Ebarthenos

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  • That's fine; I do not imagine that your attempt to revise the last 2, 000 years of Coptic language history, or your attempt to deny what is a common feature of many languages and one that would be noted by any linguist, to be something easy for you.
  • [quote author=Amoussa01 link=topic=5993.msg80157#msg80157 date=1197260253]
    For example: why on earth would i take an english word and "arabicize" it? what benefit do i get from that? It then becomes neither english nor arabic, so what is the meaning of this?

    While I think the pronounciation of hymns (e.g. the Trisagion), large portions thereof (e.g. I Aghapi), or petitions (e.g. "Doxa Patri...."), that are entirely Greek, should correspond with that particular language, I have to agree with Iqbal on the subject of loan words (and names for that matter).

    Given that English, despite its Germanic roots, is made up almost entirely of Greek and Latin, you'd have a pretty hard time constructing a single sentence were you to say each word it it's original form.

    It's impractical and disrupts the natural flow and sound of the language, which would make for ackward speech and appalling hymnography.
  • Dear orthodox11,
    Well done; so when you do agree with Iqbal, why don't you change the subject of your reply to I barthenos, to stress out the un-aspirated "p" as it is a Coptic word? Or are you so pro-Greek?
    Mind you, I may need to take many lessons form you in Greek, and don't take what I said as an offence. I am just a person who likes to joke.
    God bless you all and pray for me a lot
  • [quote author=ophadece link=topic=5993.msg80167#msg80167 date=1197299909]
    Well done; so when you do agree with Iqbal, why don't you change the subject of your reply to I barthenos, to stress out the un-aspirated "p"

    For the same reason I would write 'makarios' instead of 'magarios' and 'mitera' instead of 'midera.'

    I hope you're happy with the subject of this last reply.

    I am just a person who likes to joke

    Considering the hymn is entirely in Greek (I said agreed with Iqbal on the subject of loan-words), it's quite clear that you are :D
  • Dear Orthodox11,
    Yeah, I like the subject of your post now :). Let me ask you though; I understand that tav in Coptic is said to be pronounced as "d", as you pointed out saying "midera" rather than "mitera", but did the kappa use to be pronounced as "g" as in egg, or are there any beliefs holding that?
    Would every member give me their views as well?
    God bless you and pray for us a lot
  • [quote author=ophadece link=topic=5993.msg80202#msg80202 date=1197373952]
    I understand that tav in Coptic is said to be pronounced as "d", as you pointed out saying "midera" rather than "mitera", but did the kappa use to be pronounced as "g" as in egg, or are there any beliefs holding that?


    In Greek, both [coptic]t[/coptic] and [coptic]k[/coptic] are generally pronounced without aspiration. This gives sounds similar (but not identical to) a soft D and G respectively.

    You could take the Arabic letter Tah as a reference point (not quite a Teh, not quite a Dal). It's not exactly the same, of course, but helps to illustrate the point.

    Whether the [coptic]K[/coptic] in Coptic would be hard as in the other Semitic languages, or muted as in Greek, I don't know.
  • [quote author=Iqbal link=topic=5993.msg80164#msg80164 date=1197270708]
    That's fine; I do not imagine that your attempt to revise the last 2, 000 years of Coptic language history, or your attempt to deny what is a common feature of many languages and one that would be noted by any linguist, to be something easy for you.


    Let me bring something to your attention. I assume you all know The Father and Patriarch of the Renaissance (Pope Cyril IV), who is also called the "Pope of reformation." Anyway, as you all know or as you all dont know, he had plans in uniting the coptic orthodox church with the greek for this reason, he took some greek hymns and put them in our church. So many of our churche's hymns are greek, allow me to list a few, some not necessarily during the time of Pope Cyril:

    I Parthenos
    Tenen (some verses)
    Khristos Anesty
    Tou lithou
    Ton Sina
    Aripsalin (psali) & more
    Tin Anastasin (said recently)
    And Many more....

    The point that im trying to make, is that these are NOT coptic hymns. They have not been radically changed in terms of adding "flavour" as you so elequently put it. The only difference is that it is written in coptic instead of greek, yet that does not change the fact that they are greek hymns. The words are exactly the same as said in the greek church, except for some minor exclusions which most copts nowadays are ignorant of, such as the "nd" sound instead of the "nt." But i would not go as far to say that we are adding flavor...

