Misplaced Pages

#190809

60-443: Isaac began construction of the monastery, which was meant as his residence and final resting place, sometime before 1152. The site, known as Bera ( Greek : Βήρα , from a Slavic word for "marsh") was then uninhabited and densely overgrown location, but the main church ( katholikon ) was apparently erected on the remains of an earlier, possibly ancient Roman building. Isaac drafted its regulations ( typikon ) himself, with those of

120-577: A Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered

180-403: A sebastokrator Andronikos and his wife, the sebastokratorissa Anna, but the two Andronikoi are most likely distinct persons. Andronikos is also reported as the father of another son, John Doukas, who is mentioned only in a list of participants for a Church synod on 6 March 1166. He is also recorded as having a daughter Maria, and possibly a second daughter Anna. If their mother was Irene,

240-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

300-508: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

360-590: A lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and

420-400: A limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in the nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by

480-459: A mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and a fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes ,

540-460: A state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that

600-617: A very favourable treatment of Andronikos in both the Alexiad and in the works of the two court poets, who belonged to the Empress-mother's court circle. His wife Irene, in all likelihood a Slavic princess, was possibly the daughter of Volodar of Peremyshl , whom the Primary Chronicle indicates as being the subject of marriage negotiations between Alexios and Volodar in 1104. She had an exceptional beauty according to

660-933: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Andronikos Komnenos (son of Alexios I) Andronikos Komnenos ( Greek : Ἀνδρόνικος Κομνηνός ; 18 September 1091 – 1130/31)

SECTION 10

#1732782575191

720-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

780-632: Is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near the Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in

840-589: The Bosporus , the ship carrying the body and its entourage was nearly sunk by a sudden storm, but arrived safely in the capital. Following an elaborate public funeral, he was probably buried in the Monastery of Christ Philanthropos , alongside his father. Michael Italikos and Theodore Prodromos each wrote a monody in his honour, and Prodromos also wrote another long poem to console his mother Irene Doukaina. His close relationship with his sister and mother has ensured

900-562: The British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in

960-657: The European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek

1020-519: The Evros river in the area, for whose upkeep the monastery's abbot was made responsible. In winter 1183/84, Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos ( r.  1183–1185 ), Isaac's son, visited the monastery where his father was buried. In April 1195, the deposed emperor Isaac II Angelos ( r.  1185–1195, 1203–1204 ) was blinded there. In the partition of the Byzantine Empire after

1080-474: The Fourth Crusade , Bera fell to the individual Crusaders' share, and came under the control of Geoffrey of Villehardouin , who sent his nephew Anseau de Courcelles to take over the monastery and his other fiefs in the region. In the 1300s, an abbot by the name of John is attested. Gradually, the monastery became the core of a larger settlement, which due to the endemic wars of the 14th century became

1140-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

1200-909: The Komnenos dynasty : his father Alexios I on the left on the northern side, and possibly his older brother Andronikos on the right; and his oldest brother John II Komnenos left and Isaac himself on the right on the southern side. Surviving frescoes include representations of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple , the Pentecost , the Communion of the Apostles , the Theotokos praying, prelates and prophets, and six-winged seraphs . The cover of Isaac's tomb survives, but its original location within

1260-540: The Theotokos Euergetis Monastery at Constantinople as his model. Isaac stipulated it as a cenobitic monastery for 74 monks, of whom 50 choir brothers (free from menial labour and dedicated to the church services), all over 30 years old. Eunuchs were explicitly barred. The monastery was under the local metropolitan bishopric of Trajanopolis . The complex was surrounded by a double fortified wall, with fortified gates and towers, of which only

SECTION 20

#1732782575191

1320-780: The United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout the Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to

1380-468: The genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in the ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in

1440-400: The katholikon was restored and reconsecrated as a church in 1940. The main surviving structure is the large main church ( katholikon ), a modified cross-in-square church. The building measures 23×17 m and is 17 m high. On its southeastern corner, there is a brick decoration with an eagle motif. The narthex on the western side has been destroyed. Apart from the main entrance on

1500-417: The syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow the noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However,

1560-566: The 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

1620-544: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

1680-549: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

1740-593: The Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek

1800-594: The Younger , on the throne, rather than his older brother, John II Komnenos . Nevertheless, John pardoned him and allowed him to remain at court. In 1122, he again led troops in his brother's campaign against the Pechenegs . According to a monody by Michael Italikos , he was crucial in turning the tide of the battle and securing a victory for the Byzantines, by rallying the retreating troops, and even threatening

