The readers' analogue of -phone

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Oct 2 15:31:16 UTC 2012


On Oct 2, 2012, at 10:57 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> At 10/2/2012 09:03 AM, W Brewer wrote:
>> JB wrote: <<<An X-phone is someone who speaks language X, sometimes with
>> the connotation of "native" or preferred language.  What is the analogous
>> term for someone who reads language X?>>>
>> WB: (1) Reader in Greek is anagnost-es. *Angl(o)anagnost???
>
> Sufficiently esoteric.  And I see "anagnost, n." IS in the OED
> (although not as a suffix): "A reader" […]

It does have the nice option of a negative counterpart, ananagnost; presumably a Sinoananagnost is a non-reader of Chinese, which many of us have been without having known it.

LH

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