Friday, March 4, 2011

Slavic Elements in...Homer? - Part 2

Miltiades Elia Bolaris

SLAVIC HOMER IN SKOPJE and assorted Balkan fables

 
HOCUS POCUS SLAVOMAKEDONIENSIS:
Bogus scholarly witchcraft in the age of Antikvizatsiyja


The man known in the internet as Petrus Invictus, a.k.a. Perica Sardzoski, a.k.a. Pero, a.k.a. Petro, a.k.a. John Donne has come up with a "theory" which claims there are certain words in Homer that men like Tashko Belchev, Odisej Belchevski, Risto Stefov, Aleksandar Donski and himself have found in the Iliad and Odyssey that are obviously…Slavic, therefore…Slavomacedonian! This, they claim, is what "proves" that Homer must have copied some Slavic bards who, of course, lived in Macedonia before the "African" / "Egyptosemitic" Greeks ever showed up in history.

This was the original theory, but since nobody sat down to expose their lunacy about Homer being a copycat of the imaginary Slavonic bards more than 1500 years before Slavic ethne ever made their appearance in history, they decided they had a few rein to move a step further: Homer was not a Greek copycat of prehistoric Slavic poetry, after all. Now that Petrus Invictus had time to reflect on this issue a bit longer, he decided that Homer was actually a Slav himself, after all. What was his proof? No proof is necessary, just pure hot air hallucinations: "another view", "new theories" and (obviously!) zero documentation.

"This promotes yet another view in reading history regarding Homer and his Slavic character. New theories arise:

Homer spoke a form of pre-Slavic language."1

Undisciplined lunacy ran amok, is the only way we could describe it.

As we said earlier, a word here and a word there do not in themselves constitute a language. Language is structured sentences, grammar and syntax, not simply independent words floating around. It has been estimated that approximately 60% of the English vocabulary is made up of Latin and Greek words injected into the Germanic language of the Saxons via French. This does not in any way make a case for English being a Latin or a Greek dialect though. It is still very much a Germanic language.

It is inevitable that neighboring languages share several common words or even whole expressions. In border lands bilingualism becomes a normal way of life. Trade, tourism and intermarriages enhance this process of lexical borrowing and lending. Beyond this commonality of shared words between different languages there are also groups of closely related extended language families. It would be a deaf person the one who will not recognize that German and Dutch, Serbian and Bulgarian, or French and Italian, share a lot more among themselves than just a few random words.

If we narrow our scope in the Balkans, we notice that there are border populations on both sides of the national frontiers of Serbia and Bulgaria where the native people can understand both standard languages equally well while conversely, native speakers of standard Bulgarian and Serbian have a hard time understanding the native spoken transitional dialects. The largest of these groups of dialects are to be found among the speakers of Shopi / Шопи, Torlatchki / Торлашки, and Gorani / Горани dialects. Under different historical and geopolitical circumstances all the above could have either developed into separate languages or become absorbed into one of the neighboring "mother" standard languages. The various Slavomacedonian dialects are one such case where history worked in their favor.

During the resistance against the Nazis and their puppet governments in occupied Yugoslavia, and following the disaster of the Wehrmacht in Stalingrad in 1943, Marshal Tito saw that the balance had now turned against Germany and it was a matter of time before Yugoslavia would be liberated. It was now time to start thinking big. Italy was split in two, and the allies were marching north. Mussolini and his Salò Republic (Repubblica di Salò) was a shadow puppet of the Germans. Bulgaria, that had joined the Axis, gaining substantial land concessions from Hitler against both Greece and Yugoslavia, was going to be, like Italy in the postwar dog house. Greece had fought against the Nazis and had suffered, like Yugoslavia, but this was not a huge issue if the Yugoslav cards were played right. He asked the Greek and Albanian communists to sign a memorandum of cooperation between the separate national partisan organizations for establishment of a headquarters to coordinate the antifascist struggle in the Balkans. But Tito had only a small detail that he asked them to take care of, demanding, in 1943, for the "creation of a free Macedonia"2. A year later on August 2, 1944 a new nation was proclaimed out of the mainly Bugarski-speaking inhabitants of southern Serbia. Initially everyone living in the People´s Republic, including Greeks, Torbeshi Muslim Slavs and even Albanians were all told they are included in the new nation, consequently everyone had to conform by changing their names to more "Makedonski" (some would also say Polish or Russian) sounding endings like –ski, –vski, -nski and -oski. Serbovic became Serbovski, Bulgarov Bulgarovski and Ellenas Jelenovski. This was the land the Serbs had won with their blood from the Turks in 1912, any longer, but a new Yugoslav People´s republic, the Socialist people´s republic of Makedonija, whose people did not speak a confusing assortment of Serbo-Bulgarian transitional dialects, along with Turkish, Greek, Aromunian, etc, but a new language, which they had to learn as they went along, before it was even codified: Slavo-Makedonski!

