Byazntium name or a scholar error

**Magister Pediyum** · 06-01-2005, 15:21

Byazntium name or a scholar error,what is the thru name of a great empire ??

**Krusader** · 06-01-2005, 16:15

As I've learned from medieval history books & lectures:

During the Middle Ages, the Byzantines called themselves rhomaioi which means Romans, and they called their empire the Eastern Roman Empire.
And it seems, if u called someone Byzantines in the middle ages people (or maybe only greeks) would understand it as the inhabitants of Constantinople.

The Europeans called the Byzantines as Greeks, while I think the Turks & Saracens called them Romans.

Taken from Wikipedia:

The name "Byzantine Empire" is a modern term and would have appeared alien to its contemporaries. The term was invented in 1557, about a century after the fall of Constantinople by German historian Hieronymus Wolf, who introduced a system of Byzantine historiography in his work Corpus Historiae Byzantinae in order to distinguish ancient Roman from medieval Greek history. Standardization of the term did not occur until the 17th century when French authors such as Montesquieu began to popularize it. Hieronymus himself was influenced by the rift caused by the 9th century dispute between Romans (Byzantines as we render them today) and Franks, who, under Charlemagne's newly formed empire, and in concert with the Pope, attempted to legitimize their conquests by claiming inheritance of Roman rights in Italy thereby renouncing their eastern neighbours as true Romans. The Donation of Constantine, one of the most famous forged documents in history, played a crucial role in this. Henceforth, it was fixed policy in the West to refer to the emperor in Constantinople not by the usual "Imperator Romanorum" (Emperor of the Romans) which was now reserved for the Frankish monarch, but as "Imperator Graecorum" (Emperor of the Greeks) and the land as "Imperium Graecorum", "Graecia", "Terra Graecorum" or even "Imperium Constantinopolitanus".

Wikipedia link

**edyzmedieval** · 06-01-2005, 16:41

Yes....This is true.... The Byzantines called themselves rhomaioi.....

But, I wonder, their language was modern-day greek or a dialect???

**The Wizard** · 06-01-2005, 16:52

It was neither a dialect nor modern day Greek. Compare it to, say, the literary Dutch of the 17th century to modern Dutch. I can read it, but it still is quite a bit different.

~Wiz

**Byzantine Prince** · 06-01-2005, 17:10

The official name for the Byzantine Empire was Eastern Roman Empire. Its greek speaking citizens called themselves Ρομαίοι(Romans).

The laguage was a distinct branch of 'byzantine' greek, which means that it was kind of like hellenistic greek but a little more modernized. All of the Orthodox Church's hymns and texts were written in byzantine greek and it still used to this day by priests and monks.

I think that about covers it.

**Hurin_Rules** · 06-01-2005, 17:59

Byzantium was the name of the city that was rebuilt and greatly expanded by Constantine to form Constantinople, capital of the Eastern (half of the) Roman Empire. So yes, to call someone a Byzantine in the Middle Ages would be to call them a citizen of the city of Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul(modern day).

**Steppe Merc** · 06-03-2005, 20:55

Good lord, not another ancient Greek debate... Wiz, stay out of it, it's hopless...

**Elias71** · 06-03-2005, 21:03

LOL! I love how as soon as you are given evidence that shatters your hopeless stuck up fantasies of knowing "real" Greek, you run away. Just face it, others only listened to Erasmus because it was more convenient for them, they got away with it because the Greeks were under the Turks and could not speak out against it, everyone who followed Erasmus eventually realized it was wrong when Erasmus himself stopped using it, but they were too egotistical to admit the mistake they made. Also, the fact that Erasmus caused so much controversy with his ideas only dug him a deeper hole, because he had fought to hard to admit later that he was "wrong".

And now here we are hundreds of years later, with people like you having gone to your precious "Erasmian Schools" costing you tons of cash, and now can't stand the thought that you were taught wrong.

**Steppe Merc** · 06-03-2005, 21:08

He did not run away. I was merely posting advice to strategically withdraw from a battle that cannot be won, and has no tactical advatange to be confored to him if he does indeed win.

**Elias71** · 06-03-2005, 21:12

You call it at "a battle that cannot be won", well, thats my point exactly. It's not that the battle CAN'T be won, but that his denial won't let him realize that the battle for him, and his side only, cannot be won.

