Sunday, November 25, 2007

Philotas and the Macedonian language

One of the questions that arises out of Curtius' inflated account of the Philotas affair is
Where did Curtius find all this information, with all its details and melodrama?

Were records of the trial's proceedings available, which could have been used by Curtius' source(s) or Curtius himself ?

and I am explain

In Arrian (3.26.1-4), the Philotas-Parmenion affair is only 36 lines + 2 words long
Plutarch yields 86 LCL lines + 3 words to the Philotas-Parmenion affair
Curtius' account of the Philotas affair, on the other hand, amounts to 619 LCL lines + 81 words, or about 4537.8 words (6.7-1 1.40).

In any event, to comprehend as best as possible Curtius' account of the Philotas affair it becomes necessary to dissect its structure in a synoptic style. This will bring forth the steps involved in the construction of the details and dramatic techniques therein. One such dramatic technique is when Alexander, unexpectedly so-to-speak, asks Philotas whether hz (Philotas) was to defend himself in the putrius senno, because the Makedones were to pass judgement on him.

Curtius does not specify in what language Alexander addressed Philotas, but it has been inferred that it was in the koine. This is, of course, arbitrary inference, as Philotas, too, does not indicate in what language Alexander addressed him, although from the context neither of them was speaking in the pasrius senno of therein.

Alexander's question to Philotas whether the latter was to address the Makedones in the patrius senno (6.9.34) and Philotas' reply (below) to Alexander's accusation that he (Philotas) hated the putrius sem and did not learn it (ibid. 9.36) are in themselves contradictory. When Alexander asked Philotas about the patrius sem , Philotas responded that he was going to speak in the same language as Alexander, presumably the koine because, besides the Makedones, there were also many others present and because Alexander's language was understood a pluribus (ibid. 9.35).

This response by Philotas would imply that there was a putrius senno and that Philotas knew it, but he preferred to speak in the language Alexander had used for greater comprehension, unless this was a ploy on the part of Philotas to cover up his not knowing the putnus senno, as accused by Alexander and later by Bolon.

The contradiction in the pazrius senno motif shows up later, too, when Philotas in defending himself (6.10.23) says that the parrills sernlo had become obsolete because of the intercourse with other nations (lam pndem nativus ille sermo commercio aliarum gerzrium exolevit) , with the comment tam victoribus, quam victis peregrina lingua disceitda esr, which may be rendered into Greek as kathaper nikosin,osautos kai httimenoi xenis glossan mathitea.

How could Philotas state in the contio when the patrirrs sermo was no longer spoken, if it was still in vogue as suggested by Alexander's question?

How could Alexander pose such a question if the patrius sem was no longer spoken as Philotas declared?


NOTES
The above article basing in the essay of Professor Elias Kapetanopolos wih the title.....Alexander's Patrius Sermo in the Philotas Affair : Patrius Sermo/Philotas

Access in the web page of the Professor here

Saturday, November 24, 2007

The FYROM case of Rosetta Stone



Recently in the internet we have a contibution of research work of the two Slavmacedonian scientists Tentov and Bosheski and members of the FYROM MANU and MASA centers , that they have found a connection between the ancient Macedonian language and the modern Slavonic Macedonian language.

The key is that the second part of the Rosetta Stone is written in ancient Macedonian, a language that according of these FYROMacedonian scientists was and is Slavic.

The attempt of the Slavmacedonian pseudo-scientists (they are not have not a any single connection with the epigraphology or the linguistic) to connect the modern Slavonic Macedonian - a Slavic language related to Bulgarian - is rediculus.

These 2 university professors in electrical engineering from Skopje, operating under the auspices of the government funded Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Skopje and presented to the official FYROMacedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, are claiming that the "Demotic" script is, in fact, a text related to the "old Slavonic Macedonian language" and is Ancient Macedonian.

This contradicts all mainstream interpretations of the Stone and the mainstream scientific evidence that Ancient Macedonian was not a Slavic language and, not least, that Slavic speaking peoples did not reach the Balkan peninsula until the 6th Century CE.