At the the "First Plenum Session of ASNOM, the antifascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia", held on August 2, 1944, Slavo-Makedonski was proclaimed the official language of the Демократска Федерална Македонија / Demokratska Federalna Makedonija / Democratic Federal Makedonija, which soon after changed to People´s Republic of Makedonika and later to Socialist People´s Republic of Makedonija.

A committee of linguists and philologists under Blaze Koneski was assigned to work on the local dialects and to create what became known as the "standard (Slavo-)Macedonian language", a language formed out of the westernmost dialects of Slavonic, spoken in what was till then known as South Serbia or Vardarska Banovina. The western dialects were intentionally chosen because they were most distinct and distant from either Serbian or Bulgarian, while the closer you go to Serbia or Bulgaria the dialects start fusing into the respective standard Serbian or standard Bulgarian. Soon after, the new "standard Slavo-Macedonian language" made its appeared, in articles that were published in the first issue of the Nova Makedonija newspaper in 1944. They say that the difference between a language and a dialect is that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. Tito, the catholic Croatian Stalinist leader of Yugoslavia, took things a step further: on July of 1967 Marshal Tito´s regime became the first "communist" government ever to initiate the establishment of an official state church, the so called Macedonian Orthodox Church, which was of course immediately proclaimed schismatic by all other Orthodox Churches. But the Makedonci now had not only a state and a language but a state church too, separate from Serbian and Bulgarian influences. The first translation of the Bible in the newly established official language (Archbishop Gavril´s translation) was published in 1990 and a second one (translated by Dushko Konstantinov) was printed in 1996.

Yet, if we are to believe the unsupported assumptions of the Slavic ultranationalists from Skopje, Blaze Koneski´s Slavonic idiom was indigenous to the Balkans since time immemorial. Vasil Iliov goes as far as to claim that Makedonski has been spoken since the Paleolithic era, and he is about to claim that the Neanderthals of Europe spoke Makedonski too:

"...in the entire evolutionary process the ancient Macedonian tribes had during the Paleolithic a common mythology…; they had a common language and common territory of speech; they had the earliest social organization in forms of ´zeting´ (sic); they had common name, a common Macedonian phonetic alphabet, common Macedonian ´zets´ – writers and high level of Macedonian culture in the framework of the evolutionary process of the oldest phase of Macedonian culture from Magdalen to Mamontovoy Kuryi at Urals…"3

This was not printed by some obscure occult magazine that only some nuts will read. This is from an article published in Nova Makedonija, Skopje´s largest daily!4 Such articles gives us a good indication of the daily misinformation that proliferates through every level of Slavomacedonian society from schools to the press and to political and cultural associations.

"The theory of the so-called "Indo-European languages", Vasil Iliov, whom Petrus Invictus freely quotes and accepts, tells us, "will have to go through revision. The continuity of the Macedonian linguistic tradition confirms that the oldest language i.e. protolanguage, which was spoken in the greater or the Great Zeta Macedonia was the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and the Eneolithic Macedonian language."!

Professor Victor Friedman, throw your worthless University of Chicago Linguistics books away and rush once again to Skopje to learn the new dictum: You thought Slavomacedonian was a Slavonic language, related to but separate from Bulgarian yet Vasil Iliov just found out that Makedonski is "the oldest language i.e. protolanguage, which was spoken in the greater or the Great Zeta Macedonia". All we need now is to define what on earth "Zeta Makedonija" is and Vasil Iliov will soon "prove" than everyone from Patagonia to the Chinese and to the Australian Aborigines spoke Makedonski, "the oldest language i.e. protolanguage"! And if "Great Zeta Macedonia" is not enough, we will have to include the Great Eta Slavomakedonija, the Great Theta Slavomakedonija and even the Great Iota and Kapa Slavomakedonijas will be kicked in, just to make sure the adjacent planets in our solar system and beyond are covered linguistically by the Slavomakedonskata protolanguage…

Petrus Ivictus follows right behind Vasil Iliov:

"…we might assume that Homer, or better say the original singer of the epics, must have used a language that was of proto-Slavic origin!

This language has been altered due to the influence of other languages mostly the Doric and Ionic dialects, who cam later after Homer's time, and new words entered the epic, however, some of the words from the first languages, that you so well assume might have been the one spoken in Mycenae might be of proto-Slavic substratum!"

Rarely has so much nonsense has dressed up in such pompous fashion. We are regressing from the comitatzi Goce Delchev to the Byzantine emperor Basil the II, the Bulgarslayer, back to the Slavic Czar Aleksandar Velikiot (Alexander the Great) and then to the proto-Slavic Makedonskiot Czar, Agamemnon of Mycenae, pardon me, Agamemnovski of Mykinovgrad, along with Patroklovski and Achilevski from Central Hellas-Heladovo.