    GB
    Tony
  • [quote author=Amoussa01 link=topic=5993.msg80211#msg80211 date=1197401534]
    So many of our churche's hymns are greek, allow me to list a few, some not necessarily during the time of Pope Cyril:

    I Parthenos
    Tenen (some verses)
    Khristos Anesty
    Tou lithou
    Ton Sina
    Aripsalin (psali) & more
    Tin Anastasin (said recently)
    And Many more....

    the hymns that were taken from the Greek church are all here, http://tasbeha.org/hymn_library/cat/232 ...not more than them, as the book says. (actually i think there is maybe 1 or 2 missing....not fully sure)

    Tenen was not taken fromt he church as a full hymn but it was done by Copts who knew Greek...mostly around Alexandria.
    Aripsalin was done by cantor/father Sarkis, a Coptic cantor and priest who wrote it and the church put it as part of her midnight praises.
    and am not sure about the many more ones you can talk about.
    If you wanna count the Roumi/Greek kiahk parts in the vespers praises, those were also written by Cantor Sarkis.


    The point that im trying to make, is that these are NOT coptic hymns. They have not been radically changed in terms of adding "flavour" as you so elequently put it. The only difference is that it is written in coptic instead of greek, yet that does not change the fact that they are greek hymns. The words are exactly the same as said in the greek church, except for some minor exclusions which most copts nowadays are ignorant of, such as the "nd" sound instead of the "nt." But i would not go as far to say that we are adding flavor...

    lol.......of course you're adding flavor. just taken them and constructing a tune for them, that in it's essence is part of flavor. i think you're also ignore all the Greek small response w have in our leturguical services.
  • [quote author=minagir link=topic=5993.msg80214#msg80214 date=1197405571]
    [quote author=Amoussa01 link=topic=5993.msg80211#msg80211 date=1197401534]
    So many of our churche's hymns are greek, allow me to list a few, some not necessarily during the time of Pope Cyril:

    I Parthenos
    Tenen (some verses)
    Khristos Anesty
    Tou lithou
    Ton Sina
    Aripsalin (psali) & more
    Tin Anastasin (said recently)
    And Many more....

    the hymns that were taken from the Greek church are all here, http://tasbeha.org/hymn_library/cat/232 ...not more than them, as the book says.

    Tenen was not taken fromt he church as a full hymn but it was done by Copts who knew Greek...mostly around Alexandria.
    Aripsalin was done by cantor/father Sarkis, a Coptic cantor and priest who wrote it and the church put it as part of her midnight praises.
    and am not sure about the many more ones you can talk about.
    If you wanna count the Roumi/Greek kiahk parts in the vespers praises, those were also written by Cantor Sarkis.


    The point that im trying to make, is that these are NOT coptic hymns. They have not been radically changed in terms of adding "flavour" as you so elequently put it. The only difference is that it is written in coptic instead of greek, yet that does not change the fact that they are greek hymns. The words are exactly the same as said in the greek church, except for some minor exclusions which most copts nowadays are ignorant of, such as the "nd" sound instead of the "nt." But i would not go as far to say that we are adding flavor...

    lol.......of course you're adding flavor. just taken them and constructing a tune for them, that in it's essence is part of flavor. i think you're also ignore all the Greek small response w have in our leturguical services.


    Forgive me minagir but i do not think you understand what is being argued and why. I am not saying we havent applied our own tune to the hymns, obviously we have, but that is not what is being debated here. If you read carefully, we are talking about the way greek is written in coptic, no where do we mention tunes of the hymns, even though we were inspired by their tunes concerning the greek hymns. Second of all, it does not matter who wrote these hymns in this case because: whats greek is greek. Even if it is written in our language, you cant argue that it is not greek. That being said, there are many more things in our church which are entirely greek such as the responses we have in our liturgical services which you have already stated above. Anyway, the reason why i listed some of these was to clarify my point to others.

    GB
    Tony
  • [quote author=Amoussa01 link=topic=5993.msg80216#msg80216 date=1197408024]
    Forgive me minagir but i do not think you understand what is being argued and why. I am not saying we havent applied our own tune to the hymns, obviously we have, but that is not what is being debated here. If you read carefully, we are talking about the way greek is written in coptic, no where do we mention tunes of the hymns, even though we were inspired by their tunes concerning the greek hymns. Second of all, it does not matter who wrote these hymns in this case because: whats greek is greek. Even if it is written in our language, you cant argue that it is not greek. That being said, there are many more things in our church which are entirely greek such as the responses we have in our liturgical services which you have already stated above. Anyway, the reason why i listed some of these was to clarify my point to others.


