Bilderberg
Anëtar i ri
(Duke marre parasysh faktin se propaganda anti-shqiptare ne internet eshte shume e perhapur dhe e eger, materjalin e kesaj teme po e le qellimisht ne gjuhen angleze qe te jete e konsultueshme edhe nga te huajt.)
The artificial modern “Greek” Language and Identity !!
The scholars have always been wandering, why the Ancient Greek (Attic dialect) is so different from Koine “Greek”, to that extent that you might call them different languages!
The Koine language shaped up, after the Classical Era and everything started as an human intervention (not natural evolution) after an order of Ptolemy II, the emperor. He thought would be a good idea to create an universal language for the entire empire, whose center was Alexandria.
From place to place, Ancient “Greeks” including the Hellenic Era spoke differently. Namely, the language took another form; it obtained a particular form called a dialect. In Sparta, they had the Doric dialect, in Athens, the Attic and elsewhere another dialect.
Many languages and dialects were spoken within the empire and Alexandria in Egypt was already the cultural center of the Empire in about 281 BC. Ptolemy II (309 BC-246 BC) wanted an universal language to be used only for diplomatic , literature, science and religious purposes.
Thus he assigned Aristeas, an Athenian scholar, to create the grammar of the new language for this kind of needs of the Empire! Aristeas (and the scholars who were assisting him) used the Attic dialect (which was used in Athens) as basis for the new language eliminating the Attic idiosyncrasies. The Spartan Doric, however, was excluded from it.
So, this new standardized Hellenic language, (called Koine or Common) was very different from the spoken one at that point that some scholars call it New Artificial Language. Simple people in those times don’t spoke this new invented language, but they spoke a different language with diffrent dialects!
This new language was far from perfect. First it was an written language, created on paper without the means to be spoken. Native people and non-native encountered difficulties reading it since there was no way to separate words, sentences and paragraphs and especially because they encountered too many made-up words and grammatical rules. In addition, they were unable to express their feelings and the right intonation. The system of paragraphs, sentences, and some symbols like ~ . ; ` ’ ! , were the late results of continuous improvement and enhancement of the language with the contribution of many scholars from all over the World.
The Hellenic city states did engage in considerable commerce with other civilizations such as Phoenecians, Etruscans, Hitties, Egyptians, Persians, Jews etc., and as a fact "citizens" only formed a minority of the total residents of the city states, with the rest composed of foreigners or slaves!
There were a few alphabets employed by various City States, and these alphabets included letters specific to the sounds of their particular dialect, that weren’t used by other City States . There were 2 main categories, the Eastern and the Western alphabets. The first official alphabet omitted all letters not in use any longer ( sampi, qoppa, digamma also known as stigma in “Greek” numbering) and it presented a 24-letter alphabet for the new Koinē language. However, the inclusion and use of small letters took place over a period of many centuries after the standardization of Koinē.
After the new language was completed with its symbols, the Jews of Egypt felt that it was an opportunity for them to translate their sacred books into Koine since it was one of the languages that the Jews of Diaspora use. So on the island of Pharos, by Alexandria’s seaport, 72 Jewish rabbis were secluded and isolated as they translated their sacred books (Torah, Nevi’im, Ketuvim, etc.) from Aramaic and Hebrew to the Koinē , the newly created language. This is known as the Septuagint translation. Even the Jews spoke and wrote the Koine and also use Hellenic coins, but these facts don’t make them “Greek “ or Hellenes ! Balkans and Asia Minor were not Hellenized linguistically, in spite of the Hellenic colonies and “Hellenized” elites!
The Koinē “evolved”, and in about 2 to 3 centuries it became the language that Biblical scholars call Biblical “Greek”. In fact, only those who have studied the Attic dialect can understand the difference between the Septuagint “Greek” and the “Greek” of the New Testament.
The 3 Synoptic Gospels were written in Koinē with the insertion of some Semitic grammatical concepts (i.e. the Hebrew genitive) and invented words (i.e. epiousios).
Ancient Koine, (which has its roots in ancient Attica), was popularized by Alexander the Great when he made it his international language of trade and commerce for his vast Empire. In Classical Hellenic Era even the Elite of Thracians, Egyptians, Macedonians, Persians, Illyrians, Epiriotes etc were integrated in that culture, but they were not linguistically and culturally Hellenes! Their Elites had Hellenic knowledge of linguistic, cultural and military references, that's true and that's it, because the simple populations don’t have it!!
And this is showed very well by the fact that later Romans didn't identify these populations as Hellens!