If this all sounds so awkwardly embarrassing and utterly ridiculous, it is because it is!

"To this we add the discovery of Slavic language in the Demotic text of the Rosetta stone and that makes the story complete!"

Well said: Two professors of Electrical Engineering from Skopje shattered the world of Egyptology a few years earlier "proving" the ancient Egyptian language of the Hellenistic government during the Ptolemaic era was proto-slavic "Makedonski" too 5. This discovery, sanctified by the official state Makedonskata Church in Ochrid6 led to a great distress among the modern Egyptian population, who just realized that they were fed ethnic lies hitherto, never being told of their proto-Slavic nature, which electro-mathematically that led to popular riots and the toppling of the Mubarak regime. Hosni Mubarak´s original name, as we all probably already know is derived from Bosni Mubarakdoni, which of course proves that he was a Bosniac Makedonski Czar after all. The circus Skopjanska keeps on marching:

"Homer was of Slavic speaking group however created a poem that was orally transmitted through generations, until it reached the Athenian Greeks who recorded it as they received it from those before them with vocabulary from various dialects or languages, however, preserved some of the words that were used in the original ages before!"7

Are we surprised wondering where this man found the imaginary sources for all these extraordinary claims? I hope not, since more surprises follow:

"The term for GO in Macedonian is surprisingly "ODI"!!!"

ODI SI means GO AWAY!

Now I am surprised what ODYSSEY means at all!!!"(sic)

"Let us check: (Merriam Webster Dictionary)

Odyssey

Etymology: the Odyssey, epic poem attributed to Homer recounting the long wanderings of Odysseus

1 : a long wandering or voyage usually marked by many changes of fortune
2 : an intellectual or spiritual wandering or quest

So my question is the following: if "ODI SI" means GO AWAY even today in Macedonian, and the form of GONE comes from an older proto-German word "ēode" which is not in use in English as such today, however has transformed into GONE, then if we have "Odyssey" in Homer that means a "journey" or "GOING AWAY", isn't it logical to say that the word is of Slavic or proto-Slavic origin that has entered the Greek, German and other languages since the Slavic linguistic element is one of the primary in the Indo-European linguistic substratum, and has been best preserved into modern day Macedonian language! This curiously makes Macedonian language one of the oldest languages in Europe, a language that supposedly the first authors of the epic Odyssey were using! Maybe the one used with Linear B in the Mycenaean epoch!?!

In other words, Homer's Odyssey which means a JOURNEY means the same in modern day Macedonian!

While say JOURNEY in modern Greek is:
journey = ταξίδι (taxidi)
and TO GO is:
go = πηγαίνω (pigaino)
while to WALK is:
walk = περπατώ, περίπατος (perpato, peripatos)

No trace of ODISI or ODYSSEY or EODE or any Indo-European form of the word in the Modern Greek! While everyone knows that Odyssey meant JOURNEY in Homer's time!

However, Macedonian language has preserved the original form in its true meaning!

ODI SI - GO AWAY"

We will suggest another route to this argument. We want to find out why Petrus Invictus wants to make a Proto-Slavic Czardom out of the Achaean kingdom of Mycenae. Czardom is of course derived from the Slavonic word for king of the Mycenae, Czar Agamemn-ovski, as we saw earlier.

We will go back to the same lexical source as Petrus Invictus used, The Webster dictionary. 8 A search for Czardom brings us to Czar:

"Definition of CZAR

1: emperor; specifically : the ruler of Russia until the 1917 revolution
2: one having great power or authority
— czar•dom also tsar•dom or tzar•dom tzär-dəm, (t)sär- noun

Variants of CZAR
czar also tsar or tzar

Examples of CZAR

1.Origin of CZAR
New Latin czar, from Russian tsar', from Old Russian tsĭsarĭ, from Gothic kaisar, from Greek or Latin; Greek, from Latin Caesar — more at caesar

First Known Use: 1555
Related to CZAR

Synonyms: baron, captain, magnate (also tsar or tzar), king, lion, lord, mogul, monarch, Napoleon, prince, tycoon".

Czar, therefore is an English word that can mean baron, captain, magnate (also tsar or tzar), king, lion, lord, mogul, monarch, Napoleon, prince, and tycoon, among other things. It is a word that was borrowed from Russian which borrowed it from Byzantine Greek which borrowed it from Latin and Latin borrowed it from the family name of a person, Julius Caesar.

The last name of Julius Cesar, in other words, became synonymous with what Websters defines as:

"Definition of CAESAR

1: any of the Roman emperors succeeding Augustus Caesar —used as a title
2: a powerful ruler: (1): emperor (2): autocrat, dictator"

Caesar, in simple words is a biographical name, that through power and prestige acquired a meaning embodied in the qualities that person exemplified.

