Greek word for \"foederati\"

[Jona Lendering]

A simple question, but I cannot find the answer. What is the Greek word to describe the foederati of the Late Roman / Early Byzantine Empire?

[Robert Vermaat]

As usual my Greek is lousy but here's how you spell it:

[attachment=3357]foederati.jpg[/attachment]

[Kai]

The question is not simple; it is - on the contrary - difficult to answer. Phoideratoi, the Greek transliteration of foederati was still used in a technical sense by Procopius, although it meant something different than it did in the past. In his view his contemporary Phoideratoi were Roman soldiers of Barbarian origin in the regular army under Roman commanders.
If they fought under their own commanders, Procopius usually speaks of symmachoi, which is unfortunately a term he also uses un-technically for a variety of alliances.
Speaking of foreign groups settled on Roman ground in exchange for military service (under their own commanders), he uses the term enspondoi. This is the closest Greek equivalent to the foederati in the OLD meaning, which is also evidenced by Malchos, so it might be the thing you are looking for.
The volume Kingdoms of the Empire, edited by W. Pohl, includes three papers dealing on that question in detail, that of Heather, Chrysos, and Pohl himself.

The general problem is that terms change their meanings quite a lot over time... (and that authors were not always interested in presenting technical correct terms)

Regards

PS: I did not come across the hypospondoi, which Robert’s citation mentions, but that term seems close enough to enspondoi anyway.

[Jona Lendering]

Thanks gentlemen.

I was asking because a quack historian wrote that quraish (the name of the tribe of Muhamad) could be derived from the Greek word for foederati. I suspect it's nonsense; even if the etymology is possible, we wouldn't know, because in Semitic languages you cannot discern the real and the fake connections (more).

[Macedon]

781.) Φοιδεράτοι: οὕτω καλοῦσι Ῥωμαῖοι τοὺς ὑποσπόνδους τῶν
Σκυθῶν.

Suda, Lexicon. Alphabetic letter phi entry 781 line 1.


τῇ Νέπωτος γυναικὶ συγγενεῖ οὔσῃ συσπεύδουσα. 4. Ὅτι ἐν τῷ ἑξῆς ἔτει ἐπὶ Ζήνωνος πρέσβεις ἦλθον ἐκ Θρᾴκης τῶν ὑποσπόνδων Γότθων, οὓς δὴ καὶ φοιδεράτους οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι καλοῦσιν

Constantinus VII Porphyrogenitus Imperator Hist. et Scr. Eccl., De legationibus. Page 571 line 28.

These are two direct quotes as to the name. To the Greeks it was a pure Latin word. How is the word quraish even pronounced?

[Lyceum]

Thanks gentlemen.

I was asking because a quack historian wrote that quraish (the name of the tribe of Muhamad) could be derived from the Greek word for foederati. I suspect it's nonsense; even if the etymology is possible, we wouldn't know, because in Semitic languages you cannot discern the real and the fake connections (more).

That's pretty damn impossible. For a start Greek lost its kw series of sounds in the late bronze/early iron age and given their preponderance in Arabic one would assume no real reason for them to get muddied in translation...

You would need to find a series of consistent parallels where a Greek consonant could unequivocally equate to one in Arabic in a given circumstance for each of the consonants involved. I avoid vowels because of the nature of most Semitic languages (i.e tri-consonantal stems with changing vowels to mark various things). In fact we know quite a bit about how Greek handled Semitic imports due to large borrowings etc but that is impossible...

Now on the other hand one could argue that it may well be a calque or something but that in itself is problematic for other reasons. I can't really see how this would work. Honestly it just looks like an Arabic word to me, but I'm a Hellenist so my knowledge of Arabic is pretty small outside what I can guess from what other languages we get exposed too.

[Jona Lendering]

That's pretty damn impossible.

Exactly. But there's one caveat. The theory is so completely and utterly unlikely, that it must have occured to the writer himself. (Hey, I still believe in human intelligence; perhaps a bit outmoded, but nevertheless.) Assuming that the author is not a complete fool, it is possible that I am just missing a point.

Nevertheless, I am increasingly convinced that he is plain wrong.

[Epictetus]

If you happen to know anyone who is an expert in Arabic, you might ask them about quraish. It seems like our Greek experts don't think it likely, but it might be interesting to see it from the perspective of the other language.

[Lyceum]

Hm I don't think I know anybody who would fit the bill, the one person whom I know studying Greek and Arabic (Philosophy)...well...we're not on speaking terms right now. Or ever actually.

