I am a Spanish colleague, great lover of the classic languages. I am great enthusiastic of the Greek and Latin Paleography.
In recent date, we have discovered in a Archive of a particular collection manuscripts written in Greek, that apparently date from century X or XI AD.
Most of the text is a geographic description of the Mediterranean. The reading is very difficult by the so precarious and fragmented state of the codex, but most difficult it is the translation, because there are orations and sentences that we were not able to translate; for example, a sequence that can be read like:
“… h de Kupros nhsos 'ama Turrhnias hn kai Asias meizwn…” >
Please, we needed aid with this oration, did not find sense logical. From the geographic point of view, Kupros must be Cyprus, Turrênias must be the peninsula of Italy and Asia, approximately the present Anatolian.
Another fragment that we were not able to decipher is the following one:
“…hoti to kephalaion hn oktakis eti chilia apo hou gegonws emhnuthh polemos tois te huper Asias stomatos exw katoikousin kai tois entos…”
No we understand the number seems too high to be indicated like date or time in “years”.
Warm greetings, and thank you very much by your aid.
the fagments you cite are intriguing, but the ‘greeklish’ transliteration is obscure. For exmaple, what is that mark before ‘ama’ in the first fragment - is it an accent, an apostrophe, a comma or sth else?
In the second fragment the ‘h’ seems to be used in some places as a daseia and in others as the letter ‘η’. Does ‘eti’ stand for ετη (as your comment suggests) or for ετι ?
-Sorry for the missing accents, i Have just formatted my PC and haven’t installed all fonts yet-
I get totally confused with the transliteration in the ‘apo hou gegononws emhnuthh’ segment.
Could you provide theses fragments it in Greek script - or at least somehow determine punctuation, accents and spelling?
You have reason, I did not explain better the signs.
The h is the heta (ê), the w is the Omega (ô). the fragments are in very bad states, since apparently they are the rest that were of a document that was burned in already makes several hundreds of years.
In the case of 'ama, we have preferred to include that small apostrophe ahead, because in the document no is appraised, and then we do not know if he is hama or it only ama.
By the context it seems a little difficult that he is hama, but we cannot discard this possibility. We felt much not to be able to have an image, but not even they have authorized that can be fotografíar or be scanned until the experts are not able the way to conserve the rest in a laboratory. Therefore we have only been able to transcribe directly what we saw, but have participated several to make sure the signs and the letters well. They are in an exact 99% which it is seen in documents.
If you could help us with the translation very we would be thanked for and in addition in the publication we would make mention to its contribution.
Correction:
“… hê de Kupros nêsos hama Turrênias ên kai Asias meizôn…”
“…hoti to kephalaion ên oktakis eti chilia apo hou gegonôs emênuthê polemos tois te huper Asias stomatos exô katoikousin kai tois entos…”
P.S. Please, the one that more is urgent to us to verify it is first, because a colleague wishes to include in his next publication this mention to the island of Cyprus.
That same one we thought the first time that we read this fragment, but as everybody knows, Küpros (Cyprus) is a small island, it has never been to greater than that Thürrênia (Peninsula of Italy) and that Asia (Anatolia and part of the old Phoenicia).
It is impossible! must exist another way to translate that fragment…
For that reason we are requesting aid to all the one that knows Greek old.
The fragments these loose ones (started off and we cannot still know who follows to who), but the fragment where it is mentioned to Küpros, are that, are no more nothing advanced neither the more nothing behind. It seems a complete oration.
But in all the other fragment many places of the Mediterranean are mentioned and the descriptions always are related at the “powerful” level of being able or economic or military “greatness” of each country that is described.
A description of the situation of being able economic politician and of the main regions or countries of the Mediterranean does not seem a treaty of geography rather but.
I hope that you help us with some translation although he is something provisional or hypothetical.
Then the first translation that to us has left to us, does not have any sense, because Küpros never was greater or greater than Thürrênia nor that Asia. ???
“… hê de Kupros nêsos hama Turrênias ên kai Asias meizôn…”
¿Ha considerado la posibilidad de que el autor fuera chipriota? Considerando que España es el mejor país del mundo, no sé yo por qué Chipre no iba a poder ser más grande que Italia o Asia Menor.
Por supuesto que el autor podría ser Chipriota (aunque no podemos saberlo), pero en este caso, el tamaño de Chipre es muy pequeño para poder justificar una traducción como que era “más grande que Italia y Asia menor” a menos que Meizôn se pudiera traducir también como “mas poderosa” o “más grandiosa (en poder)”.
hi, if poder means power then i can follow the spanish detour above from french and italian…
there’s obviously 2 steps here, first reading the easy greek then interpreting it, the greek seems quite clear unless you’ve assigned the wrong places to the names, i.e. maybe they mean cities or something else.
anyway if that’s not the problem then basically the fragment tells you nothing because you don’t have the surrounding context.
another problem might be that the author didn’t know what they were writing about, or they wrote greek badly: maybe they were talking about a weight/measure: LSJ suggests that a ku/pros is a measure. maybe you can’t get much more out of the fragment than the surface reading which was your 1st reading i think…
Estimado Bardo de Saldo, ¿podrías traducir este mensaje para el colega Chad?