The same thing happened to the name of Charlemagne. His name became a synonym of "king" in several Slavic languages, though he hardly ruled over them, just by linguistic association: Charles the great, lent his name to the meaning of "king" and became Králin in Czech, Król in Polish, Краљ/Kralj in Serbocroatian, etc.

The cunning Skopjan propagandist who was very eager to give us earlier the English definition of the word Odyssey, told us that according to Webster´s dictionary, Odyssey is defined as follows:

"Definition of ODYSSEY

1: a long wandering or voyage usually marked by many changes of fortune
2: an intellectual or spiritual wandering or quest"

Pero conveniently failed to go a few lines down and give us the whole story. Webster´s gives us examples of how the word Odyssey is used in English:

"Examples of ODYSSEY

1. The story is about the emotional odyssey experienced by a teenage girl.
2. the spiritual odyssey of the deeply religious"

Then right below that, it also gives us the:
"Origin of ODYSSEY

the Odyssey, epic poem attributed to Homer recounting the long wanderings of Odysseus"

Webster´s also gives us the first time the word "Odyssey" ever appeared in its current usage (i.e. as : "a long wandering or voyage", or as "an intellectual or spiritual wandering or quest")

"First Known Use: 1889".

This means that, according to the source that Petrus Invictus gave us, until 1889, when Odyssey acquired a new meaning intot he English language, when someone spoke of Odyssey, everyone understood only one thing: "the epic poem attributed to Homer recounting the long wanderings of Odysseus".

Even Petrus Invictus cannot deny the fact though that Odyssey is not English but a Greek word. Odyssey is merely a translation in English of the original Greek Odysseia / Οδύσσεια. While it would be very interesting indeed to know what Odysseia means in Swahili, German, Urdu or Japanese, in order to find the true meaning of Odyssey we need to go to the original language and look into the etymology of Odysseia.

Odysseia / Οδύσσεια means "something pertaining to Odysseus", in this case his journeys. The endings "-eios"(m), "-eia"(f) and "-eion"(n) as well as "-ios"(m), "-ia"(f) and "-ion"(n) in Greek all indicate a close identification and relationship pertaining to the noun that precedes them.

Basileus / Βασιλεύς is "king" and basil-eios / Βασίλ-ειος (m) is someone pertaining to the king, i.e. "regal", "royal".
Basil-eia / βασίλ-εια (f) could mean many things royal like queen, crown, royal dominion, reign, etc, all pertaining to royalty and related to king.
Alexandros is a Greek name meaning "defender against (enemy) men", and Alexandr-eia was a city that was founded by Alexandros.
Lyceios means "illuminating" and it is an adjective to Apollon, and Lyc-eion (Lyceum) was originally the name of a temple dedicated to Lyceios Apollon and the area around it.
Heracles is a name and when Phillip II built a city where is now Monastiri – Bitola, he named the city dedicated to Heracles: Heracl-eia.

If Homers was writing about Alexander (Alexandros/ Αλέξανδρος in the original Greek), that epic would be called Alexandreia, if he was writing about Achileus that epic would be called Achileia. If he had written about Telemachos, Odysseus´ son by Penelope, that epic would be called Telemacheia. If Homer or anyone else written an epic about Telegonos, Odysseus's son born of Circe, that epic would be called Telegoneia. Now, as a matter of fact, there was indeed a lost epic called just that: The Telegony. The Telegony (Telegoneia / Τηλεγόνεια in the original) is a long lost epic Greek poem, considered the last poem of the Greek epic cycle. It was attributed to the poet Mousaios/Μουσαῖος, among others.

It is obvious that Odyssey and Telegony or, better yet, Odysseia / Οδύσσεια and Telegoneia /Τηλεγόνεια have no connection with Petrus Invictus´ infantile pseudo-linguistics of "Odi si", "go away". Otherwise he would be at a loss to find an "etymology" for "Telego Ni"!...

"Odi si", pronounced harshly and with a loud stump of the foot on the pavement, might be enough to scare off an alley cat in Skopje (http://www.flickr.com/photos/berghaus/452238951/in/set-72157600099269011/), even if the cat has no clue that ODI SI means go away. Cats are smart, she will get the message. We would bet that if Pero would stamp his foot and screams at the next cat "TELEGO-NI" or "TELE GO" for short, the cat will run as fast as the "ODI SI" cat will. It will be a long way before Petrus Invictus´ "ODI SI" can explain the etymology of Odyssey, the Odysseia, in other words.

