The Slavic element in Homer's epics

Originally posted by Petro Invictus Old Persian "morta" What is it in modern Persian? Mahjūr مهجور! Because it is MRTOV in Macedonian! Got it MORTOS in Homer, MRTOV in Macedonian, MAHAJUR in Persian, NECROS in Greek! Now checkmate it back!

And MORTE in Italian. Obviously Homer was Italian. Now is only the question, was he Genovese or maybe Roman?

Originally posted by Styrbiorn And MORTE in Italian. Obviously Homer was Italian. Now is only the question, was he Genovese or maybe Roman?

That is very cute Styrbion! However, Italians or say Romans came later than the ancient Macedonians (linguistically and culturally very close to the Mycenaeans, and different from the Dorians) or for that matter, Homer. It is more logical to say that the Romans received the term from the Macedonians, who used it in the same form as Homer did, rather than otherwise.

My question is how the term reached Russian, Polish, Ukrainian languages? Was maybe Homer traveling across the steppes of Russia selling wine to them, and teaching them how to call their: мертвый (mertvi)?

Another example of such influence to the Romans by the Macedonians is the title of Emperors that the Macedonians had. ЦАР, or Czar has always been a title given to Macedonian Emperors from ancient times until Byzantium, and then Russians also took it!

Caesar is the Latin form of this title, that the Roman Emperor took in imitation to the Macedonians! They all admired the Macedonians, and despised them at the same time, for their glory!







Edited by Petro Invictus - 16-Jun-2008 at 12:35

"Camel/Kamila" comes fro Arabic "Jamal", Hebrew "Gamal", Assyrian "Gumla", Akkadian "Gammalu", ... the Avestan and Sanskrit word for Camel is "Ushtra", this is one of the oldest Indo-European words.

Originally posted by Petro Invictus Originally posted by Slayertplsko Oddysey means journey for a bit more than 100 years!! When are you gonna get it? Well ODI SI means GO ON A JOURNEY for more than 3 millenia in Macedonian! Maybe you misinterpret the true meaning of Odyssey! EODE-ODI SI-ODYSSEY! I got it thanks!

Originally posted by Petro Invictus Originally posted by Slayertplsko The fact you found a few words that are (maybe) used in Macedonian Slavic can mean that you have got it from Hellenic languages. That is not an exception! However, how do you suggest we should explain the use of those FEW WORDS in other Slavic languages. Compare: TO SEE: Russian - видеть (VIDET) Polish - WIDZIEĆ (VIDIETS) Ukrainian - vyhliadaty (VIHLIADATI) Croatian - VIDI Macedonian - VIDE, VIDEN Homeric - IDEON Greek - VLEPO ?!?!

Originally posted by vranakonti   why not ODI SEA, jurney in the sea,so you discover the slavic and english character of Homers poem in a row.   Seriously. As Flipper said that word is still used in Greek (Οδός),but also in Albanian "udh",means path,journey,road, so i don't see how it can be of slavic origin.

and that is the beauty of indoeuropean languages sometime...

Originally posted by Flipper Ofcourse you did the mistake not to check what Οδός means...I told you to be carefull cause you do not know Greek to make such statements. Οδός (fem) = road and is used mainly when refering to streets Therefore, via egnatia in Greek was Εγνατία Οδός. The same is used for the periphery road of Athens which is Αττική Οδός. Google it and you'll see... If you find a road sign in Greece using Dromos, it will be a great discovery...Read below... Δρόμος (masc) is road again but is used in another way as well. You can use it to say for example "What's the way to Athens" which would be "Ποιος είναι ο δρόμος για την Αθήνα;". As for Odyssey, me and other members have shown you the etymology which you completely ignored by reposting the same things. You saw with your own eyes, from which ancient Greek verb the name Odysseus/Odyssey is produced and what it means, as well as that the  equation  to journey was made during the 19th century based on the epos.

That is true Flipper! I did check the meaning of Οδός! It surely means "STREET"! And it is not a mistake to assume that the term entered modern Dimotiki, via Katharevousa, originating from the earlier term "Οδός" deriving from Homer's Odyssey! In that case the term would defiinitely be associated to the Macedonian term "ODI", and the proto-Germanic "EODE", meaning "TO GO"! In that case the true meaning of the epic Odyssey is "TO GO ON A JOURNEY"! It seems that the 19th century scholars did not INVENT the meaning of the term Odyssey as you have suggested, but have used yet an older meaning of the root morpheme "Οδός" to determine the etymology of Homer's epic!