Estimado chad:
No creo que haya dudas de que se trate de Küpros como Chipre o Cyprus, porque aparece acompañada de la palabra Nêsos. Pensamos que el enigma se puede solucionar profundizando en los posibles significados de hama (o ama) y de meizôn, ya que, ciertamente, una traducción: “la isla de Küpros era más grande (en tamaño) que Thürrênia y Asia juntas”, es a todas luces absurda.
Nosotros creemos que debe haber existido otra manera de interpretar hama y meizôn, porque no es la primera vez que nos encontramos con textos medievales donde hama se usa para indicar “en el mismo tiempo”, “a la misma vez”, y no exactamente con ese sentido de “cosas reunidas” o “juntadas en una sola”, y también hemos hallado casos donde meizôn se usó para comparar en grandeza de poder o magnificiencia, poderío, incluso en altitud, o para indicar mayor antigüedad.
Hi, if that’s the case then sorry I can’t help because like I said above I don’t know anything about these places, i.e. I couldn’t guess why A is likely to be greater than B and C, and also I haven’t studied medieval uses of ancient Greek vocab sorry.
Dear chad,
I love you… (just kidding, , let’s start over)
Dear chad,
I don’t think that there’s any doubt that Küpros refers to Cyprus, because it is accompanied by the word Nêsos. We think that the enigma can be solved by delving into the possible meanings of hama (or ama) and meizôn, since, certainly, translating “the island of Küpros is larger (in size) than Thürrênia and Asia put together” would be absurd.
We believe that there must have been another way of interpreting hama and meizôn, because it wouldn´t be the first time that we find in medieval texts the word hama used as “at the same time”, instead of “together” or “united”; and we have also found the word meizôn used to compare power, magnificence, altitude and age.
hi thanks yes i haven’t learnt spanish but i was able to get the gist from knowing a bit of french and italian (badly), they don’t seem too far apart at a basic comprehension level
In Koine Greek, “ama” got another use,
roughly translated into English as"if…then". In that sense, “meizwn” might not mean “larger”, but is coneected to “ama” and has the meaning “major”/“more important”. In short, “ama…meizwn” can say “if … more important, then…”.
Estimado Bardo de Saldo, ¿podrías traducir este mensaje para el colega ThomasGR? Gracias!!
Estimado ThomasGR, su explicación nos parece la más correcta.
Estamos muy contentos , porque creemos que esa hipótesis es válida, solamente necesitaríamos más opiniones, lo ideal sería que esta interpretación pudiera ser avalada por algun profesor de Griego clásico, o sea, alguien reconocido como un experto.
No sabemos si usted lo es, pero aunque no lo fuera, estamos igualmente muy agradecidos, y aunque no encontremos ningún profesor que quiera apoyar esta posible interpretación, nosotros publicaríamos estas hipótesis.
Si usted desea puede facilitarnos sus datos y como le gustaría aparecer citado en las fuentes de consulta. Como usted prefiera lo haremos.
El artículo estaría previsto para ser publicado en una publicación de Linguística y Filología Clásicas patrocinada por la Universiddd de Barcelona, si es que podemos conseguir - antes de finalizar este año - más opiniones o un buen aval para estas hipótesis de una posible interpretatio “more important”, en vez de “más grande que”.
Dear Thomas,
We think that yours is the best explanation.
We are very happy because we believe that your hypothesis is valid. Due to our academic circumstances, in order to use it we need more opinions; ideally we would want it substantiated by a recognized authority, such as a Classics professor.
We don´t know if you are a recognized authority, but even if you aren´t, we are very grateful, and if we didn´t find others to add weight to your hypothesis we would still publish it.
If you wish, you can tell us how you would want your name to appear when we cite you in the credits.
We expect the article to appear in a Linguistics and Classical Philology publication sponsored by the University of Barcelona, if we can get before the end of the year more opinions that agree with your interpretation of “more important” rather than “bigger”.
Mario.
.
I think, don Mario, that a couple of quotes from the Greek Bible where that usage is found should suffice. For substantiation, I’ll slap on a frame!
I am glad that my suggestion was of any help; though I am not an expert.
For the word and use of “ama” you amy look at a dictionary of “purified Greek” (katharevousa). After I posted my reply yesterday, I looked at an online dictionary and found also “as soon as”, “on.. do”, “when.. then”, but thought “if..then” fits better here. About “meizwn”, normally it should be followed by an adjective (in formal speech), but often it is dropped and “meizwn” takes the whole place (and contains all the meaning).
Muy bueno!
because we believe that your hypothesis is valid. Due to our academic circumstances, in order to use it we need more opinions; ideally we would want it substantiated by a recognized authority, such as a Classics professor.