    i know what we're talking about. and you can't talk about those greek parts without including the reasons they were taken in our church, and that includes there tune. Just think about it.....Muallem Sarkis didn't right FULL greek parts, but rather he wrote greek mixed in with coptic words. he considered the flavor that Iqbal is talking about. yes greek is greek. but that doesn't mean that you cann't still decorate it to match your standards of use.
  • [quote author=minagir link=topic=5993.msg80217#msg80217 date=1197408393]
    [quote author=Amoussa01 link=topic=5993.msg80216#msg80216 date=1197408024]
    Forgive me minagir but i do not think you understand what is being argued and why. I am not saying we havent applied our own tune to the hymns, obviously we have, but that is not what is being debated here. If you read carefully, we are talking about the way greek is written in coptic, no where do we mention tunes of the hymns, even though we were inspired by their tunes concerning the greek hymns. Second of all, it does not matter who wrote these hymns in this case because: whats greek is greek. Even if it is written in our language, you cant argue that it is not greek. That being said, there are many more things in our church which are entirely greek such as the responses we have in our liturgical services which you have already stated above. Anyway, the reason why i listed some of these was to clarify my point to others.


    i know what we're talking about. and you can't talk about those greek parts without including the reasons they were taken in our church, and that includes there tune. Just think about it.....Muallem Sarkis didn't right FULL greek parts, but rather he wrote greek mixed in with coptic words. he considered the flavor that Iqbal is talking about. yes greek is greek. but that doesn't mean that you can still decorate it to match your standards of use.


    First of all, not all the greek in our church is mixed with coptic (consider some of the hymns i listed above). Second, i want you to think about that last sentence you just wrote. I agree with it 100%, however, it seems very contradicting to what your original stance is all about...

    GB
    Tony
  • [quote author=Amoussa01 link=topic=5993.msg80224#msg80224 date=1197413948]
    First of all, not all the greek in our church is mixed with coptic (consider some of the hymns i listed above). Second, i want you to think about that last sentence you just wrote. I agree with it 100%, however, it seems very contradicting to what your original stance is all about...



    yes... ur rit.....i ment the opposite...that's wat happend when ur late for a class and u don't read what you wrote.

    anyways.......yes not all the hymns are mixed, but i only said that refering to some of the ones you were refering to of cantor Sarkis. The were taken for the reason of the thought of unity....and if u think about u can't just leave them as they are, you have to make them coptic. this goes to many things on our church.......we are copts. mnay things we have now in the church are not originally coptic orthodox christian other than the faith, many of the rites, the apostles teachings and the bible.
  • The point that im trying to make, is that these are NOT coptic hymns.

    And the point i've repeatedly made is that once anything of foreign origin becomes incorporated into the Coptic language and expressed through Coptic characters, it becomes Coptic in its own way and should be vocalised according to Coptic pronunciation. The plain fact is that Coptic characters cannot entirely express perfect Greek pronunciation--they can only make it sound so close. If the hymn was intended to be preserved as a perfectly Greek hymn it would have been expressed in the Greek language. Keep in mind also that one of the main considerations of Pope Cyril the fourth's attraction to the Greek is that he apparently thought that consideration of the Greek would give us a better understanding of the original pronunciation of the Coptic. Unfortunately, Pope Cyril was not entirely aware of the fact that the Greek in his day had also undergone considerable change over the centuries.
  • [quote author=Iqbal link=topic=5993.msg80243#msg80243 date=1197439365]

    The point that im trying to make, is that these are NOT coptic hymns.

    Coptic characters cannot entirely express perfect Greek pronunciation--they can only make it sound so close.


    I resent that, after all the coptic alphabet is based on the greek. And if it "cannot" express the greek pronounciation, why not make it sound as close as can be?

    Tony
  • Iqbal, may I ask you, do you think it is funny that you get to keep deleting my post and abusing your authority? Do I not have a right to be heard on this site? This is saddenning. People who say they believe in the Lord Jesus are joing with those who killed our Goal.

    Aripsalin,

    You need to understand the distinction between abusing and exercising my authority. The administrators of this forum are they who decide the responsibilities my moderatorial position entails, and hence what constitutes legitimate exercise of my moderatorial authority, and they can clearly be inferred from the policies that have been posted publically. These policies entail that I have the right to delete/edit posts that insult others (hence the deletion of your anti-Jewish propaganda) as well as posts that intentionally detract from the subject of any given thread (hence the deletion of your posts in this thread). If these policies are not in line with your ideals for a religious discussion forum, then find another forum to participate in, no one is forcing you to post here. But as long as you are here, you agree to abide by the rules of the administrators. If you break the forum rules one more time, you will be banned for good, understand?