We will offer some examples where the Slavonic Odi cannot be used:

Bodies and Crocodiles and Kodiak bears all have odi in them, but not because crocODIles and bODIes and KODIak bears walk and "go". PODIatrists tend to feet (pODIa /πόδια, in Greek) which do GO and walk, yet any pODIatrist in Skopje will assure Pero that his profession is not named after the south Slavonic ODI, "to go" but the Greek "podia" (podes). GODIva chocolates have ODI too, and so does rODItis wine and sODIum and iODIne, yet none of them "go" anywhere. "Functional Etymology", like all modern pseudo-scientific witchcraft emonating from Skopje, has its dire limitations, as I am sure ODIsej Belchevski, its initial proponent already found out.

Basic common sense, reason and historical bounds will not deter a determined Skopjan propagandist from making grandiose mental leaps over and beyond time, truth and logic, into the abyss of the obscure:

"So my question is the following: if "ODI SI" means GO AWAY even today in Macedonian, and the form of GONE comes from an older proto-German word "ēode" which is not in use in English as such today, however has transformed into GONE, then if we have "Odyssey" in Homer that means a "journey" or "GOING AWAY", isn't it logical to say that the word is of Slavic or proto-Slavic origin that has entered the Greek, German and other languages since the Slavic linguistic element is one of the primary in the Indo-European linguistic substratum, and has been best preserved into modern day Macedonian language! This curiously makes Macedonian language one of the oldest languages in Europe, a language that supposedly the first authors of the epic Odyssey were using! Maybe the one used with Linear B in the Mycenaean epoch!?!(sic)
In other words, Homer's Odyssey which means a JOURNEY means the same in modern day Macedonian!

While say JOURNEY in modern Greek is:
journey = ταξίδι (taxidi)"

That is curiously curious indeed!...we would add.

Un-curiously enough, our suggestion to Pero would now be to simply hire a taxi ("ταξί / taxi" being a word most definitely derived from ταξίδι / taxidi), and take a long hike into the paranormal time travel (chrono-taxidi!) where Proto-Slavic Mycenaean bards will chat in Slavomakedonski and write pre-Homeric poems on pre-Cyrilic Linear B tablets, which the Skopje restauranteur cum pseudo-epigraphist Vasil Iliov will not even have to "translate"!

We urgently need some fresh air! Exiting the Skopje time-travel machine, and leaving the imaginary Homeric Proto-Slavs behind us, we are back to reality:

We already said that Odysseia / Οδύσσεια means "something pertaining to Odysseus", but we need to explain the etymology of Odysseus / Οδυσσεύς, whose name is Ulysses in Latin.

There is word in Modern Greek called odyne / οδύνη. Odyne means psychological distress, grief and pain but in some cases it can also mean pain in the physical sense.

You console someone on his "odyne" for the loss of a beloved person. When you sue someone for causing mental anguish to you, mental anguish in Greek is translated as psychike odyne/ψυχικη οδυνη. On the other hand, a woman can attest that her childbirth was un-odynous, an-odyne / ανώδυνη and she felt no pain due to an epidural shot.

This word has also entered the English language and in an internet dictionary we find the following:

"English-Word Information", word Info about English Vocabulary

odyn-, odyno-, -odynia, -odynic,-odyne, -odyn, -dyne, -dynia +

(Greek: οδυνη, pain)"

Several medical terms follow which include derivatives of the word odyne:

"phrenodynia - Pain in the diaphragm.
pleurodynia - Pain in the chest
pneumonodynia - Pain in the lungs.
pododynia - Pain in the foot
proctodynia - Pain at the anus, or in the rectum.
prostatalgia, prostatodynia - Pain in the prostate
rachiodynia - A pain in the vertebral column.
rhinodynia - Pain in the nose.
sacrodynia - Pain in the sacral region
scapulodynia - Pain in the shoulder blades.
splenodynia - Pain over the region of the spleen
spondylodynia - Pain in a vertebra of the back.
sternodynia - Pain in the sternum or the sternal region.
stomatodynia - Pain in the mouth.
tenodynia - Pain in a tendon" 11

Odyne is also attested in the Bible (not Petrus Invictus´ Slavomakedonskata "bible" unfortunately):

ὅτι λύπη μοί ἐστι μεγάλη καὶ ἀδιάλειπτος ὀδύνη τῇ καρδίᾳ μου.»
Πρός Ρωμαίους 9:2

"oti lype moi esti megale kai adialeiptos odyne tei kardia mou",
in transliteration with Latin letters.

"that I have great grief and uninterrupted pain in my heart", according to the
Darby Bible Translation

"that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart", according to the
American Standard Version

"that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart" according to the
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
Romans, 9.2

In the Vulgata Latin translation we wead:

quoniam tristitia est mihi magna et continuus dolor cordi meo»

(ὀδύνη /odyne was translated into Latin as «dolor»).