I don't think they'd say anything different though to be honest, it takes a massive jump in logic to make that connection. Greek is reasonably good at preserving Latin phonology (actually often much better than the Romance languages...) so there is no real chance for corruption there. There are quite a few Arabic words in modern Greek (which shares LOTS of phonological similarities with the early med. period) so we can obviously view it from that end.

However the problem is you require an /f/ sound to be heard by an Arab as /kwh/ before we discuss problems with any other syllable there. Which is odd. On the other hand we know that these labiovelar sounds are pretty prominent in most Semitic languages and I do bet that if someone had an etymological Arabic dictionary it might even give us the route.

[Macedon]

I do not know what the word "quraish" is meant to mean in Arabic which could help is such a discussion. Yet, the sound "koo" is very productive in Greek (if it is pronounced "koo" rather than "kv" or "kw" (kg). These I would only see in compound words like from the prefix ek- plus a word starting off from v,w,f etc (e.g. ekvallo, ekvoitho, ekvaino, ekgonos, ekgrapho, ekfairo klp)). If there was any word one looked for that seemed to sound similar it could be "kouris" (some kind of knife (maybe even short sword) or "kouros" (a young man). I do not know of any word that has to do with the Foideratoi that sounds similar (maybe someone someplace called them "boyz!" or something?) but then I also do not know what the clan-name is supposed to mean either... On the other hand "kurais" would be "of the young women", although that does not sound too manly for an Arabian clan...

Anyways, it sometimes awfully sounds like the efforts of some Greeks to find a Greek "root" in every word there is out there. Was it in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where the uberGreek dad tried to persuade his audience that the word "kimono" was Greek because "it was a garment to be worn during the khimona (winter)"?

[Epictetus]

I thought that someone with an understanding of Arabic might know, because it seems to me that an expert in a language would know the origins of many of the words they study. For instance, a native English speaker might be able to say this English word came from French and that one from Latin. But could that person say which languages have words that derived from English?

So if the question is the origin of an Arabic word, perhaps an Arabic speaker would have an idea of how to approach it.

Just an idea.

[Jona Lendering]

If you happen to know anyone who is an expert in Arabic, you might ask them about quraish. It seems like our Greek experts don't think it likely, but it might be interesting to see it from the perspective of the other language.

I ought to have given this link above: http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/2012/03...fectively/

[Sean Manning]

An Anglicized, pseudo-Greek Dutch word (En. gorpize <= Gr. *γορπίζω <= Dutch Gorp) seems like an appropriate name for abusing etymology!

[Lyceum]

If you happen to know anyone who is an expert in Arabic, you might ask them about quraish. It seems like our Greek experts don't think it likely, but it might be interesting to see it from the perspective of the other language.

I ought to have given this link above: http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/2012/03...fectively/

You know we use phrases like that so often we tend to forget from whence they originate from. I think trying to fit a Greek etymology to a word that clearly isn't Greek is a good example of this. Though Macedon's example was the best and most succinct one (and one which most teachers will refer you to). Unfortunately that kind of reasoning is all too common in certain places.

That was an interesting article. I do believe there is some confusion as to the Semitic languages, etymology is not at all an unscientific process, things have moved on (at least in the ancient middle east not affected by biblical studies) and though it doesn't quite work in the same why scholars are quite able to show Semitic etymologies, otherwise for starters we wouldn't be able to read all the cool texts that we have. Not that my grasp of Semitic languages is worth much, for an early Greek scholar I'm woefully inadequate in that area.

Not that etymology is always a helpful tool, I gave an example here fairly recently how "cohors" is actually derived from a word meaning "garden enclosure" and pointed out that such knowledge is pretty useless for dealing with anything Roman military. Looking at early Greek words you get quite a lot of that, where securely attested etymologies are made almost offbeat by semantic displacement. Which is really quite cool, I admit, but often not very useful unfortunately, especially in the IE language group. Look at Luwian!

EDIT: reading through some more of the site, it's actually quite cool, especially some of the "common errors" especially 17 re Alexander and Persepolis, the idea of it as a concerted, rational, action is certainly picking up weight amongst historians, especially now that we understand the religio-cultural significance of the buildings to the Persians etc. Nice.

[rome_enthusiast]

I think you might be missing the point actually.

I assume the "crackpot" you're referring to is Christop Luxenberg and his "Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Qur'an"? His claim isn't that "Quraysh" is derived from the Greek for "foederati," but that it's derived from the Syriac word for "gathering," which therefore suggests the possibility that it refers to the Arab foederati rather than a specific tribe.

It's actually a worthwhile question. Does anyone else have anything that might be relevant here?