What’s the capital of Greece?
-That’s easy, Athens; not so much confusion as with Australia or Canada. 😉
I’ll show you 4 posts about Athens, because it’s a nice city (it is! especially for tourists!), has been an important place, and it’s simply worth visiting!
Today, a question. Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. Have you ever wondered about its name? Why the city is called Athens, i.e., in a plural form; why not a singular form?
Does it depend on a language? Maybe, a little bit; but in many language the city has also a plural form; e.g., in Polish it’s plural, and we say in Polish “Athens are”; in English it’s plural, but we say “Athens is”.
It’s complicated… And I don’t know the answer to my question. In different areas, city was called both, in a plural as well in a singular form. Plural form may indicate the size of the city – it’s consisting of different parts; or maybe it’s just a problem with translation, or something typical for ancient cities, or some grammatical “rules that had been forgotten in years”? Any ideas?
In modern Greek (last 50 yrs or so) we use a singular form. Before that they used the plural. In ancient Greece are documents of both forms. Homer for example was using singular form. The reason for the plural form is that before it became a unity (city of Athens) it was an area with many small settlements, communities. Or at least this what they teach us at schools :-p
Thanks a lot! 🙂