Small Orthodox corner

[Cookiegod]

There are no better or worse languages. This is a scientifically unacceptable observation and there is not going to be a single academic endorsing. In terms of vocabulary, as a general rule, older languages have much fewer words than modern ones, which is reasonable, given how many new terms are invented every year. So, for example, ancient Greek (the Hellenistic and Byzantine literature) has around 250.000 lemmata, but its modern version must have around double that number. English is probably the richest in the word, as its spread means that it's very receptive and is continuously enriched with neologisms from different languages.

True. Anyone with a multilingual background will find great qualities in any of his languages. I have yet to meet someone with a multilingual background who believes in the supremacy of one language.

Good post, generally, but I'll have to disagree here. In the early stages, Christianity was indeed more prevalent in the lower strata, but that changed, once the emperors endorsed it as the official religion. This move sparked a huge wave of opportunistic conversions, while enforcement and cultural influence encouraged yet even more conversions. The last pagans in the old, Roman world belonged to rural and isolated communities, usually situated in mountainous terrain. The elite had already been christianised, in order not to lose its privileged social position and to be able to participate in and profit from the imperial administration.

For one I did not exclude or refer to isolated villages (and I'm not sure what evidence we have available there - maybe archeological?) but to the Christianisation of the empire as a whole as we see it documented. The antipagan edicts generally went unenforced, probably to no small degree due to a significant portion of pagans still being in the upper ranks of the state. I also hazily remember reading on Graeco-Roman paganism in the 6th century stating the same, though I cannot remember the details or the source to back it up.

It also instinctually corresponds to the different ways aristocracies and rural populations handle traditions. Rural populations generally adapted already existant traditions to the new faith, with not much change to their general lifestyle, as doctrines and dogmata weren't of any particular import there. An aristocratic dynasty however clings to weirdly specific things in addition to those dogmata. A senatorial family having gained its ascendance under pagan auspices would thus be quite unwilling to abandon its source of selfidentification in favour of some new fad from the lower classes. I partly speak from personal experience with regards to how my own family handled its history and traditions even though they have little relevance to what the world is today.

In that context pagan holdouts in isolated, hard to reach communities that therefore wasn't particularly relatd on what transpired in the empire as a whole is besides the point I was trying to make. Which is that not only did the Christianisation start in the lower classes, older families in the upper classes were generally the last ones partaking in the general workings of the empire to convert. It can be argued that conversion at a certain point became a wise career move, and this would certainly have played its part in the conversion of the remainder.

But if I'm wrong I'll happily change my opinion if you have something for me there.

[Sir Adrian]

I would like to point out that there is such a thing as superior and inferior languages within a sprachbund, and this concept has long been accepted by academia. In fact you'd be laughed to your face by any academic worth his salt if you said otherwise.

There is also the notion of superiority through expressiveness. Latin and Koine are better than English in simple day-to-day because they are more expressive and allow for more nuance of meaning. English is better than Latin and Koine as the language of business and technology because its grammar is distinctively simpler and therefore easier to master.

So yes, there are better and worse languages. Just not universally. The notion that languages are not better or worse and therefore equal is objectively retarded as no two languages have ever evolved within the same context. Inuit can express concepts that an English speaker cannot even begin to grasp but struggles with the most mundane of concepts from our point of view.

If languages were not better and worse there would be no such thing as neologisms.

[Abdülmecid I]

From your the Wikipedia article you cited:

Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally considered by a society to be the most "correct" or otherwise superior.
...
Prestige varieties do not exhibit features, grammatically speaking, which prove them superior in terms of logic, efficacy or aesthetics. With certain exceptions, they are the language varieties of the prestigious social classes.

