Medieval Greek

[Beiss]

Being a Swede, I don't understand 18th century Swedish, but I can read 15th century English better than most Americans...

[Beiss]

Unfortunately, we've lost our greek translator again. I'm going to PM others who have previously shown interest in this thread and hopefully we'll get back on track again.

[biohaker]

Hello, I'm still interesting to help with xenophonia, I'm from greece, i can translate things and i can be an actor as well, inform me what is need ot be done! thanks again!

[Beiss]

We need someone who can translate from English into Medieval Greek. As I've understood it, Medieval Greek is not identical to Modern Greek, but much more similar than Ancient Greek. Do you know Medieval Greek well enough to be able to translate to it?

Actually, I'd welcome a translation from English to Modern Greek just to get started, and then someone who knows Medieval Greek can take over from there, if you don't.

I remember Constantine VII (who posted earlier in this thread) had started translating into Medieval Greek, but then he disappeared. He's still on the forum, but he's ignoring me. See if you can contact him and ask him if he's done, and if he no longer wants to help, ask him to send you what he's done so far. This is the best way you can help right now. If he ignores you, too, then you can do the translation on your own, but try contacting him first.

[biohaker]

I will try contact him and report back.

ps: I can translate into "medieval greek".

[Beiss]

Good. I just think Constantine has already done a lot, and if you can get your hands on his work, you'll be saving yourself and me a lot of time and effort.

[biohaker]

Do you want the texts in Greek alphabet or latin??? Do you want the original writing of the era (polytonic system) or monotonic system that we use nowadays?

[Beiss]

Whatever is authentic. We'll want Greek voice actors for this, so I guess using the Greek alphabet is better. Was the polytonic system still in use in 1080? If so, use it.

[biohaker]

You need to add extra fonts for polytonic greek fonts and greek fonts, I think. We will see... Yes we stopped using the polytonic system some decades ago. (my mom writes on polytonic)

[Beiss]

Wait, your mom writes polytonic? I was told the polytonism was dropped in post-classic time. That's thousands of years ago. You mean she knows how to write polytonic, she doesn't actually speak and write it normally, right? Unless she grew up when they were trying to restore the Greek language to its classic form, that is. Again, whichever is the most historically accurate. From what I know, Koine didn't have polytonism, and Koine is a lot older than AD 1080. Also, and again, from what I've been told, 11th century Greek has a lot of Roman influences. Let your translations reflect this if it is historically accurate.

[biohaker]

Wait, your mom writes polytonic? I was told the polytonism was dropped in post-classic time. That's thousands of years ago. You mean she knows how to write polytonic, she doesn't actually speak and write it normally, right? Unless she grew up when they were trying to restore the Greek language to its classic form, that is. Again, whichever is the most historically accurate. From what I know, Koine didn't have polytonism, and Koine is a lot older than AD 1080. Also, and again, from what I've been told, 11th century Greek has a lot of Roman influences. Let your translations reflect this if it is historically accurate.

Kathareoysa uses polytonic system. Most of Scientific or Goverment official documents are in Kathareoysa. We speak the koinh and write it as well.

[Keravnos]

Actually the Polytonic system was abolished in 1981 or environs.

[Beiss]

Please go on fighting about this until we reach a decision. It needs to be decided before any translation can be done...

[biohaker]

Actually the Polytonic system was abolished in 1981 or environs.

Keraynos I hope u agree that the translations, should be in polytonic system

[Beiss]

But was there a polytonic system in 1080? Wasn't it just revived during the Kathareoysa, and had been dead for thousands of years before then?

[biohaker]

Hello!

I came in contact with one friend of mine. He's doing his master on Byzantinology. He sent me these samples of Byzantine writing, which are of course in polytonic writing system.

[Beiss]

Wow, that was certainly... hard to read. Is your friend Russian?

Anyway, if you say it's polytonic, I guess it is. Maybe he can help you check your translations after you're done?

[biohaker]

He's Greek, used to go at the same high school Well i don't know why he's using Cyrillic alphabet!

[Beiss]

Ok. Get me some samples of yourself speaking soon.

[Keravnos]

I am against a polytonic version of the voicemod for many reasons.

The best reason is the following, it DOESN'T make any difference.

Polytonic version of Greek was invented in Hellenistic times (EB timeline) to help non-hellenes speak Greek as the Athenians would speak them.

By the time "Byzantion" is around, the intonation is much like ours. In fact, if it would be possible, the best man for the job would be either a Cypriot, or a Pontian Greek for the reason that they both "sing" the language the way the Byzantines must have been able to. Α Cypriot would be PERFECT, truth be told.

They would be the best for this job. Failing to find them, should be ok, but we would have to go with the western medieval greek, which is basically modern greek with byzantine endings aka

ψάρι-ψάριον
τσεκούρι-τζικούριον
μερίδα/ιο-μερίδιον
κοντάρι-κοντάριον

@ biohaker, the best way to start would be to take known byzantine texts, read them, then pick the best sentences that would stand on their own. I suggest going for Alexiad and Maurice's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategikon

First choices should be
Alexiad and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kinnamos

as they are both in the Komnenian period, and the language that they would be writing their texts in, should be nearer the language spoken at their time.

a ready phrase for "rally the troops" would be the famous Basileios 2 Boulgaroktonos battlecry...

"Οστις στρατιώτης ακολουθείτω μοι" meaning "Whoever is a soldier follows me!" as he a 60 year old man charged to resque a cutoff part of the Imperial army.

Thus the ideal would be to have a cypriot yelling that out loud. This would be as correct to the language the Byzantines spoke as I can think.

Best of luck, I know it won't be easy.