from the 9th to 4th centuries BCE. Vaisesika atomists posited the four elemental atom types, but in Vaisesika physics atoms had 25 different possible qualities, divided between general extensive properties and specific (intensive) properties. The Nyaya–Vaisesika atomists had elaborate theories of how atoms combine. In Vaisesika atomism, atoms first combine into tryaṇuka s (triads) and dvyaṇuka (dyad) before they aggregate into bodies of

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7130-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of

7245-492: The early Pythagoreans (before Ecphantus of Syracuse ). Unit-point atomism was invoked in order to make sense of a statement ascribed to Zeno of Elea in Plato's Parmenides : "these writings of mine were meant to protect the arguments of Parmenides against those who make fun of him. . . My answer is addressed to the partisans of the many. . ." The anti-Parmenidean pluralists were supposedly unit-point atomists whose philosophy

7360-432: The elements in things like milk, blood, flesh, or metals will include both earth and water, and sometimes air. These composite bodies involve a form which combines contraries in the same body, i.e. both moisture and dryness (Aristotle explained the flexibility and ductility of metal by theorizing that it had moisture in its composition). They do so by forming proportions among the contraries. Flesh involves all four elements in

7475-503: The elements like them as the material causes of the events in this world (meaning by material what is subject and is affected), but must assign causality in the sense of the originating principle of motion to the influence of the eternally moving bodies. ( 339a27-32 ) This is a reference to the unmoved movers , a teleological explanation. Although On the Universe is included in the Corpus Aristotelicum , its status as

7590-618: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute

7705-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in

7820-412: The founders of modern chemistry. A chief theme in late Roman and Scholastic commentary on this concept was reconciling minima naturalia with the general Aristotelian principle of infinite divisibility . Commentators like John Philoponus and Thomas Aquinas reconciled these aspects of Aristotle's thought by distinguishing between mathematical and "natural" divisibility. With few exceptions, much of

7935-421: The importance of the atomists in late Roman and medieval Europe, their work was still preserved and exposited through commentaries on the works of Aristotle. In the 2nd century, Galen (AD 129–216) presented extensive discussions of the Greek atomists, especially Epicurus, in his Aristotle commentaries. Ajivika is a " Nastika " school of thought whose metaphysics included a theory of atoms or atomism which

8050-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn

8165-445: The interaction of three elements: air, water, and earth. A cloud is a composite that mixes all three. Books 1-3 of Meteorology apply a method of explanation (contrary qualities) which explains different phenomena as an interaction of forces in a natural system (relations of agent and patient, potency, and activity). Thus the sun and air are "movers" within meteorological phenomena, while water and earth are "moved" and act as matter. Book 4

8280-467: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

8395-515: The mark of the beast in Christian Europe. No thinker, unless it is Machiavelli, has been more maligned by misrepresentation. The possibility of a vacuum was accepted—or rejected—together with atoms and atomism, for the vacuum was part of that same theory. Democritus and Lucretius denied the impossibility of a vacuum, being of the opinion that there must be a vacuum between the discrete particles (atoms) of which, they thought, all matter

8510-640: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek

8625-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and

8740-506: The name "atom", long used by the atomist philosophy. Although the connection to historical atomism is at best tenuous, elementary particles have become a modern analogue of philosophical atoms. Philosophical atomism is a reductive argument, proposing not only that everything is composed of atoms and void, but that nothing they compose really exists: the only things that really exist are atoms ricocheting off each other mechanistically in an otherwise empty void . One proponent of this theory

8855-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks

8970-536: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It

9085-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

9200-408: The only things that exist and that all other things are merely said to exist by social convention . The objects humans see in everyday life are composed of many atoms united by random collisions and their forms and materials are determined by what kinds of atom make them up. Likewise, human perceptions are caused by atoms as well. Bitterness is caused by small, angular, jagged atoms passing across

9315-411: The people in what was possible in atoms and what was not possible in atoms. However, Epicurus expressed a non-aggressive attitude characterized by his statement: The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family all the creatures he can; and those he can not, he at any rate does not treat as aliens; and where he finds even this impossible, he avoids all dealings, and, so far as

9430-573: The perceiving mind, that is, "secondary" qualities as distinguished from "primary" qualities. Galileo identified some basic problems with Aristotelian physics through his experiments. He utilized a theory of atomism as a partial replacement, but he was never unequivocally committed to it. For example, his experiments with falling bodies and inclined planes led him to the concepts of circular inertial motion and accelerating free-fall. The current Aristotelian theories of impetus and terrestrial motion were inadequate to explain these. While atomism did not explain

9545-420: The present day complete. However, a massive number of fragments and quotations of his writings have survived. These are the main source of information on his teachings about atoms. Democritus's argument for the existence of atoms hinged on the idea that it is impossible to keep dividing matter infinitely - and that matter must therefore be made up of extremely tiny particles. The atomistic theory aimed to remove