[AnthoniusII]

If English is superior t9o Greek Language then WHY sience gives spieces names in Greek or Latin in the same terminology the Greeks established in 3rd century BC?
It seams that most of you ignore what others post . You do not want to open your minds simply watching some videos made by history proffesors. Not me....Did you watch Porque Grecia by Pedro Olalla or the line of video teachings by Prf Eugen Webber or they are to humble for your bright minds and you do not have to listen to them inorder to learn something new?
In TGC mod I had that delima. I could simply make a bunch of units and create a mod like all others.
But then I desided to allow people (with real historical degrees) to speak for their nations.
Members like :
FliegerAD Publishes articles in History magasines.
Manuel Komnenos (i helped him with his asay about the battle of Matzikert) today he teaches History in Croatia
The problem is that we people tempt to put infront of us our prospective and not allow others to teach us. Including me (i am still an inperfect human) ...So before you post PLEASE watch those videos, learn something you may missed and then post your prospective. If that great Socrates always said that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing how do we expect to learn if we do not accept that there is always something new to learn?
I am a history freak with a psychology syndrome called in greek teleiomaniac (perfectionist). I always seak answers and read cerfully what others say. Be like Socrates. Learn.

[Lord Thesaurian]

EDIT: The POPE is a liar when TODAY he said that Gospel originaly writen in Greek (actually Hellenistic Greek that have beeen spoken from Spain to China and India as the language of trade and diplomacy and as a language of the Succesors states legacy). IS Pope a liar according to you YES OR NO?

Orthodox priest shouts 'Pope, you are a heretic' at Francis in Athens

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[alhoon]

Ahoon you are wrong. The Empire was never purely Greek.

As you say, never purely Greek. But the centers of Power, culture, commerce and influence were 80% Greek. France today is not purely French. There are citizens from the colonies etc. That doesn't mean that French are the dominant people in France.

I would like to point out that there is such a thing as superior and inferior languages within a sprachbund, and this concept has long been accepted by academia. In fact you'd be laughed to your face by any academic worth his salt if you said otherwise.

Not by the leftwings and communist-trained ones that have taught in my uni classes. They espoused what Abdulmecid said.
And since, at least in Greece, leftwings are going to the commie-magnet soft degrees like philology, sociology, philosophy and other crap, the majority of Academia would accept that there are no lesser and superior languages.
Now, that said... I haven't studied nor I even paid attention in highschool to the crappy soft sciences. So I honestly don't know if the majority of the commies are right or not. I have no idea what would even mean "superior" language. More words? Better structure (and who decides what's better structure?) more Trait_13_that_philogists_and_linguists_know?

I have no patience, knowledge or even respect for modern philology so I can't enter that discussion at all. It's like talking about computers to a person from the 19th century.

[basics]

Nobody here (as far as I know) claimed that it is anyone that God that saves. What we said, is that you don't need to believe first in order to be baptized because that's how it works thanks to the Episcopal tradition. The Holy Spirit is passing to us through the ordained priests in an unbroken like since the Apostles.

alhoon,

Of course you don't need to believe to be baptised as anyone can do that but baptism does not save anyone. One must be born again of the Spirit of God to be saved and that by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus Christ. A new believer is saved by faith alone through the grace of God. Your part about the Holy Spirit is nonsense. The Holy Spirit works soley for the Gospel which can be heard or read by any man or woman, saved or unsaved, wherein He acts upon the heart of any hearer or reader to reveal Jesus to them. He not only condemns them as He indwells them the moment they are born again.

[Sir Adrian]

From your the Wikipedia article you cited:

Which does not contradict what I said. The concept of a superior language exists and is valid.

[alhoon]

A new believer is saved by faith alone through the grace of God.

Faith and Works. James 2 explains this.

Your part about the Holy Spirit is nonsense.

Or so you think.

The Holy Spirit works soley for the Gospel which can be heard or read by any man or woman, saved or unsaved

I don't think any mortal can understand the Holy Spirit and Its works. The acts of the Holy Spirit can be seen through the Acts of the Apostles. The Tongues of Fire is the Holy Spirit giving the Apostles knowledge of and their spiritual connection to God. That is why only ordained priests can perform baptisms and the reason many protestants aren't properly baptized. I don't know if Baptists hold an unbroken line to the apostles or not.

Will these people be Saved? God knows and God will judge them.