Clearly, anybody who has enough self-respect and true knowledge can wake up and realize that yes, people were wrong in the past, and yes, people still are, and that you dont HAVE to keep following Erasmus' error. But as long as ego and denial get in the way, people will continue to support Erasmus because thats who they fell face first with, and just don't want to accept that they were wrong.

**The Wizard** · 06-03-2005, 22:05

Holy language? I do not care if God himself came down to me and spoke to me in your so-called holy language. Lay down your misguided patriotism and sense of 'honor' and realize that you were simply being rude, regardless of the fact if I was wrong or right. Whatever I said warranted no such reaction from you. I have more right to answer the way you did, the way you are offending me with your entirely unprovoked vitriolic response.

However, I'm quite afraid I'm going to have to continue insulting your 'holy' language. A language I find about as pleasing to the ear as German, and that is certainly no compliment. But, I fear I must take the debate to you about this less-than-pleasing language because I want clarity and not disparate claims.

Now, from the start, I have a hard time believing you. Perhaps I am indeed misguided, and if so am willing to accept that fact. But the fact that I am -- perhaps -- misguidedly taught does not mean that I am trying to mock your language or culture. There are different opinions. You disagree with those in Western Europe. Big deal. Get over it. Debate does not mean that the honor of Greece is at stake right off the bat, capiche?

Now, past the trivial points and on to the real points. I find the source you provided, Elias, is at the least a bit vague. It's large, to be sure, and elaborate, but the notes provided are vague at best and the same can be said for the points made. When I read, and I quote, "One of its foremosts proponents was Friedrich Blass [...] whose arguments have often been refuted," where a note is provided saying "For example, a Greek scholar wrote a book of 752 pages [...] setting forth the evidence available then in vindication of the historical Greek pronunciation and at the same time showing the untenability of the arguments of Blass as well as other advocates of Erasmianism," I have a despicably hard time accepting the point.

So, a scholar has apparently been refuted many times. How? And a Greek did that in a book of 752 pages. Great. What now? Nothing, that's what. So much space devoted to so much words which ultimately mean nothing.

It's the problem of the whole piece. Yeah, that's great, the Greeks are right and the Erasmians are wrong. Erasmians research pronunciation by way of researching Indo-European languages -- a language Greek is part of as well -- but not Greek itself. Putting doubts of that fact aside, I still wonder what I do with the knowledge. The piece you have provided is a debate going around in circles for a while, only to single out the way to Modern Greek pronunciation for no obvious reason at a certain point. It states nothing, besides "Erasmians are wrong, Greeks are right." A bit easy, if you ask me.

Besides, the point made that it is wrong not to use modern Greek to find out how it was actually pronounced is weak at best. So, to find out how I should pronounce Dutch of the 8th/9th century AD, when the language first appeared, I should go and compare what I'm speaking now to whatever we know of the language back then?

First off, there were a hundred different dialects, so different in fact that if you walked a kilometer or twenty you couldn't understand what the hell the people there were saying. Then there's the knowledge that trying to pronounce literary Dutch of the 17th century is already damn hard for Dutchmen of today, let alone Dutch of the 9th century.

Languages evolve. Greek is no exception. Why should modern Greeks be able to perfectly pronounce whatever an average citizen of 6th century BC Corinth is supposed to have said, while modern Dutch have a hard time pronouncing their language of four hundred years ago? Four hundred years versus twenty fife hundred. If Dutch has evolved so much in so much less time, then why should a language from the same Indo-European genetic classification not evolve one bit in so much more time?

Now, as you may have noticed by now, I have never stated that the Erasmians were right. I am just stating the weak joints in the argumentation of supporters of Greek pronunciation, and then specifically the argumentation in the article provided by Elias.

I do not have sufficient knowledge nor sufficient interest in a language I consider as unpleasing to the ear as German and Russian to decide who pronounces it correctly. I would like to see your argumentation, as I'm sure you will provide. It is intriguing to see that there is doubt on my education, and I wish to see if it is truly wrong.

But, seeing as even at the height of the debate in the 19th century it ended in a stalemate, I do not expect anyone to win here. This will probably be my one and only comment on the subject. I just wish there was less indignant and utterly unprovoked aggression from the side of the Greeks. Sheesh, cool down, will ya? Carry your honor like a Hector, not an Achilles.

~Wiz