9660-399: The rain cycle is some sort of natural distallation, without having said the word (Book 1, Chapter 9). Some of the vapour that is formed by day does not rise high because the ratio of the fire that is raising it to the water that is being raised is small. ( 347a13-15 )  Both dew and hoar-frost are found when the sky is clear and there is no wind. For the vapour could not be raised unless

9775-624: The role of gods as exemplifying moral ideals.) In ancient Indian philosophy , preliminary instances of atomism are found in the works of Vedic sage Aruni , who lived in the 8th century BCE, especially his proposition that "particles too small to be seen mass together into the substances and objects of experience" known as kaṇa . Although kana refers to "particles" not atoms ( paramanu ). Some scholars such as Hermann Jacobi and Randall Collins have compared Aruni to Thales of Miletus in their scientific methodology, calling them both as "primitive physicists" or "proto-materialist thinkers". Later,

9890-421: The same in any portion of a homogeneous material). In the 5th century BC, Leucippus and his pupil Democritus proposed that all matter was composed of small indivisible particles which they called "atoms". Nothing whatsoever is known about Leucippus except that he was the teacher of Democritus. Democritus, by contrast, wrote prolifically, producing over eighty known treatises, none of which have survived to

10005-451: The sky were clear, and if a wind were blowing it could not condense. ( 347a26-28 )  ...hoar-frost is not found on mountains contributes to prove that these phenomena occur because the vapour does not rise high. One reason for this is that it rises from hollow and watery places, so that the heat that is raising it, bearing as it were too heavy a burden cannot lift it to a great height but soon lets it fall again. ( 347a29-34 ) When there

10120-423: The sphere called that of fire. ( 354b23-25 ) Aristotle is describing a spherical lithosphere (Earth), hydrosphere (water) and atmosphere (air and fire). The following is the table of contents of the first book: Ch. 1 Introduction to meteorology Ch.2 General principles and elements in relation to the world and universe Ch.3 Composition of the four elements; air, earth, fire, and water. Topics also include

10235-528: The straits,... ( 354a1-3 )  The whole of the Mediterranean does actually flow. The direction of this flow is determined by the depth of the basins and by the number of rivers. Maeotis flows into Pontus and Pontus into the Aegean. After that the flow of the remaining seas is not so easy to observe. ( 354a11-14 ) The earth is surrounded by water, just as that is by the sphere of air, and that again by

10350-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

10465-412: The summer and disputing Anaxagoras' theories Ch.13 Winds, formation of rivers Ch.14 Climatic changes and coast erosion The following is the table of contents of the second book: Ch. 1 The ocean and its nature Ch.2 & Ch.3 Sea saltiness and its origins Ch.4 Winds, their causes and effects Ch.5 Winds, effects of heat and cold on winds Ch.6 Winds and their directions Ch.7 Earthquakes, and

10580-533: The theories of Ancient Greeks, but is the accumulation of the findings from poets, philosophers, historians, etc. In fact, many of the hypotheses are derived from the Egyptians, including Shepseskaf-ankh, a physician and priest. Further, Aristotle's knowledge of winds stems from the Babylonians. Throughout his treatise, Aristotle is methodical and consistent while presenting his findings. First, he introduces

10695-425: The tongue; whereas sweetness is caused by larger, smoother, more rounded atoms passing across the tongue. Previously, Parmenides had denied the existence of motion, change and void. He believed all existence to be a single, all-encompassing and unchanging mass (a concept known as monism ), and that change and motion were mere illusions. He explicitly rejected sensory experience as the path to an understanding of

10810-759: The topic by presenting the theories of other scholars. By refuting or supporting their claims, Aristotle shapes his own assertions. Scholars such as Anaxagoras derived many of their theories on inferences, strongly basing their discoveries on observations rather than fact. In comparison, Aristotle approached his research by drawing deductive inferences when examining his theories. While formulating his hypotheses, he preconceived his theories based on observed weather phenomena. In lieu of using weather observations to develop his findings, he interpreted these observations to support his hypotheses. An Arabic compendium of Meteorology , called al-'Athar al-`Ulwiyyah ( Arabic : الآثار العلوية ) and produced c.  800  CE by

10925-691: The types of indivisibles composing the natural world. According to some twentieth-century philosophers , unit-point atomism was the philosophy of the Pythagoreans , a conscious repudiation of Parmenides and the Eleatics . It stated that atoms were infinitesimally small ("point") yet possessed corporeality. It was a predecessor of Democritean atomism. Most recent students of presocratic philosophy , such as Kurt von Fritz , Walter Burkert , Gregory Vlastos , Jonathan Barnes , and Daniel W. Graham have rejected that any form of atomism can be applied to

11040-452: The universe and instead used purely abstract reasoning. He believed there is no such thing as void, equating it with non-being. This in turn meant that motion is impossible, because there is no void to move into. Parmenides doesn't mention or explicitly deny the existence of the void, stating instead that what is not does not exist. He also wrote all that is must be an indivisible unity, for if it were manifold, then there would have to be

