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Oriental borrowings in Medieval Greek: new evidence from the BnF manuscript Supplément persan 939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2016

Rustam Shukurov*
Affiliation:
Moscow State University

Extract

This article deals with a quadrilingual lexicon from a unique manuscript in the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris, which was compiled in 1439 and contains abundant material on Medieval Greek vocabulary and phraseology. The article analyses Oriental loan-words in the Greek part of the lexicon as evidence of Oriental influences on the Greek language during the late Byzantine period.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2015 

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References

1 My work in the Manuscript Department of BnF was made possible by the generous help of ‘Fondation maison des sciences de l'homme’. I offer my sincerest gratitude to the Foundation, and especially to Mme Sonia Colpart. I am also indebted to Peter Mackridge for his valuable comments and suggestions.

2 F. Richard, Catalogue des manuscrits persans, II: Le Supplemént persan 1 1000 (Rome 2009) no. 939/II. See also Blochet's old catalogue containing additional information not repeated by Richard: E. Blochet, Catalogue des manuscrits persans de la Bibliothque nationale, IV (Paris 1934) no. 2139/2.

3 N. Serikoff, , in I. V. Zaitsev and S. F. Oreshkova (eds), Turcica et Ottomanica: M. C. Meuepa (Moscow 2006) 319–28.

4 One may note the following inaccuracies in Serikoff's reading of the colophon (p. 320 note 9): 1) instead of, is omitted, 3) the date is mistakenly read as 2 Sha'ban 884 (19 October 1479). However, the date is referred to correctly in Blochet, Catalogue, 93.

5 See for instance: N. Nikolskii, (Saint Petersburg 1896); M. Vasmer, Ein russisch-byzantiniches Gesprachbuch. Beitrdge zur Erforschung der Alteren russischen Lexikographie (Leipzig 1922); Eine Sprachlehre von der Hohen Pforte. Ein arabisck-persisch-griechisch-serbisches Gespädchslehrbuch vom Hofe des Sultans aus dem IS. Jahrhundert als Quelle für die Geschichte der serbischen Sprache. Beitrdgen von Timan Berger, Cbristoph Correll, Gunther S. Henrich und Werner Lehfeldt (Cologne and Vienna 1989).

6 Golden, P. B. (ed.), The King's Dictionary: The Rasulid Hexaglot - Fourteenth Century Vocabularies in Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Greek, Armenian and MongolGoogle Scholar, tr. Halasi-Kun, T., Golden, P. B., Ligeti, L., and Schiitz, E. (Leiden 2000); Golden, P. B., ‘Byzantine Greek elements in the Rasulid Hexaglot’, in Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, V (1985 [1987]) 41–166.Google Scholar

7 D. Tompaϊdes, (Athens 1990) 48.

8 Ducas, Historia Turco-Byzantina (1341–1462), ed. V. Grecu (Bucharest 1958) XXIII, 9 (179.19-26); A. Pertusi, La caduta di Costantinopli, I: Le testimonianze dei contemporanei (Verona 1976) 166.484; Leonardus Chiensis Mitylenaeus Archiepiscopus, ‘Notitia’, PG 159, col. 942. The definition of in Du Cange 458 and LBG 641 is incorrect: see R. Shukurov, ‘On some oriental borrowings in Middle Greek (llth–15th centuries)’, in Change in the Byzantine World in the 12th–13th Centuries. First International Sevgi Goniil Byzantine Studies Symposium (Istanbul 2010) 154–5, and Idem, , in I. V. Zaitsev and S. F. Oreshkova (eds), (1910–1973) (Moscow 2010) 511–15. Cf. G. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica (Leiden 1983) II, 129.

9 As shown by Maidhof, Gk. is not a reverse borrowing: A. Maidhof, ‘Ruckwanderer aus den islamitischen Sprachen im Neugriechischen (Smyrna und Umgebung)’, Glotta: Zeitschrift fur griechiscbe und lateinische Sprache 10 (1920) 14.Google Scholar

10 Byzantios, S., (Athens 1874) 466.Google Scholar

11 Possibly the word entered Turkic languages through the mediation of an Iranian language: Doerfer, G., Tiirkische und Mongolische Elemente in Neupersischen, II (Wiesbaden 1965) 512–19; E. V. Sevortyan, , III (Moscow 1980) 120–2.Google Scholar

12 For attempts to etymologize the name see G. Stickler, Manuel Philes und seine Psalmenmetaphrase [Dissertationen der Universitat Wien, vol. 229] (Vienna 1992) 12–14, 18–19.

13 For some Iranian names with the root fil see F. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch (Marburg 1895) 100, 252.

14 J. Mavrogordato (ed.), Digenes Akrites (Oxford 1956) 28.82; E. Trapp (ed.), Digenes Akrites: Synoptische Ausgabe der dltesten Versionen (Vienna 1971) 112 (G II 390), cf. 113 (Z III 626): .

15 Trapp (ed.), Digenes Akrites, 112 (E 260); Jeffreys, E. (ed.), Digenis Akritis. The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions (Cambridge 1998) 258 (E 269).Google Scholar