This theory is also promoted by the authorities and church in Skopje as a "2,200 Years Old Script and Text in the Macedonian Language" and host in the web site of the Skopje University.

http://rosetta-stone.etf.ukim.edu.mk/

The Rosetta Stone is a stone with writing on it in two languages (Egyptian and Greek), using three scripts (hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek). Rosetta Stone is written in three scripts because when it was written, there were three scripts being used in Egypt.

The first was hieroglyphic which was the script used for important or religious documents.


The second was demotic which was the common script of Egypt.

The third was Greek which was the language of the rulers of Egypt at that time

The Rosetta Stone was written in all three scripts so that the priests, government officials and rulers of Egypt could read what it said.

Here is the last translation of Rosetta Stone that approve the above...

53. and each year; and in order to make those who are in Egypt to know [why it is that the Egyptians pay honour—as it is most right and proper to do—to the god who maketh himself beautiful, whose deeds are beautiful, the priests have decreed] that this DECREE shall [be inscribed] upon a stele of hard stone in the writing of the words of the gods, and the writing of the books, and in the writing of HAUI-NEBUI (i.e., Greeks), and it shall be set up in the sanctuaries in the temples which [are called] by his name, of the first, second, and third [class], near the statue of the HORUS, the King of the South and North Ptolemy, ever-living, beloved of Ptaḥ, the god who maketh himself manifest, whose deeds are beautiful.

from... " The Nile, Notes for Travellers in Egypt, by E. A. Wallis Budge, 9th Edition, London, Thos. Cook and Son, [1905], pp. 199-211."

This pseudo-essay from these "amazing professors" is a great example of the Macedonism, a political ultra-nationalistic moovement used to refer to a set of ideas regarded as characteristic of ethnic Slavmacedonian nationalism.

In my blog Modern-Macedonian-History I have already explain as about this nationalist ideology and you can read in the article....Macedonism, a ultra-Nationalilst ideology that spread from FYROM Worldwide

more information as about the history of the Rosetta Stone, including researches and the latest news from several academaic centers in

UPDATE
(30-7-2008)
It seems that at last there are a few rational voices in the in the land of unreasonableness.This voice is the Slavmacedonian professor Petar H. Ilievski is an established Mycenologist, chairman of the Mycenology Congress in 1987 in Ohrid and author of over 100 works about classical antiquity. The following is real tour de force kill of the dragon,and although there are some point with which do not hold much promise, authorś integrity and honesty are obvious and the reasoning for the invalidity of the ¨discovery¨ by Bosevski and Tentov is structured separately throughout the text.
Some abstracts...
Ignoring elementary principles of the continuous development in the languages, like in all the living beings, they try to discover even the same grammatical and morpho-syntactic peculiarities of analytic type of these two different languages, distant over 2000 years, e.g.: the same way of comparison of the adjectives, the superlative in naj-; the nom. pl. masc. of the nominal inflection in -i; the frequent use of the preposition na, etc.
...........................................................................
But all that in their work on the Rosetta Stone is ignored, and the authors started to search new traces of the ancient Macedonian script and language by an opposite approach.
............................................................................................
You can read the whole analysis in this link.
This information were taken by our friend Vasiliye.
UPDATE II
(29 Sept 2008)
Tentov-Boshevski Delusions of Grandeur
In this link there is is an excellent analysis of Tentov & Boshevski's far fetched theory which suggests that a form of Slavic, related to the language spoken in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, is written on the Rosetta Stone. Even though NO qualified scholars have taken their theory seriously and even though their theory has not appeared in any peer reviewed publications nationalists from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (F.Y.R.O.M) persist in presenting the Tentov-Boshevski theory as historical fact. In the following article Mr. Bolaris shows how absurd the claims of Tentov and Boshevski are.
For a high resolution view of the article please click here. Select the "Full Screen" view.