During the Roman Empire the Latin language (that was the official administration/ governing language) spread to a great extent in the cities of Eastern Roman Empire, and only in Constantinople and some provinces close to it, a form of the Koine language predominated over the Latin of Old Rome.
According to the early Christian sacred scritpures, Paul (Saul of Tarsus; New Testament), Romans 15:19.), preached his newly founded Christian religion in Durrachium (Albanoi). The cities of Shkoder (Scodra), Vlore (Aulon, Avlonya) and Preveza (Nicopolis), became dioceses of the first Christian bishops of Illyricum. But the Illyrians were very hostile to Christianity and the Illyrian (Albanian) origin emperors Decius and Diocletian ruthlessly persecuted the followers of St.Paul from Tarsus. In 311 AD, extinto nomene Christianorum, the 'name of Christianity vanished' from Epirus and Dalmatia. However, after Constantine's (Illyrian origin) declaration of Christian belief as the imperial religion of Romans, the Catholic bishops established their churches in Praevalis (High Albania) and Macedonia. St.Jerome (Hieronumus) from Dalmatian city of Stridon, translated the Koine Christian scriptures into vulgar Latin.
In the 4-th century AD, as the Empire became Christianized, the term "Hellene" fell into disuse and became redefined by common convention to include people who still worshipped the old gods and studied philosophy in hopes of resisting the new faith of Christianity!
In the final years of the 4-th century AD, Emperor Theodosius I [379-395] made Christianity the sole state religion after subduing the rebellion of an "Hellene" usurper, a westerner named Eugenius. After Theodosius critical decision, less people were willing to call themselves "Hellenes"! For centuries more, the word "Hellene" remained in bad repute, associated with outlawed religious ideas and disloyalty to the state. Koine speakers found the identity of "Romaioi" in place of "Hellene" to be a safe refuge in changing times.
In the 5-th century AD, the Armenians (annexed to the Empire as late as 387 AD ) acquired their own alphabet and began building up a literature of translations from the Classical Hellenic records and the Syriac which strengthened their feelings of national identity. The dominance of Aramaic dialects, of which Syriac is a member, extended throughout Syria, Palestine and Egypt when another element of the population of Empire consisted of Arabs (like the Nabataeans of Petra and the Palmyrenes).
In Egypt, Alexandria was an Hellenic city, but it was officially described as being ad Aegyptum, not in Aegypto, an intrusion into an alien country and Coptic was the language of Egyptian Christianity, while Koine was identified with the alien hierarchy that was imposed by the imperial government. Setting aside the Jewish colony, the bulk of the population continued to speak Egyptian (Coptic) that was gaining ground so by the 6-th century, even some official acts were published in the native tongue. The Koine, Coptic and Aramaic elements would thus have been on a footing of near parity. Compared to the spread of Latin in Gaul and Spain, it must be admitted that the artificial Koine language had made very limited progress between the 3 century BC and the 6-th century AD. This was no doubt due to the fact that Hellenization was centred only and exclusively on cities!
During the 6th century, the Byzantine Empire grew in size and Armies of Emperor Justinian I brought what is now Italy, and parts of North Africa and Spain into the Empire
The strongest ethnographic changes that the Empire witnessed after the 6-th century, started happening a few decades after Justinian's death.
In an oft-quoted passage John of Amida (also known as John of Ephesus) records that in 581: " An accursed people, called Slaonians (Slavs), overran the whole of Empire, and captured the cities, and took numerous forts, and devastated and burnt, and reduced the people to slavery, and made themselves masters of the whole country, and settled in it by main force, and dwelt in it as though it had been their own. By 586, they took the western Peloponnese, Attica and part of today southern Epirus and penetrated to Osum river valley”
Another source, the so-called Chronicle of Monembasia, states that: “ In the year 587-8 the Turkic Avars , with whom the Slavs were usually allied captured all the cities of Empire, Attica and Euboea, and after expelling and destroying the native peoples, they dwelt there. Those who were able to escape their murderous hands were scattered here and there. Thus, the citizens of Patras moved to the district of Reggio in Calabria, the Argives to the island called Orobe, the Corinthians to the island of Aegina”
Justinian II himself moved a great multitude of Slavs (110,000-200,000 ) from Peloponnese to Bithynia and Cappadocia (odiern Turkey) in the 760s AD. Armenians had started immigrating in the 6-th century in Cappadocia and other parts of eastern Asia Minor close to their original homeland, in Thrace, in the region of Pergamon etc. It is impossible to give even a rough approximation of their numbers. Unlike the Slavs, however, the Armenians quickly rose to prominent positions, even to the imperial throne, and dominated the military establishment throughout the Middle Byzantine period.