[Abdülmecid I]

Prestigious/superior language is a concept of sociology and is referring to languages which are viewed as more prestigious in a society, due to their cultural influence or associations. The classical example is Latin in medieval Europe, but you can also take into account French in the 18th century or even Katharevousa in modern Greece. The nonexistence of linguistically superior languages is not a political issue, as it's unanimously accepted. The opposite is logically incoherent anyway, as languages constantly evolve depending on the changing circumstances and the needs of their speakers, so they are continuously adjusting suit them perfectly.

As you say, never purely Greek. But the centers of Power, culture, commerce and influence were 80% Greek. France today is not purely French. There are citizens from the colonies etc. That doesn't mean that French are the dominant people in France.

How were they Greek, when they identified themselves as Romans and they used the label "Hellene" as a derogatory label? The terms were not synonymous even during the early 20th century:

On 8 October 1912, during the First Balkan War, Lemnos became part of Greece. The Greek navy under Rear Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis took it over without any casualties from the occupying Turkish Ottoman garrison, who were returned to Anatolia. Peter Charanis, born on the island in 1908 and later a professor of Byzantine history at Rutgers University recounts when the island was occupied and Greek soldiers were sent to the villages and stationed themselves in the public squares. Some of the children ran to see what Greek soldiers looked like. ‘‘What are you looking at?’’ one of them asked. ‘‘At Hellenes,’’ the children replied. ‘‘Are you not Hellenes yourselves?’’ a soldier retorted. ‘‘No, we are Romans."

Which does not contradict what I said. The concept of a superior language exists and is valid.

Nope, it doesn't. You said that the academia is recognizing the existence of superior languages. Your article explains that there are no superior languages in terms of grammar, syntax, vocabulary etc. (exactly what I argued), but some languages might be perceived as superior/prestigious in a society. Which is nothing new, considering that I was replying to a member of the society, who believed that a dead language is superior and more prestigious than any other language, including his mother tongue. It's a very old phenomenon dating from

[AnthoniusII]

Exactly...Despite the fact that Hellenistic Greek language dominated as the official language of the Roman state the people still were Roman citizens. An other unknown incident. At 1821 Greeks and Albanians started the rebelion against Ottoman Empire together. In the siege of ARTA the "Greeks" SIGNED AS ROMANS not Greeks. The name Greek/Hellen was given by the father of king Otto that was an admirer of the Greek Aniquity. But no place on earth has 100% pure ethnic population for centuries now.
Some examples: In the 6th century when the Slavic migration/invasion in to Balkans were at its pick the Roman population migraded to fortified urban centers leaving he villages to slavs. A scholar from Constantinople took a journey to the Greece and when he returned to Constantinople he wrote " eslavothe i Romania" witch means that Slavs dominated Roman lands. In the Greek penisula though those slavs completly Romanised a century later.
Boris Johnson. His father was an Ottoman Official sent to Britain ,In his birthplace all "Turks" are blond with grey or blue eyes! But we must not forget that in that area Galatic tribes forced by Alexander's Succesors to migrade there!
Lets solve the puzle between the Greek and Roman.
Greeks like all the rest ethnic groups had full knowlege of the heritage , their past and the term Helen stoped to identify a pagan since 7th century. Roman refers to any Orthodox Christian Citizen that he couold be also an emperor no matter how humble his background life was. There is a fact though. For political reasons -mainly unfair taxation- many ethnic groups rebeled with the only way -at that time- they had the Religion to identify their existance. So Egyptian Roman citizens rebeled and became Coptic Christians and Armenians rebeled and became Monophysites. But there were Orthodox Armenians to the end. Other wise John Qurqua Junior known as Tzimiskes could never become co-Emperor and Protector of teh Emperors! So you see the bonding was the religian and the citizenship. When Constantinople fell in 6961 Anno Mundi the last Roman citizens in Morea despertly needed a new self identification ..That was the momment that Georgios Gemistos remind them that they may lost their citizenship but they still had their ethnic heritage:

«Εσμέν γαρ ουν ων ηγείσθε τε και βασιλεύετε Έλληνες το γένος, ως η τε φωνή και η πάτριος παιδεία μαρτυρεί.

