Coolest Quote Ever

[Tudhaliya]

At least I think it is. I created its own thread so more people could see it. The Quote Thread is somewhat...moribund.

Anyway, here it is:
Transcription:
mAn-ti-’-ku-us LUGAL GAL-ú
LUGAL dan-nu LUGAL ŠÁR LUGAL E.KI LUGAL KUR.KUR
za-ni-in É.SAG.IL ù É.ZI.DA
IBILA SAG.KAL ša mSi-lu-uk-ku LUGAL
lúMa-ak-ka-du-na-a-a LUGAL E.KI
a-na-ku

Tranliteration:
Anti'kus šarru rabû
šarru dannu šar kibrāti šar Babili šar mātati
zanin esagil u ezida
aplu ašaredu ša Selukku šarru
Makkadunayya šar Babili
anāku

Translation:
Antiochus, great king,
powerful king, king of the world, king of Babylon, king of the lands,
nourisher of the (temples) Esagil and Ezida
first-born heir of Seleucus, the king,
a Macedonian, king of Babylon,
am I.

This comes from the first 6 lines of the "Antiochus Cylinder" of Antiochus Soter, son of Seleukus Nikator. For background and parallels, see here: http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicl...cylinder1.html

This is a barrel-shaped clay prism that was used to dedicate the foundations of a rebuilt temple. I read it last quarter in my Akkadian class. The genre and the dedicatory language are part of a tradition that goes back for 1500 years (though the specific language of this cylinder is rather muted compared to some of the "classical" dedicatory inscriptions. The temples that Antiochus mentions rebuilding in the text are the Esagil and Ezida - the biggest and most bad-ass temples in Babylon and all of Mesopotamia. It was customary for the king to actually lay the first dedicatory brick for the temple himself, and indeed the cylinder mention Antiochus doing just that "with pure hands." This means that Antiochus himself probably held and deposited this very cuneiform cylinder! In Europa Barbarorum, the Seleukid administrator has to stay in Seluecia for the Babylon new year. Doing stuff like this was probably why.

[Mulceber]

Gotta say, that quote is pretty bad@$$. Really drives home the fact that the ancients didn't believe in modesty. -M

[Ibrahim]

it also, once again, proves that the Akkadian language never seems to have evolved all that much-at least in comparison to other languages

seriously, I learned old Babylonian/Assyrian, and mos of the words I recognize in exactly the same form as from then.

[Tudhaliya]

Dude, tell me about that. I asked in class about it, and apparently they really loved to write conservatively. Of course, what they wrote probably sound nothing like what they spoke (which at that time was definitely Aramaic), but even when there were Neo-Assyrian speakers alive, they rarely wrote in their "barbaric" dialect.

[Ibrahim]

Dude, tell me about that. I asked in class about it, and apparently they really loved to write conservatively. Of course, what they wrote probably sound nothing like what they spoke (which at that time was definitely Aramaic), but even when there were Neo-Assyrian speakers alive, they rarely wrote in their "barbaric" dialect.

indeed. Aramaic ended up replacing Akkadian as the lingua franca of the area in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. however, even when it was spoken regularly in the region, there is in fact surprisingly little change or divergeance between the dialaects of the language over its 2000 year existance. the main features that have changed are as follows:

1-loss of the final -m in declined and conjugated words
2-loss of the dual (already evident in old akkadian, but completed by its decendants)
3-the loss of weak consonants, and the contraction of most glottal stops. its where the circumflex sign on rabu originated; it used to be raba'u, but the glottal stop was contrated, and the succeeding vowel (the u here) became a long vowel.
4-a few vocab changes, between the dialects and thei ancestors; that's only natural

otherwise, Babylonian and assyrian, the two major dialects, remained both mutually intelligeable to each other, and partly with their past counterparts.

[ziegenpeter]

Wow! Cool quote. But since I don't know much about ancient oriental languages, I wonder why a greek king hat this written in Akkadian...? And Akkadian is related to Assyrian?

[Mulceber]

I don't know oriental languages either, but it probably was because he was a Seleucid King and thus was ruling over eastern people - similar to how Roman governors in the east often chose to speak Greek. -M

[Tudhaliya]

Wow! Cool quote. But since I don't know much about ancient oriental languages, I wonder why a greek king hat this written in Akkadian...? And Akkadian is related to Assyrian?

It sure is. They're kinda the same. Akkadian is the oldest form of the language, spoken by Sargon of Akkad. Fast forward a few hundred years, and there's two dialects: Babylonian in the south, and Assyrian in the north. Like Ibrahim said, they were dialects (of Akkadian) that were probably mutually intelligible.