Constantinople, like all great capitals, was a melting-pot of heterogeneous elements: all seventy-two tongues known to man were represented in it! Another foreign element was provided by military units which in the 6-th century consisted either of barbarians (Germans, Huns, and others) or some of the sturdier provincials like Isaurians, Illyrians and Thracians. Syrian, Mesopotamian and Egyptian monks, who spoke little or not at all Koine, thronged to the capital to enjoy the protection of the Empress Theodora. The ubiquitous Jew earned his living as a craftsman or a merchant. Constantinople had been founded as a centre of latinity in the east and still numbered among its residents many Illyrians, Italians and Africans whose native tongue was Latin as was that of the Emperor Justinian himself. Furthermore, several works of Latin literature were produced at Constantinople, like Priscian's famous Grammar, the Chronicle of Marcellinus and the panegyric of Justin 11 by the African Corippus.
The Empire also possessed a foothold on the southern shore of the Crimea, while the high tableland of the Crimean peninsula was inhabited by Goths.
About Illyrian /Albanian identity in those times:
The written sources mention the Illyrians in Christian History of Euagri (Euagr II, 18) when it talks about Byzantium’s war against the Avars in the year 584, and sources don’t make mention of inhabitants or Slavic clans established in those areas! During those invasions the majestic remotness of Albanian 'White Hills' reinforced the cultural isolation of its people. This outlying mountains of Albania acted always as a natural bulwark and the Adriatic coast below them as a rampart against any foreign invasion. Albanians were the last and the most virile European nation of clans, preserving their doughty love of patriarchal freedom and the extraordinary degree of dignity. During the invasions both Illyrians and Thracian populations mix together and found refuge in the barren hills of Epirus, Thessaly, western Macedonia, Albanian alps and the Adriatic coast. And this is the reason why the early medieval Albanians emerged from the chaos of collapsing western Roman empire as the descendants of the ancient tribes of Dardanes, Albanoi, Paeones, Epiriotes (a.k.a. Molossian) who inhabited Illyria , and as the descendants of Thracians. This fact is showed very well by the recent genetic (DNA) researches and surveys as:
1- "HLA Class I Polymorphism in the Albanian Population"
2- “Survey of anthropological features of the Illyrians"
3- “Haplogroup E3b1a2 as a Possible Indicator of Settlement in Roman Britain by Soldiers of Balkan Origin" Steven C. Bird .
4- "Paleo-mtDNA analysis and population genetic aspects of old Thracian populations from South-East of Romania" etc
Only later during the era of Flavius Heraclius Augustus (575 - 641 AD) that was a Byzantine Emperor of Armenian descent (not hellen), a form of Koine was adopted and preserved replacing the latin, by the Orthodox Church as language of liturgy.
In the 9-th century, after the invasion of Avars and Slavs, all the Balcans was overun by the Turkic Bulgars who were completely Slavicized and Christianized in 865. The medieval Arabs believed that the Caucassian peoples were descendants of Banu Kureish, and the Nordic Sakaliba (Slavs), as well as the Turkic Bashgurd (Bashkirs) and Bulgars were descendants of the giant Yemenites of Ad.
The confusion, the fog created from Byzantine Orthodoxy (that wasn’t interested in national conscience or history) and its numerously artificially elaborated “koine” language was based only on some scholastic concepts (reflected in the language) and ‘covered’ by ‘divine mystery’. We must consider the fact that the educated people of Medieval Era had the conscience of a subject of the Eastern Roman Empire, and they did not considered themselves “Greeks” or Hellens, in it's modern concept of ethnic distinctiveness! The religious elite of the Byzantine Empire had no idea that they were Byzantines, but they regarded themselves as the authentic continuators of the Roman world, not Hellenic! Only educated persons in the East could speak a form of Koine, just as all educated persons in the West spoke Latin, but ordinary people and several populations “ruled” by Byzantine Empire spoke neither!
The artificial modern “Greek” Language and Identity !!
The scholars have always been wandering, why the Ancient Greek (Attic dialect) is so different from Koine “Greek”, to that extent that you might call them different languages!
The Koine language shaped up, after the Classical Era and everything started as an human intervention (not natural evolution) after an order of Ptolemy II, the emperor. He thought would be a good idea to create an universal language for the entire empire, whose center was Alexandria.
From place to place, Ancient “Greeks” including the Hellenic Era spoke differently. Namely, the language took another form; it obtained a particular form called a dialect. In Sparta, they had the Doric dialect, in Athens, the Attic and elsewhere another dialect.