However, it is surprising to me to have the term Οδός used in modern Greek with the meaning of "street" when in Homer's epic it is associated with "a journey", when the term Δρόμος , which is more related to traveling, or going on a longer journey, is morphemically very different from the original term Οδός used in Homer's epic.

While in modern Macedonian the phrase: ОДИ СИ (ODI SI), still exists in its original use meaning "GO AWAY (on a journey)"!

So it is not wrong to say that the term Οδός comes from Homer's works, however it has lost its original meaning in Dimotiki, and has most probably been reintroduced into modern Greek, via Katharevousa, while in modern Macedonian, as well as other Slavic languages, has preserved its original form and meaning:

Russian: идти (IDTI), ходьба (HODBA), going (on a journey)
Serbian: ХОДАТИ (hodati), to go, to walk

me and other members have shown you the etymology which you completely ignored by reposting the same things.

You and which other members Flipper! What sort of impression are you creating here? Are you in alliance with anyone against me or something? To what end I beg? I think everyone should discuss the matter based on personal convictions. What are yours?




 

Originally posted by Petro Invictus Originally posted by Slayertplsko The fact you found a few words that are (maybe) used in Macedonian Slavic can mean that you have got it from Hellenic languages. That is not an exception! However, how do you suggest we should explain the use of those FEW WORDS in other Slavic languages. Compare: TO SEE: Russian - видеть (VIDET) Polish - WIDZIEĆ (VIDIETS) Ukrainian - vyhliadaty (VIHLIADATI) Croatian - VIDI Macedonian - VIDE, VIDEN Homeric - IDEON Greek - VLEPO ?!?! Sure you do not imply that Homer was traveling across Russia, selling wine to the Polish and singing his epics to the Ukrainian?

Latin: VIDEO, "he sees". so were the Romans Slavs?

They are all INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES and the Proto-IE root for "see" was something like "WIDE-" You have just proved that your knowledge of lingustics is a big fat 0 and you are just spewing BS.

Odin, one slight problem, video doesn't mean he sees. It means I see.

Originally posted by gcle2003 Have you ever heard of a little thing called 'Indo-European'?   In the meaning of 'murder' the root also appears in English, Old English, Old Norse, and germanic languages generally. It is even supposed to have got into French from Frankish (in this sense) so that 'meurtre' and 'mort' actually have different etymologies. . . . This is getting silly.   Tsar wasn't used in Slavonic until after the Roman Empire used it. It wasn't even a title in Latin originally but just a personal name. (Or are you claiminig Gaius Julius Caesar was Macedonian?)   Since your argument leads to all languages being Macedonian and Cyrus' leads to all languages being Persian, why don't you hust fight a duel over it or something?

WRONG gcle2003!

I do not say that all languages are Macedonian! I simply say that the term used in Homer's epics for dead, MORTOS, is of Indo-European origin, as Macedonian is, and the Greek term NEKROS is not! I am not saying that the Greek is not an Indo-European language. It does not belong to any other family of languages, and it is a synthetic language:

"A synthetic language, in linguistic typology, is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio.

Synthetic languages are frequently contrasted with isolating languages. It is more accurate to conceive of languages as existing on a continuum, with strictly isolating (consistently one morpheme per word) at one end and highly polysynthetic (in which a single word may contain as much information as an entire English sentence) at the other extreme. Synthetic languages tend to lie around the middle of this scale.

Synthetic languages are numerous and well-attested, the most commonly cited being Indo-European languages such as Greek, Latin, German, Italian, Russian, Polish and Czech, as well as many languages of the Americas, including Navajo, Nahuatl, Mohawk and Quechua."

Example: Greek: υπερχοληστερολαίμια => "overmuch/high-cholesterol-blood+-ia(suffix)" meaning "hypercholesterolemia

Therefore, the Macedonian being the closest Indo-European analytical language to explain the use of some terms in Homer's epics, such as MORTO, IDEON, (F)OINOS, ODYSSEY, makes me conclude that maybe Homer's epics were initially transmitted in a proto-Slavic language, that has survived in modern Macedonian, before it was recorded in Classical times, when it was edited to suit the requirements of the audiences in Classical Greece.

Tsar wasn't used in Slavonic until after the Roman Empire used it. It wasn't even a title in Latin originally but just a personal name. (Or are you claiminig Gaius Julius Caesar was Macedonian?)