As for the reason Seleukus had this written, the shortest answer is because Alexander did it! We indeed have a few cylinders with his name on it (see the link in the original post). As for why Alexander did it, it's because the Persians did it. Back when the Persians took power from Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king, Babylonian culture was very strong compared to the Persians. They continued a lot of the Babylonian traditions, and even claimed to restore them to their rightful glory.

[ziegenpeter]

Ok, so its the old story: You take over a declining power and implement parts of its culture to legitimate your rule...
Since there are some experts around: How were Akkads, Sumers, Babylonians, Assyrians and Arameans related?

[AncientFanTR]

Ok, so its the old story: You take over a declining power and implement parts of its culture to legitimate your rule...
Since there are some experts around: How were Akkads, Sumers, Babylonians, Assyrians and Arameans related?

They were all semitic I think? Related to modern day jews and arabs. Further back they were related to persian and then latin, greek, celtic, and finally sanskrit, which nearly all european languages (exceptTurkish, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish and Basque) originally derived from.

[Tudhaliya]

First there were the Sumerians in the very south of Iraq, right on the gulf (ca. 4,000-3,000 BC). They spoke a weird language that has no recorded relatives, living or dead. They figured out how to use irrigation canals to make their formerly crappy land into a rich agricultural breadbasket.

Along came the Akkadians, who were the eastern-brach of the Semites. They worked their way into the north and center of Iraq coming through Syria (think Palmyra in the game). The settled down with the Sumerians and their new irrigation system, and got along fine for a while.

before the mid-24th century BC, all of the settled parts of Iraq were city-states. Then Sargon of Akkad unified the lands into a (very) short-lived "empire."

Then the Sumerians were got kinda pissed that their culture was dying, so the 3rd Dynasty of Ur took over, and wrote down a lot of Sumerian literature and stuff. But it was too late. By ~1,700 BC, Sumerian was dead, and every spoke Akkadian.

In the wild, arid north of Iraq, the people who spoke a dialect of Akkadian called Assyrian, named after the city Assur. The Assyrians were much more warlike than their soft, bookish brothers to the south, in the remnants of the Sumerian heartland, who spoke the Babylonian dialect of Akkadian. The Babylonians valued Sumerian literature highly, and studied it and wrote down their own poems and epics.

Then the Arameans came along. They were a West Semitic group of people, who moved in to Iraq via Syria, just like their eastern cousins the Akkadians did a few thousand years earlier. The Arameans spread all over the place and integrated rather seamlessly into Assyrian and Babylonian culture. Due to massive population influx and intermarriage of the Arameans, Akkadian became the language of the (white-collar) workplace and the elite. When the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires collapsed, and the elites were either killed or moved on, everyone left just decided to speak Aramaic.

So in sum, the Sumerians invented large-scale agriculture, were colonized by tent-dwelling Eastern Semites, who settled down, and who then themselves were colonized by tent-dwelling Western Semites. Fast-foward a 1,000 years and you have the same story: the same settled area of Iraq was invaded and colonized by another group of tent-dwelling Semites: in this case the Arabs.

[gamegeek2]

Going right into AtB. Thanks a bunch!

[bobbin]

They were all semitic I think? Related to modern day jews and arabs. Further back they were related to persian and then latin, greek, celtic, and finally sanskrit, which nearly all european languages (Turkish, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish and Basque) originally derived from.

The Semitic languages are not related to the Indo-European group and are instead part of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Also Sanskrit is not the ancestor of all european languages, it comes from a completely different branch of the IE family tree (indo-iranian) which diverged from the european languages long before the development of Sanskrit. While it is very old the ancient Anatolian languages such as Hittite and Luwian are attested to at earlier dates and even Mycenaean greek is older or at least contemporary to Sanskrit.

I'm assuming you meant to say that the list of languages in the brackets are the ones that are not related to IE.

[ziegenpeter]

They were all semitic I think? Related to modern day jews and arabs. Further back they were related to persian and then latin, greek, celtic, and finally sanskrit, which nearly all european languages (Turkish, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish and Basque) originally derived from.

Uhm, were did you get this from? What they tech us at university ist that semitic languages a very distinct from IE languages. And all the languages you mentioned (Turkish, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish and Basque) are actually all the larger NON-Inodeuropean languages.

[AncientFanTR]

Uhm, were did you get this from? What they tech us at university ist that semitic languages a very distinct from IE languages. And all the languages you mentioned (Turkish, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish and Basque) are actually all the larger NON-Inodeuropean languages.