    -Iqbal (forum moderator)
  • Dear Amoussa01,
    I think I agree with Iqbal saying that what has entered the Coptic church should be Copticised. As well pointed out by minagir also, we did have Greek replies in the liturgy for thousands of years, and they used to be pronounced in some particular way. It would be a shame to start distinguishing the Greek in those replies (for instance the deacon replies), with the modern Greek pronunciation (or accent) that Mr. Erian Guirguis adopted, and the Greek in those newly borrowed hymns from the Greek. And it would equally be funny if people start asking for proper Greek pronunciation for the Greek replies and hymns (who are as stated above expressed in Coptic more so than Greek) and do without what has been said and done for two thousand years. I am looking forward to your reply.
    God bless you all and pray for us a lot
  • Orphadence, i understand where you are coming from and frankly im just getting sick of arguing this and trying to get my point across. So obviously there is no sense in aruging if neither us are willing to change our views on the subject. But let me just say this....why is this forum called "E Barthenos?" Just because we neglect the greek pronounciation, does that mean we should neglect the coptic as well? I dont care what you guys say or who your sources are, its NOT "E Barthenos." It is "I Parthenos."

    GB
    Tony
  • But let me just say this....why is this forum called "E Barthenos?" Just because we neglect the greek pronounciation, does that mean we should neglect the coptic as well?

    We are not neglecting the Coptic. The Coptic is written [coptic]`Ypar;enoc[/coptic]. As you can see, the first letter is the Eeta not the iota; if we were to transliterate [coptic]`Ypar;enoc[/coptic] is a more pedantic way, we might transliterare it: "Ee-barthenos". We have already explained that the [coptic]p[/coptic] is a non-aspirated p (see Lambdin's Introduction to Sahidic Coptic) and one which hence sounds closer to a b (as per the studies of Bohairic scholar Fr. Shenouda) than an aspirated p.

    I dont care what you guys say or who your sources are, its NOT "E Barthenos." It is "I Parthenos."

    Well, that says it all then doesn't it.

  • lol, Since when do we use the bohairic or sahidic?? Most churches use the greco-bohairic. iqbal, you really have to take what you read in context. Second, i dont want you to take what i said out of context... the reason why i said "i dont care about your sources.." was because i knew that in some way or another you guys are mistaken and here is a good example of yet another mistake.

    Tony

  • Tony,

    Please refer me to the context which establishes that your aim was to preserve the corruption of Coptic unintentionally introduced by St Cyril IV's reform of the language. As I already explained to you --the only reason our Coptic is in the state it is in today is because Pope Cyril IV mistakingly thought that his revisions to Coptic pronunciation would bring it more in line with the ancient pronunciation of Bohairic. Given St Cyril IV's intentions however, it is clear that had he known what scholarship tells us today, he would undoubtedly be advocating Ee Barthenos since that more accurately reflects the very genuine Bohairic St Cyril was aiming for in the first place.

    My goal is to preserve genuine Coptic, not a corruption of it.

    the reason why i said "i dont care about your sources.." was because i knew that in some way or another you guys are mistaken and here is a good example of yet another mistake.

    This makes no sense whatsoever. What exactly are we mistaken on? On the fact your intention is to preserve a modern corruption of Coptic rather than the genuine pronunciation? Well yes, I would be mistaken on that, but in no way did you make clear that such is your intention. The "context" you harp on doesn't exist. And what exactly does that have to do with considering our sources? I don't understand the connection, you are honestly starting to make very little sense to me.
  • iqbal,

    unfortunately, i grow tired of this subject and i do not think there will be an end to this debate. All i want to say is goodluck trying to convince everyone to start using the old bohairic pronounciation!

    P.S. you need to ban aripsalin

    Tony
  • Dear Tony,
    I got your point. Debates are not actually means of changing everyone's views. Rather, they are arguments intended at reaching a correct conclusion, which as you hinted cannot be reached here. I think your last sentence made it clear that you defend something which is not completely right. There is nothing as old Bohairic and new Bohairic. Old Coptic and new Coptic. Coptic has always been the same till it faded away before the seventeenth century, much different than the evolving Greek, which was later mistakenly adopted by Mr Erian Guirguis under the reign of Pope Cyril IV. That shouldn't be the case though. We should learn our language (the Coptic one) our own way, not the Greek way. What happened there and then was a grave mistake, that we cannot rectify now. I would however point you in the direction of REMENKIMI group. Besides Iqbal, I think they have strong views about how the correct Coptic language should be pronounced, and used.
    God bless you and pray for us a lot
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