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

Abstract

This article deals with a quadrilingual lexicon from a unique manuscript in the Bibliothèque 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.

Notes

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 Supplément persan 1 à 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 Bibliothèque nationale, IV (Paris 1934) no. 2139/2.

3 N. Serikoff, ‘«Баба у него – бабус!» (османский словарь-разговорник XV в.)’, in I. V. Zaitsev and S. F. Oreshkova (eds), Turcica et Ottomanica: сб. в честь 70-летия М. С. Мейера (Moscow 2006) 319–28.

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

5 See for instance: N. Nikolskii, Речь тонкословия греческого. Русско-греческие разговоры XV–XVI века (Saint Petersburg 1896); M. Vasmer, Ein russisch-byzantiniches Gesprachbuch. Beiträge zur Еrforschung dеr Älterеn russischen Lеxikographiе (Leipzig 1922); Eine Sprachlehre von der Hohen Pforte. Ein arabisch-persisch-griechisch-serbisches Gesprächslehrbuch vom Hofe des Sultans aus dem 15. Jahrhundert als Quelle für die Geschichte der serbischen Sprache. Beiträgen von Timan Berger, Christoph Correll, Günther S. Henrich und Werner Lehfeldt (Cologne and Vienna 1989).

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

7 D. Tompaïdes, Ελληνικά επώνυμα τουρκικής προέλευσης (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 ζαρκουλᾶ in Du Cange 458 and LBG 641 is incorrect: see R. Shukurov, ‘On some oriental borrowings in Middle Greek (11th-15th centuries)’, in Change in the Byzantine World in the 12th–13th Centuries. First International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium (Istanbul 2010) 154–5, and Idem, ‘Ζαρκολᾶς и ζαρκουλᾶς: два османских заимствования в среднегреческом’, in I. V. Zaitsev and S. F. Oreshkova (eds), Османский мир и османистика. Сборник статей к 100-летию со дня рождения А.С. Тверитиновой (1910–1973) (Moscow 2010) 511–15. Cf. G. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica (Leiden 1983) II, 129.

9 As shown by Maidhof, Gk. μα[ϊ]μοῦ is not a reverse borrowing: A. Maidhof, ‘Rückwanderer aus den islamitischen Sprachen im Neugriechischen (Smyrna und Umgebung)’, Glotta: Zeitschrift für griechische und lateinische Sprache 10 (1920) 14.

10 S. Byzantios, Λεξικόν της καθ’ ημάς ελληνικής διαλέκτου, μεθερμηνευμένης εις το αρχαίον ελληνικόν και το γαλλικόν (Athens 1874) 466.

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

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

13 For some Iranian names with the root fīl 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 ältesten Versionen (Vienna 1971) 112 (G II 390), cf. 113 (Z III 626): χαριντζίρισσα.

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