1860-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

Theotokos Kosmosoteira - Misplaced Pages Continue

1920-518: The army's standard-bearer with immediate execution if he did not stand his ground. According to another monody by Theodore Prodromos , he also participated in John II's victorious expedition against Stephen II of Hungary in 1129. He died following a long illness in Asia Minor in 1130 or 1131. His mother and Nikephoros Bryennios escorted his body to Constantinople . During the crossing of

1980-479: The arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During the older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from

2040-411: The church is unknown. 40°53′38″N 26°10′13″E  /  40.8940°N 26.1704°E  / 40.8940; 26.1704 Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within

2100-796: The country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine ,

2160-495: The court poet Theodore Prodromos . She was also a patron of the arts, and she commissioned the Synopsis Chronike of Constantine Manasses . Varzos dated her death to around 1122, but modern scholars now date her death to 1153. The couple had one known child, Alexios, who died in childhood shortly before his mother, around 1120. It is possible that Andronikos remarried, as a poem from Codex marcianus 524 records

2220-441: The dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before

2280-503: The dome supports in the main walls of the tabernacle and on two column pairs (possibly spolia ), the interior is large and spacious, an effect enhanced by the many windows piercing the dome. The main dome is surrounded by four smaller ones on the corners of the building. The 12th-century frescoes are an excellent example of the contemporary Constantinopolitan School. On the northern and southern walls are large representations of military saints, with features borrowed from Isaac's relatives of

2340-528: The earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of the Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of

2400-412: The extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English

2460-509: The fortified town of Feres, where the local peasants sought refuge during invasions and civil wars of the period. The monastery functioned until the mid-14th century. Bera was conquered by the Ottomans under Lala Shahin Pasha in the early 1370s, and by 1433, the katholikon church had been converted into a mosque, by the name Suleyman Pasha Mosque. After the area became part of Greece in 1920,

Theotokos Kosmosoteira - Misplaced Pages Continue

2520-453: The interior can be traced: it apparently had a roughly hexagonal form, with towers at each corner, of which three survive in relatively good shape. It included a cistern, mill, and library, as well as a 36-bed hospital for the elderly and a bathhouse open to use by the local villagers. To support its operation and ensure its financial independence, Isaac endowed the monastery with extensive estates across Thrace . Isaac also built two bridges over

2580-449: The language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to the modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows

2640-467: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

2700-831: The left wing of his father's army at the Battle of Philomelion against the Seljuk Turks . During the battle he led a daring pursuit of the Turks, capturing the tent of the Sultan of Iconium , Malikshah . In the Alexiad this feat is accompanied with Andronikos' epitaph , which has led several scholars to erroneously claim that he was killed during the battle. When Alexios lay dying in August 1118, due to his close relationship with his sister, Andronikos sided with Anna and his mother, who schemed to place Anna's husband, Nikephoros Bryennios

2760-452: The many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is

2820-465: The morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks the infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of

2880-495: The narrative of the Alexiad , written by his oldest sister Anna Komnene , seems to indicate that in 1116 he was still an adolescent, which would put his birth around the year 1099/1100. Following the death of his uncle Isaac Komnenos sometime in 1102–04, he succeeded him to the high title of sebastokrator . According to Zonaras , this followed his marriage, which occurred after he came of age. In 1116, Andronikos commanded

2940-643: The regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of

3000-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

3060-407: The western side, there is a side door in the middle of the northern wall. The building shows extensive later repairs on the central apse and the prothesis , as well as the addition of four external buttresses. The roof is covered in lead sheets, as ordained by Isaac himself. The interior space is dominated by the large dome on a twelve-sided base. Through a clever architectural arrangement that hides

SECTION 50

#1732782575191

3120-582: Was a Byzantine prince and military commander. The second-born son of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos , he was named sebastokrator and participated in the Battle of Philomelion against the Seljuk Turks . He opposed the succession of his older brother John II Komnenos to the throne in 1118, but was allowed to remain at court, and served in at least two of John II's campaigns in the Balkans. He died of an illness in 1130/31. His wife and offspring are relatively obscure, and may have died early. Andronikos Komnenos

3180-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

3240-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

3300-556: Was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and

3360-485: Was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in

3420-569: Was the fourth child and second son of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos ( r.  1081–1118 ) and Empress Irene Doukaina , and was named after his maternal grandfather . As his parents were reigning at the time of his birth, he was accorded the appellation porphyrogennetos . The commonly accepted date of his birth is that given by the Codex Mosquensis 53/147 manuscript, 18 September 1091, but according to Skoulatos,

3480-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

3540-637: Was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to

3600-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

#190809