The word odyne / ὀδύνη, appears also in Homeric Greek, in the same form and with the same exact meaning (pain, sorrow, distress of body or mind) as it is used in the Alexandreian Coene Greek of the Bible and in colloquial Modern Greek. Despite Petrus Invictus, a.k.a. Perica Sardzoski, a.k.a. Pero, a.k.a. Petro, a.k.a. John Donne´s incoherent rumblings, the continuity of the Greek language is unparalleled. From the Linear B attested Achaean Greek of the Mycenaean Greeks to the Greek of Homer's epics and from Thucydides and Aeschylus to the Alexandreian Greek of the Bible through Byzantium and into Modern Greek, the Greek language follows an unbroken line. This is an unbroken line of a written Greek word that has a DOCUMENTED written history of 3500 years. Not one other single language can claim this, not Latin, nor Chinese, Hebrew, or Sanskrit. Here is a proof:

"οδύνη δε δια χροός ήλθ' άλεγεινή
and pain through his flesh became excruciating"

tells us Homer in the Iliad. 11.398

"...σφαδᾳσμῶν τε καὶ ὀδυνῶν πλήρης, εἴπερ τῇ τῆς πόλεως
"...and he is full of convulsions and pains, if in fact he resembles the condition of the city"

tells us Plato, centuries later, in the 5th cBC, in the Republic/Πολιτεία 579e.

Plato's and Homer's odyne, having also entered the Bible, has kept the same meaning, three thousand years later.

Following the murder of two young policemen by armed robbers in the Renti municipality of Athens, a Greek blog on March 2, 2011 speaks of ΑΠΟΤΡΟΠΙΑΣΜΟΣ, ΟΡΓΗ ΚΑΙ ΟΔΥΝΗ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΔΟΛΟΦΟΝΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΔΥΟ ΑΣΤΥΝΟΜΙΚΩΝ / Apotropiasmos, Orge kai Odyne gia tin Dolophonia ton Astynomikon / Repulsion, Rage and Pain for the Murder of the Policemen" http://topsecret2010.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-post_6128.html

Incidentally, EVERY SINGLE WORD in this Blog's title can be traced back to Plato and to Homer! How is that for a DOCUMENTED continuity of a language, especially when attacked by someone whose language has a documented existence of a post -1944 date!

A word which I believe is closely related to odyne / οδύνη, in both linguistic root and etymology, is the noun odyrmos / οδυρμός. It means "loud cry, lamentation, expressing grief openly, wailing in pain". The verb odyromai / ὀδύρομαι, is its derivative and it means "to grieve, to wail, to lament".

" ὁ δ᾽ ὀδύρετο πατρίδα γαῖαν"
"O d´ odyreto patrida gaian"
"and he was lamenting for his father land"

says Homer in Odyssey 13.219.

In the New Testament, in Mathew 2.13 we read:

"θρηνος και κλαυθμος και οδυρμος πολυς"
"lamentation , and weeping , and great mourning"

The same meaning is still apparent in the modern Greek usage of Odyromai and Odyrmos. A News Blog in Athens was deriding on October 25, 2009 a minister of the C. Caramanlis government because he was:

"Lamenting for not becoming transitional":
ΟΔΥΡΕΤΑΙ ΓΙΑΤΙ ΔΕΝ ΕΓΙΝΕ ΜΕΤΑΒΑΤΙΚΟΣ...
Odyretai Giati Den Egine Metavatikos...

http://www.inews.gr/89/odyretai-giati-den-egine-metavatikos.htm

Another word distantly but most probably (though some could dissagree) related to both odyne and to odyrmos as well as to odyromai is odyssomai/οδύσσομαι. Like them, odyssomai/οδύσσομαι is a word incorporating in its meaning powerful antithetical emotions, and (potentially) much pain.

Hesechios in his LEXICON gives us several words derived from it:

Οδύσασθαι, χολωθήναι / Odysasthai. to be wroth against

Οδυσθήναι, οδύσασθαι, χολωθήναι, θυμωθείναι, οργισθήναι / Odysasthenai. Odysasthai, to be wroth against, angry, enraged.

Οδυσσάμενος, οργισθείς / Odyssamenos. enraged.

These last three words are all derived from the verb Odyssomai / Οδύσσομαι which means to be wroth against, to hate, according to Liddell & Scott, but also to be angry, wroth, incensed, to rage, according to R.J. Cunliffe´s Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect.