We are Hellenes those you rule by gender and by language and by our ancestors education proves. That was a last attempt (in Morea) to keep the population united . In the Rennesance teh word nation simply separates the Germanic origin tribes. The term Ethnos though was known in humanity thousands year before and people knew their origin by birth. St Paul knew he was a Jew but asked to be trialed as Roman citizen.. He also knew Hellenistic Greek perfectly and his letters proves it. We must not confuse the ethnic origin of a human group with its citizenship or devide their citizenship be religion.

[basics]

Faith and Works. James 2 explains this.


Or so you think.




I don't think any mortal can understand the Holy Spirit and Its works. The acts of the Holy Spirit can be seen through the Acts of the Apostles. The Tongues of Fire is the Holy Spirit giving the Apostles knowledge of and their spiritual connection to God. That is why only ordained priests can perform baptisms and the reason many protestants aren't properly baptized. I don't know if Baptists hold an unbroken line to the apostles or not.

Will these people be Saved? God knows and God will judge them.

alhoon,

Well have another look at James and see that he is speaking to people who think that they are Christians yet have no works to follow from their conversion. In other words what he is saying is that if one is truly converted then their works to follow must show it. Now regarding the Holy Spirit, He is God not an it. He plays a most central part in conversion from non-belief to believing and so is very present whether priests are there or not. Salvation is all of God, repentance, conviction, regeneration and the indwelling is all Him and the trigger for His action is on hearing or reading the Gospel whether by a priest or not. If only priests can perform baptisms then why did Philip baptise the Ethiopian?

[Cookiegod]

If English is superior t9o Greek Language then WHY sience gives spieces names in Greek or Latin in the same terminology the Greeks established in 3rd century BC?

Sorry, but do I really have to explain to you how flawed your line of reasoning is? Europe holds Latin and Ancient Greek in high esteem, because they laid the foundations. This is not a phenomenon unique to Europe. It's not like we're the only ones who did so. The concept of a dead Bildungssprache is nothing new. E.g. The Hittites (indo-european language speakers) used the non-indo-european Hattic language of the preceding civilisation that they had moved into as their ceremonial language for hundreds of years after Hattu had been conquered. That does not mean Hattic could do magic better than Hittite, just like "Expeliarmus!" doesn't make my axe fly out of my hand. If anything, it puts Greek at a disadvantage. If I say Thorax instead of Chest, everyone is aware of the medical context. I don't think Greek has that same differentiation.

It seams that most of you ignore what others post . You do not want to open your minds simply watching some videos made by history proffesors. Not me....Did you watch Porque Grecia by Pedro Olalla or the line of video teachings by Prf Eugen Webber or they are to humble for your bright minds and you do not have to listen to them inorder to learn something new?

Mate, we're still waiting for you to make any cogent argument regarding any of your claims. Literally any of them.

---

I would like to point out that there is such a thing as superior and inferior languages within a sprachbund, and this concept has long been accepted by academia. In fact you'd be laughed to your face by any academic worth his salt if you said otherwise.

There is also the notion of superiority through expressiveness. Latin and Koine are better than English in simple day-to-day because they are more expressive and allow for more nuance of meaning. English is better than Latin and Koine as the language of business and technology because its grammar is distinctively simpler and therefore easier to master.

So yes, there are better and worse languages. Just not universally. The notion that languages are not better or worse and therefore equal is objectively retarded as no two languages have ever evolved within the same context. Inuit can express concepts that an English speaker cannot even begin to grasp but struggles with the most mundane of concepts from our point of view.

If languages were not better and worse there would be no such thing as neologisms.

Prestigious/superior language is a concept of sociology and is referring to languages which are viewed as more prestigious in a society, due to their cultural influence or associations. The classical example is Latin in medieval Europe, but you can also take into account French in the 18th century or even Katharevousa in modern Greece. The nonexistence of linguistically superior languages is not a political issue, as it's unanimously accepted. The opposite is logically incoherent anyway, as languages constantly evolve depending on the changing circumstances and the needs of their speakers, so they are continuously adjusting suit them perfectly.

Which does not contradict what I said. The concept of a superior language exists and is valid.