11155-511: The various macroscopic substances in the world. Indian Buddhists , such as Dharmakirti ( fl. c. 6th or 7th century) and others, developed distinctive theories of atomism, for example, involving momentary (instantaneous) atoms ( kalapa s ) that flash in and out of existence. The particles of chemical matter for which chemists and other natural philosophers of the early 19th century found experimental evidence were thought to be indivisible, and therefore were given by John Dalton

11270-559: The views and contradictions of Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Anaximenes Ch.8 Earthquakes and their causes Ch.9 Thunder and lightning, causes and theories from Empedocles and Anaxagoras The following is the table of contents of the third book: Ch. 1 Hurricanes, typhoons, fire winds and thunderbolts Ch.2 Haloes and rainbows Ch.3 Haloes and their shapes Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

11385-432: The void are eternal and in constant motion. Atomic collisions create objects, which are still composed of the same eternal atoms whose motion for a while is incorporated into the created entity. Lucretius also explains human sensations and meteorological phenomena in terms of atomic motion. In his epic poem On the Nature of Things , Lucretius depicts Epicurus as the hero who crushed the monster Religion through educating

11500-415: The void. The void is infinite and provides the space in which the atoms can pack or scatter differently. The different possible packings and scatterings within the void make up the shifting outlines and bulk of the objects that organisms feel, see, eat, hear, smell, and taste. While organisms may feel hot or cold, hot and cold actually have no real existence. They are simply sensations produced in organisms by

11615-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

11730-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of

11845-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

11960-414: Was an advocate of atomism in his 1612 Discourse on Floating Bodies (Redondi 1969). In The Assayer , Galileo offered a more complete physical system based on a corpuscular theory of matter, in which all phenomena—with the exception of sound—are produced by "matter in motion". Atomism was associated by its leading proponents with the idea that some of the apparent properties of objects are artifacts of

12075-410: Was created, although its creator framed it after an eternal, unchanging model. ( Animation ) ( Animation ) ( Animation ) ( Animation ) One part of that creation were the four simple bodies of fire, air, water, and earth . But Plato did not consider these corpuscles to be the most basic level of reality, for in his view they were made up of an unchanging level of reality, which

12190-510: Was essentially a reaction against the Eleatics. This hypothesis, however, to explain Zeno's paradoxes , has been thoroughly discredited. Plato ( c.  427 – c.  347 BCE) argued that atoms just crashing into other atoms could never produce the beauty and form of the world. In Plato's Timaeus (28b–29a) the character of Timeaus insisted that the cosmos was not eternal but

12305-414: Was in potential to a new actuality . A piece of wet clay, when acted upon by a potter, takes on its potential to be an actual drinking mug. Aristotle has often been criticized for rejecting atomism, but in ancient Greece the atomic theories of Democritus remained "pure speculations, incapable of being put to any experimental test". Aristotle theorized minima naturalia as the smallest parts into which

12420-524: Was in the Asharite school of Islamic theology , most notably in the work of the theologian al-Ghazali (1058–1111). In Asharite atomism, atoms are the only perpetual, material things in existence, and all else in the world is "accidental" meaning something that lasts for only an instant. Nothing accidental can be the cause of anything else, except perception, as it exists for a moment. Contingent events are not subject to natural physical causes, but are

12535-470: Was later adapted in the Vaiśeṣika school, which postulated that all objects in the physical universe are reducible to paramāṇu ( atoms ), and one's experiences are derived from the interplay of substance (a function of atoms, their number and their spatial arrangements), quality, activity, commonness, particularity and inherence. Everything was composed of atoms, qualities emerged from aggregates of atoms, but

12650-433: Was mathematical. These simple bodies were geometric solids , the faces of which were, in turn, made up of triangles. The square faces of the cube were each made up of four isosceles right-angled triangles and the triangular faces of the tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron were each made up of six right-angled triangles. Plato postulated the geometric structure of the simple bodies of the four elements as summarized in

12765-558: Was no serious work done with atomism from the time of Galen until Isaac Beeckman , Gassendi and Descartes resurrected it in the 17th century; "the gap between these two 'modern naturalists' and the ancient Atomists marked "the exile of the atom" and "it is universally admitted that the Middle Ages had abandoned Atomism, and virtually lost it." Although the ancient atomists' works were unavailable, scholastic thinkers gradually became aware of Aristotle's critiques of atomism as Averroes 's commentaries were translated into Latin . Although

12880-498: Was once dry: for their effect may be fulfilled, but time cannot. And this will be equally true of all other rivers. But if rivers come into existence and perish and the same parts of the earth were not always moist, the sea must needs change correspondingly. And if the sea is always advancing in one place and receding in another it is clear that the same parts of the whole earth are not always either sea or land, but that all this changes in course of time.. ( 353a14-24 ) To judge from what

12995-433: Was the Greek philosopher Democritus . By convention sweet is sweet, by convention bitter is bitter, by convention hot is hot, by convention cold is cold, by convention color is color. But in reality there are atoms and the void. Atomism stands in contrast to a substance theory wherein a prime material continuum remains qualitatively invariant under division (for example, the ratio of the four classical elements would be

13110-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

13225-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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