As for the etymology of Odysseus, Liddell & Scott´s Greek-English Lexicon tells us that the meaning of Οδυσσεύς is the one "hated by gods and men":

"τί νύ οἱ τόσον ὠδύσαο, Ζεῦ;"
tin y oi toson odysao Zeu?
Where then did you conceive such wrath against him, O Zeus?" 12
Homer Odyssey, 1.62

One thing we need to remember is that Odysseus in Latin becomes Ulysses. More complicated is the question as to why the Greek "D" in Odysseus appears to transform itself into Latin "L" in Ulysses. This might seem to complicate or even demolish part of the etymology we have worked so hard to unfold. Odysseus´ O can be easily explained changing into the Latin U. When we search for the source of the Latin name Ulysses we discover that it is in fact derived from one of the multiple Greek variations to Οδυσσεύς / Odysseus. Odysseus´ name appears in Greek sources alternatively also as Ολυσσεύς/Olysseus, Ολυσεύς/Olyseus, Ολισευς / Olyseus, Ολυτευς / Olyteus, Ολλυτευς / Ollyteus, Ολυττευς/Olytteus, Ολυτές /Olytes, Ουλιξεύς/Oulixeus, Ουλίξης /Oulixees, Ουλιξες /Oulixes, so it is no wonder that in Latin ended up as Ulysses.

Do we have any cases where the dental Greek D appears also as L in the same word? We find the name of the laurel tree daphne / δάφνη which according to Hesechios appears in once dialect at least, in the city of Perge into Laphne:

Λάφνη, δάφνη. Περγαίοι
Laphne, daphne. Pergaioi
Hesechios, Lexicon

We keep in mind that dental d can change into L in other Indo-european languages, since we have dacruma interchange with lacruma, odor with olor, etc 13

Lest we forget, we need to remind ourselves what Petrus Invictus, a.k.a. Perica Sardzoski, a.k.a. Pero, a.k.a. Petro, a.k.a. John Donne said:

"ODI SI means GO AWAY!

Now I am surprised what ODYSSEY means at all!!!"(sic)…"

We look into the "American Heritage dictionary of Indo-EuropeanR" for odi- and we find od-2 which meant "to hate". English derivatives are: annoy, noisome, odium, from Latin odi, hate and Odium, hatred. [Pokorny od-773].

But Petrus Invictus continues:

"So my question is the following: if "ODI SI" means GO AWAY even today in Macedonian, and the form of GONE comes from an older proto-German word "ēode" which is not in use in English as such today, however has transformed into GONE, then if we have "Odyssey" in Homer that means a "journey" or "GOING AWAY", isn't it logical to say that the word is of Slavic or proto-Slavic origin that has entered the Greek, German and other languages since the Slavic linguistic element is one of the primary in the Indo-European linguistic substratum, and has been best preserved into modern day Macedonian language! This curiously makes Macedonian language one of the oldest languages in Europe, a language that supposedly the first authors of the epic Odyssey were using! Maybe the one used with Linear B in the Mycenaean epoch!?!"

The Greek words odyne (pain, suffering) and odyromai (lament) share the same root as the Latin doleo (lament), the Hittite Idalu (evil) and Old Irish Idu (pains), all of which are derived from proto-Indo-European *h1ed- and *h1edwol which seem to indicate affliction and pain or bite. According to J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams, in the Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World, the word for hatred comes from a slightly different *h3ed- indicating hate which gives us the Latin Odi, hate(verb) and Odium, hatred (noun). Old English Atol, meaning atrocious, Greek Odysasthai "be angry at", "hate", Hittite Hatikzi "is terrible" and it underlies the name of the Greek Hero Odysseus. In the Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary, we find the word Odiosus, an adjective, derived from Odium, which means hateful, odious, unpleasant, and offensive and the adverb Odiose, in a hateful maner, odiously.

The Latin adjective Odiosus, as it becomes apparent, is not only linguistically but also etymologically connected to Odysseus.

Despite the overwhelming odds, Perica Sardzoski, a.k.a. Pero, a.k.a Petro etc insists:

"In other words, Homer's Odyssey which means a JOURNEY means the same in modern day Macedonian!

While say JOURNEY in modern Greek is:
journey = ταξίδι (taxidi)
and TO GO is:
go = πηγαίνω (pigaino)
while to WALK is:
walk = περπατώ, περίπατος (perpato, peripatos)

No trace of ODISI or ODYSSEY or EODE or any Indo-European form of the word in the Modern Greek! While everyone knows that Odyssey meant JOURNEY in Homer's time!"

I think we just about had enough of this joke. If we want to know what Homer thought of what Odysseia, Odyssey, Oddyseus´s journey meant to him, he would have explained why he chose this name for his main character, and what that name meant to him. We go to Odyssey 19.408 to hear it from Homer himself, in the speech of Autolykos:

"τὴν δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ Αὐτόλυκος ἀπαμείβετο φώνησέν τε:
"γαμβρὸς ἐμὸς θυγάτηρ τε, τίθεσθ᾽ ὄνομ᾽ ὅττι κεν εἴπω:
πολλοῖσιν γὰρ ἐγώ γε ὀδυσσάμενος τόδ᾽ ἱκάνω,
ἀνδράσιν ἠδὲ γυναιξὶν ἀνὰ χθόνα πουλυβότειραν:
τῷ δ᾽ Ὀδυσεὺς ὄνομ᾽ ἔστω ἐπώνυμον"

Which translates as:

To this Autolykos replied: "the name
I now declare must be the name that you
My son-in-law and daughter are to use:
BECAUSE I COME AS ONE WHO, on his ways,
Across the fertile earth HAS BEEN ENRAGED
BY MANY MEN AND WOMEN, let his name
Now be Odysseus, "son of wreath and pain"

The Odyssey of Homer: a new verse translation
By Homer, Allen Mandelbaum, Maria Luisa De Romans, page 401

Having heard Homer, now the last word goes to Pero:

"However, Macedonian language has preserved the original form in its true meaning!