Caesar was not a personal name of the Emperor. You are being silly not to know this...

Take a look: (Wikipedia)

"Roman nomenclature is somewhat different from the modern English form. Gaius, Iulius, and Caesar are Caesar's praenomen, nomen, cognomen, respectively."

"The cognomen (plural: cognomina) was originally the third name of an Ancient Roman in the Roman naming convention. The cognomen started as a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary (and thus more like a family name)."

"The name Caesar probably originated from a dialect of Latium which did not share the rhotacism of the Roman dialect"

"Originally, the title tsar (derived from Caesar) meant Emperor in the European medieval sense of the term, that is, a ruler who has the same rank as a Roman or Byzantine emperor (or, according to Byzantine ideology, the most elevated position adjacent to the one held by the Byzantine monarch) due to recognition by another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official (the Pope or the Ecumenical Patriarch)."

"As the Greek "basileus" was consistently rendered as "tsar" in Slavonic translations of Greek texts, the dual meaning was transferred into Church Slavonic . Thus, "tsar" was not only used as an equivalent of Latin "imperator" (in reference to the rulers of the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire and to native rulers) but was also used to refer to Biblical rulers and ancient kings."

Now, this is very interesting, since the term first appeared in Caesar's time. We know that "Caesar defeated the Ptolemaic forces in 47 BC in the Battle of the Nile and installed Cleopatra as ruler, with whom he is suspected to have fathered a son, Caesarion."

There is another notion on Caesar's life:

"His biographer also gives the story that a crowd shouted to him "rex", the Latin word for king. Caesar replied, "I am Caesar, not Rex", a pun on the Roman name coming from the title.'

Now, in my opinion, Caesar took the title from the Ptolemy rulers of Egypt, who had already inherited it from the ancient Macedonians. Alexander the Great was known as Czar to the Macedonians. The very connection between his title and the title of his son Caesarion with Cleopatra, who was of Macedonian descent, shows that he had taken the title of the greatest Emperor before his time. After all he was infatuated with the dream to conquer the world, just as Alexander did.

After this the civil war took place, and he stated that he is not the Rex of Rome only, but the Caesar, meaning the Emperor of the world, just as Alexander was.

To this I have to add the folklore in Macedonia.  There are numerous folk tales where the mentioning of OUR CZARS, is clearly stated in the stories as well as songs. In Macedonian folklore the name for Constantinople, and even Istanbul in Turkish times, was Czarigrad (Emperor's town). The Russians took over the title after they got Christianized by the Slavic teachers from Byzantium, which was ruled by Basil I Macedonian, who was of Armeno-Slavic origin, according to many sources, and according to Arabic sources purely Slavic.

There is another interesting fact regarding the title of Czar:

The “Collection of Macedonian and Bulgarian folk songs” from 1909 -1910 (according to Mihajlo Georgievski: “Slavic manuscripts in Macedonia, Skopje, 1988, p. 161-173”), on page 68, there is a song mentioned where the ancient-Macedonian Czar Karanus is mentioned. The first few lines of this folk song go like this:

“Hey Old mountain, who will guide the army across you, when we do not have a proud Czar like the Czar Karanus…”

Although the song has been recorded in Bulgarian, it is more than clear according to content that it is a Macedonian song. There were 28 other lines following the above mentioned.

A Macedonian folk song about the Czar Karanus was mentioned by the Macedonian author Isaija Mazovski in his “Memoirs” (Sophia 1922). He mentions that on 23.02.1867, he had visited the village of Sosalija (Enidze, Vardar) and his relatives, the brothers Hadzi-Sekovi. That evening, a Jew merchant was their guest too, who came to purchase wool from them. After concluding all business, they set down to feast and sing Macedonian songs! Then the brothers sang several very old songs, about the Macedonian king Karanus and Soluna the girl! In regards to this, Mazovski writes:

“Hearing the songs, the Jew in sheer surprise asked them how could these songs be preserved since such an ancient time! The brothers Hadzi-Sekovi told him that these songs were preserved since ancient times, and were passed on from father to son through generations. ‘These were songs of our fathers and grandfathers that is how we learned to sing them too’.” (Quote by Gane Todorovski: Veda Slovena, Skopje, 1979, p. 30).

This should tell you enough of where the term Czar comes from! You do not suppose our laymen singers here read Latin or any other language whatsoever, to hear about Caesar and the title they have been transmitting in these songs, for ages.     





Edited by Petro Invictus - 16-Jun-2008 at 23:52