Nope, it doesn't. You said that the academia is recognizing the existence of superior languages. Your article explains that there are no superior languages in terms of grammar, syntax, vocabulary etc. (exactly what I argued), but some languages might be perceived as superior/prestigious in a society. Which is nothing new, considering that I was replying to a member of the society, who believed that a dead language is superior and more prestigious than any other language, including his mother tongue. It's a very old phenomenon dating from

Adrian you have a very fundamental misunderstanding of language: It's a living and malleable thing. Languages gain and lose words and even grammatical constructs, and the changes are noticeable enough within a generation, even when the internet slang is set aside. Neologisms are not the sign of a supposed inferiority or superiority of a language. They are in fact the sign that a language is alive. When something can't be expressed right away, that doesn't mean that a language is inferior, it shows that the culture using the language as a tool, did not have the need to express any such thing. The moment it becomes pertinent to express something new, words and even grammatical concepts can spread at a breakneck speed. Either through the entire culture, or through subgroups of it. I speak 5 languages in their pure form (obviously with accent) and 3 dialects, Latin and Ancient Greek not included as I don't actually speak them; I can only read them (if we ignore for a moment that it's all rusted up). Furthermore I can read and understand most of what's written in most Romance, Germanic or Slavic languages. I am yet to find any sign whatsoever of inferiority of any to any other. If you have any examples, do show. But the fact that southern (e.g. Swiss) German has in parts a more simple grammar to high German has never stopped me from expressing anything any way I want. The fact that Ukrainian has retained the vocative case compared to Russian doesn't make it more complicated. In fact you'll still find Russian use both the archaic and a slangy version of the vocative in daily life: E.g. "Боже!"="Oh God!" when you dropped something has the traditional -e ending we know from other even nonslavic languages; whereas "Мам!" "Mom!" has the vowel drop which is also a frequent phonetic change that has happened frequently across pretty much all languages as they change. In fact, native speakers are not only to speak their language, they pretty much have an Operating System that allows them to instinctively predict what change makes the most sense, and as such changes can happen very rapidly across large demographics, or only in small areas depending on the circumstances.

Let's assume two Canarians able to speak the whistling language living on two hills with no phone coverage next to each other both studied quantum physics. Let's assume they're often too lazy to bother to get to the house of the other to discuss something quantum physics related. You can expect them to, without even needing to make that decision consciously, adapt the necessary changes to their interpersonal whistling language to express what they need to each other with long distance whistling.

What the prestige refers to in your article if you actually read it is what e.g. several of my teachers had anecdotes about when I was a kid. How they were forced to speak high German by people who had no clue about the dialect and decided that their own local dialect clearly must have been superior.
This even though the foremost German poet would have disagreed with them on that:

[Alemannic writer from my hometown] Hebel's admirers include Goethe, Gottfried Keller, Martin Heidegger, W. G. Sebald, Tolstoy, and Walter Benjamin. Goethe, who tried to write a poem (the "Schweizerlied", Swiss song) in Alemannic himself, praised the Allemannische Gedichte highly. According to him, Hebel "countrified the universe in the most naive, graceful fashion". But on the question of whether he would translate Hebel's works, Goethe said: "Such a great poet should be only read in the original! One just needs to learn this language!" The Brothers Grimm also admired Hebel, and he met Jacob Grimm in Karlsruhe in 1814.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Faith and Works. James 2 explains this.

James doesn’t claim a person is saved by works. He explains that genuine faith organically bears fruits of the spirit. He’s describing to his audience, using a series of examples, something Jesus said,

15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

A person may claim to have faith in Jesus, who is the sole source of salvation, but the truth or veracity of their claim can be judged by their behavior or “works.” Since this came up recently, someone like Joel Osteen comes to mind. He certainly claims to be a Christian, but you can see by his works measured against Scripture he is a false teacher. According to James, his faith is potentially “dead.” Someone else already put it better:

What Joel Osteen pushes is a shell of legitimate biblical Christianity, at best, and a dangerous counterfeit at worst. When all you have to offer is materialism and emotion, you’re not an evangelist. You’re a motivational speaker who borrows religious terminology. Nothing Osteen says is going to help a person with legitimate questions about faith and salvation. His message won’t build real disciples; there’s no more substance for the believer than for the unbeliever. Nor is his message going to sustain faith in a crisis. When things go bad, people quickly realize God’s blessings don’t come merely because they think happy thoughts. And if personal prosperity is the measure of their success as a Christian, then Osteen’s teaching has merely set them up for a fall.