ODI SI - GO AWAY"

We are leaving, but before we leave, we need to give Petrus Invictus, a.k.a. Perica Sardzoski, a.k.a. Pero, a.k.a. Petro, a.k.a. John Donne a gift, with Cassandra´s warning:

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes »,
as Virgil said, speaking of Odysseus´ Trojan horse:

"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!"

Petrus invictus had prepared us in the beginning with a poetic forewarning about truth, something he did not seem to follow himself, unfortunately:

"Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man
who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another."

I found the original quote in Homer (Iliad 9.312-313). Here is the first of the two lines, and right below is the transliterated text:

ἐχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς Ἀΐδαο πύλῃσιν
echthros gar moi keinos, omos Aidao pylesin

We sat down and made a translation just for Pero. The catch is, we did not try to make it poetic, but only used words of Modern Greek that are already found in the Homeric text, words spoken almost three thousand (3000) years ago. Here is our translation of the first line, followed by the transliterated text:

εχθρός μου είναι κείνος, όμοιος με Άδου πύλες
echthros mou ein´ keinos, omoios me Adou pyles

It is actually very easy, even for someone who has no idea of Greek to make the comparison. Here below follows the second line:

ὅς χ´ ἕτερον μὲν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ
οs ch´ eteron keuthe eni phresin, allo de eipe

όποιος αλλότερο κρύβει στο νού του, κι´ άλλο θα ειπεί
opoios allotero kryvei sto myalo, ki´allo tha eipe

Homer/Iliad 9.312-313

Then we put our word-to-word, indeed utterly un-poetic, Modern Greek translation of the Homeric text using Homeric Greek words to the Google translator test. Here is what "the machine" came out with:

"my enemy is him, similar to Hades Gates
allotero which hides in his mind, and else it will say"
"translation" by "Google Translator"

This is not how a native speaker would translated it, but the Google translator did what was asked: it translated all the words, using the Modern Greek words in its linguistic arsenal.

With the exception of "allotero" (a mix of "allo" and "eteron") all other words passed the Google translator test and the meaning is more or less understood. Had we used the Pontian or another, equally conservative dialect, "eteron" could have used unaltered. Now we want to see Pero translate the same text, using only Slavomakedonski words allegedly found in Homer, then have Google translate whatever he comes up with into English...and make sense too!

If Pero can´t do this, we will gracefully ask him to "Odi Si" and to leave the Greek language and the Classics alone...
If he cannot, we will have to do it for him!

END OF PART TWO - To be continued.

NOTES AND REFERENCES:

1. Homer's Slavic Character, http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2204957887&topic=4435

2. Λεηλασία φρονημάτων, Ιωάννου Κολιόπουλου, Thessalonike 1995.

3. http://www.macedonians.com.au/forum/showthread.php?2926-Vasil-Iljov-in-quot-Nova-Makedonija-quot-daily-16-III-2009-%28excerpts%29

4. Vasil Iljov,"Najstari svedoštva za makedonskata pismena tradicija" ("Oldest Testimonies About the Tradition of Macedonian Literacy"), "Nova Makedonija" daily, No 21639 , 16.03.2009

5. http://issuu.com/eismakedon/docs/boshevski_and_tendov_s_egyptian_illusions

6. http://maktruth.blogspot.com/2008/03/macedonian-orthodox-church-promotes.html

7. http://www.allempires.net/the-slavic-element-in-homers-epics_topic24650.html Posted: 14-Jun-2008 at 11:32

8. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/czardom

9. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/odyssey

10. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BF%CE%B4%CF%8D%CE%BD%CE%B7

11. http://wordinfo.info/units/view/1452/page:6/ip:2/il:O

12. ὠδύσαο. A play upon the name "Ὀδυσσεύς", which, according to this etymology, might be translated ´a man of wrath´; with the double signification of enduring the wrath of the gods, or dealing wrath to his enemies. Cp. Od.19. 275; 407 foll. Roscher (Curt. Stud. 4. 196 foll.), referring to the forms "Ὀδύξης", Ulixes, supposes the stem to be "δυκ", Lat. dux. Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901

13. http://campus.usal.es/~revistas_trabajo/index.php/0544-3733/article/view/2658/2701

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