Lol I'm sorry, I definitely did mean that the bracketed laguages were not Indo-European! Turkish is altaic and the others are ugric. Yeah that was just a typo!
And I didn't know about the afro asiatic group, and by sanskrit, I probably meant another ancient Indo-Iranian language... thank you for enlightening me!

[bobbin]

I probably meant another ancient Indo-Iranian language

Doesn't make a difference, saying european languages are decended from any Indo-Iranian language is like saying your decended from you uncle with sanskrit it like saying your decended from your cousin (damn thats a good analogy, wish I had thought of it earlier).

[gamegeek2]

Semitic is a very different language family than Indo-European. Semitic is actually a part of the Afro-Asiatic family, including Cushitic and Berber tongues as well as Semitic.

Hungarian and Finnish are both Finno-Ugric languages, along with Estonian and some tongues spoken in the Ural mountains. Basque, Etruscan, and Raetic are unclassified languages. Turkish is part of the Turko-Mongolic family, which is a part of the Altaic family.

Trust me, I do most of the linguistic work on the Sweboz and CENSORED as well as a lot of work on the CENSORED.

If you have questions you can PM me.

Also, Ibrahim - I need you to check on my Aramaic work for AtB. How does it look so far? Perhaps we can give a preview of AtB Aramaic, which will probably replace the Persian names for the Generic Eastern units, as well as the names of the Nabatu and their buildings.

[Ibrahim]

Semitic is a very different language family than Indo-European. Semitic is actually a part of the Afro-Asiatic family, including Cushitic and Berber tongues as well as Semitic.

Hungarian and Finnish are both Finno-Ugric languages, along with Estonian and some tongues spoken in the Ural mountains. Basque, Etruscan, and Raetic are unclassified languages. Turkish is part of the Turko-Mongolic family, which is a part of the Altaic family.

Trust me, I do most of the linguistic work on the Sweboz and CENSORED as well as a lot of work on the CENSORED.

If you have questions you can PM me.

Also, Ibrahim - I need you to check on my Aramaic work for AtB. How does it look so far? Perhaps we can give a preview of AtB Aramaic, which will probably replace the Persian names for the Generic Eastern units, as well as the names of the Nabatu and their buildings.

I can only give you a superficial appraissal of the phrases, seeing that my aramaic is total ****.

[Skullheadhq]

Trust me, I do most of the linguistic work on the Sweboz and CENSORED as well as a lot of work on the CENSORED.

So, this means there is another Germanic faction, I Assume ;)

[ziegenpeter]

So, this means there is another Germanic faction, I Assume ;)

That's what I thought.
*imagine here all the funny and happy and celebrating emoticons you can use in this forum*

[bobbin]

So, this means there is another Germanic faction, I Assume ;)

Not necessarily, there is nothing to stop him working on more than one language, note that in the same post he asked Ibrahim to go over his Aramaic work for AtB.

[Blxz]

So, this means there is another Germanic faction, I Assume ;)

Yes and also there could be Estonian, Basque, Etruscan, and Raetic factions. The post in inconclusive. But regardless of that, some sort of german faction is very likely anyway. I for one am having trouble thinking of enough worthy factions to fill up an extra 9 or 10 slots or whatever. At least without going overboard in one location.

[bobbin]

The list I have settled on is:
Pergamon
Masaesyli
Bosporan Kingdom
Boii
Arevaci
A Belgic tribe
Kingdom of Kratli (Caucasian Iberia)
Massylii
The final one or two are anyones guess but the Lugii, Bastarnae, Scordiscii, Atropatene, a Kamboja tribe and a few others are all good candidates.

Judging by the latest twitter announcement one of the new factions is about to be previewed (or maybe a sweboz preview).

[Hannibal Khan the Great]

The list I have settled on is:
Pergamon
Masaesyli
Bosporan Kingdom
Boii
Arevaci
A Belgic tribe
Kingdom of Kratli (Caucasian Iberia)
Massylii
The final one or two are anyones guess but the Lugii, Bastarnae, Scordiscii, Atropatene, a Kamboja tribe and a few others are all good candidates.

Judging by the latest twitter announcement one of the new factions is about to be previewed (or maybe a sweboz preview).

Did anyone ever think of putting an Indian faction like Maurya? Or is the small amount of India on the map making the team say no?

[bobbin]

Yeah the team decided that given most of the Mauryan empire (and India for that matter) was completely off the map it would be unrealistic to have them as a faction.

[Fluvius Camillus]

Yeah the team decided that given most of the Mauryan empire (and India for that matter) was completely off the map it would be unrealistic to have them as a faction.

Plus there are no more cultures left

Nice quote btw! I wonder where they all come from, I also like the Antiochos VII Sidetes one, but am unable to find it's source...

~Fluvius