A true preacher of the gospel does not avoid any topic, especially crucial ones such as sin and morality, simply because some people don’t like to hear it. And true men of God don’t emphasize material success and positive emotions over the truth. Sincere or not, honest or not, well-intended or not, Joel and Victoria Osteen are not preaching the gospel, and neither are other prosperity teachers. Osteen and his ilk should not be supported by those with a love for spiritual truth and a concern for the lost.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Joel-Osteen.html

[basics]

Aye, the very power of God unto salvation is the Gospel meaning that without it, turning away from it, twisting it, even mocking it, a new heart in Christ is impossible, why? Because it is all of God. And so, if the heart is renewed the fruit will follow. How else could someone dead in their sin get out of that but for God?

[Lord Thesaurian]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

He understood the assignment.

[Cookiegod]

Christian fasting (yes, catholic church has mostly the same fasts, except no one does them anymore and pretty much everyone has forgotten them) is such a healthy thing in several ways, I can recommend it for those reasons alone. You get a calendar that on the one hand gives you a great amount of freedom (days where you can eat whatever you want), but it also ensures that you eat healthy with plenty of days spread around the year where you fast with varying degrees. Sometimes fish is allowed, sometimes it's not. Meat and dairy products are banned almost every time, which makes sense as these are the products that also feel the heaviest. It's not just the 40 day fast before easter, right now for instance there's the fast before Christmas. Apart from celebratory weeks, in most weeks you have wednesdays and fridays also as meatless days. Whoever follows this calendar lives healthier and also always gets the sense of where he or she is in the year. You live more consciously and you don't simply "wake up", so to speak one day and notice that half a year has gone by.

As such it completely weirds me out everytime anyone makes such a big deal out of it. You don't even have to sacrifice anything, because eating healthy is something you should do either way. It does of course require some discipline, but that's also a character building exercise and when you near the end of the fast you get proud of yourself for having made it. The spiritual reasons are just the icing on the cake, plus they are also again related to the health benefits. It's harder to be spiritual if your digestive system is working through a big, calory intensive meal of meat and dairy.
Hence why John Chrysostom states: "Fasting of the body is food for the soul."

It's way harder to have a healthy mind when your body is sick.

In contrast my Muslim friends do not have the same success stories with the Ramadan. Pretty much all of them tell me it messes with them working out as that's a hard thing to do if you've spent the entire day without a calory intake, plus they end up actually gaining weight as the moment it turns dark and right before sunrise they just hurry to gobble in as much as possible, in effect eating more than they usually would have.

[Sir Adrian]

I wasn’t aware demons love Jesus and seek to abide by his commandments.

That's works. You're literally contradicting yourself.

[alhoon]

Now regarding the Holy Spirit, He is God not an it.

Holy Spirit is God, but It is neutral gender, not "He".

If only priests can perform baptisms then why did Philip baptise the Ethiopian?

But Phillip was Ordained. He was one of the first deacons.

[basics]

alhoon,

Having read some of the objector's writings I feel it still right to consider the Holy Spirit as He, why? Because we believe that God is One Being in Three Persons in Whose image man was made. The female however was made out of man and so one can accept the image of man. It then follows in the order of things that God is first, man second and woman third. So, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are Male. As the Father is a blinding Spirit upon Whom no man may look and live and is clearly male then it follows that the Holy Spirit is also male.

Now regarding Phillip and the eunuch, the formers appearing to the latter, was to explain the Gospel of Jesus Christ to him because what he was reading he couldn't understand. It wasn't because Phillip was ordained that he was sent rather that he was born again of the Spirit of God the same thing that just happened to the eunuch on hearing the Gospel upon which he asked to be baptised.