Many languages and dialects were spoken within the empire and Alexandria in Egypt was already the cultural center of the Empire in about 281 BC. Ptolemy II (309 BC-246 BC) wanted an universal language to be used only for diplomatic , literature, science and religious purposes.
Thus he assigned Aristeas, an Athenian scholar, to create the grammar of the new language for this kind of needs of the Empire! Aristeas (and the scholars who were assisting him) used the Attic dialect (which was used in Athens) as basis for the new language eliminating the Attic idiosyncrasies. The Spartan Doric, however, was excluded from it.
So, this new standardized Hellenic language, (called Koine or Common) was very different from the spoken one at that point that some scholars call it New Artificial Language. Simple people in those times don’t spoke this new invented language, but they spoke a different language with diffrent dialects!
This new language was far from perfect. First it was an written language, created on paper without the means to be spoken. Native people and non-native encountered difficulties reading it since there was no way to separate words, sentences and paragraphs and especially because they encountered too many made-up words and grammatical rules. In addition, they were unable to express their feelings and the right intonation. The system of paragraphs, sentences, and some symbols like ~ . ; ` ’ ! , were the late results of continuous improvement and enhancement of the language with the contribution of many scholars from all over the World.
The Hellenic city states did engage in considerable commerce with other civilizations such as Phoenecians, Etruscans, Hitties, Egyptians, Persians, Jews etc., and as a fact "citizens" only formed a minority of the total residents of the city states, with the rest composed of foreigners or slaves!
There were a few alphabets employed by various City States, and these alphabets included letters specific to the sounds of their particular dialect, that weren’t used by other City States . There were 2 main categories, the Eastern and the Western alphabets. The first official alphabet omitted all letters not in use any longer ( sampi, qoppa, digamma also known as stigma in “Greek” numbering) and it presented a 24-letter alphabet for the new Koinē language. However, the inclusion and use of small letters took place over a period of many centuries after the standardization of Koinē.
After the new language was completed with its symbols, the Jews of Egypt felt that it was an opportunity for them to translate their sacred books into Koine since it was one of the languages that the Jews of Diaspora use. So on the island of Pharos, by Alexandria’s seaport, 72 Jewish rabbis were secluded and isolated as they translated their sacred books (Torah, Nevi’im, Ketuvim, etc.) from Aramaic and Hebrew to the Koinē , the newly created language. This is known as the Septuagint translation. Even the Jews spoke and wrote the Koine and also use Hellenic coins, but these facts don’t make them “Greek “ or Hellenes ! Balkans and Asia Minor were not Hellenized linguistically, in spite of the Hellenic colonies and “Hellenized” elites!
The Koinē “evolved”, and in about 2 to 3 centuries it became the language that Biblical scholars call Biblical “Greek”. In fact, only those who have studied the Attic dialect can understand the difference between the Septuagint “Greek” and the “Greek” of the New Testament.
The 3 Synoptic Gospels were written in Koinē with the insertion of some Semitic grammatical concepts (i.e. the Hebrew genitive) and invented words (i.e. epiousios).
Ancient Koine, (which has its roots in ancient Attica), was popularized by Alexander the Great when he made it his international language of trade and commerce for his vast Empire. In Classical Hellenic Era even the Elite of Thracians, Egyptians, Macedonians, Persians, Illyrians, Epiriotes etc were integrated in that culture, but they were not linguistically and culturally Hellenes! Their Elites had Hellenic knowledge of linguistic, cultural and military references, that's true and that's it, because the simple populations don’t have it!!
And this is showed very well by the fact that later Romans didn't identify these populations as Hellens!
During the Roman Empire the Latin language (that was the official administration/ governing language) spread to a great extent in the cities of Eastern Roman Empire, and only in Constantinople and some provinces close to it, a form of the Koine language predominated over the Latin of Old Rome.
According to the early Christian sacred scritpures, Paul (Saul of Tarsus; New Testament), Romans 15:19.), preached his newly founded Christian religion in Durrachium (Albanoi). The cities of Shkoder (Scodra), Vlore (Aulon, Avlonya) and Preveza (Nicopolis), became dioceses of the first Christian bishops of Illyricum. But the Illyrians were very hostile to Christianity and the Illyrian (Albanian) origin emperors Decius and Diocletian ruthlessly persecuted the followers of St.Paul from Tarsus. In 311 AD, extinto nomene Christianorum, the 'name of Christianity vanished' from Epirus and Dalmatia. However, after Constantine's (Illyrian origin) declaration of Christian belief as the imperial religion of Romans, the Catholic bishops established their churches in Praevalis (High Albania) and Macedonia. St.Jerome (Hieronumus) from Dalmatian city of Stridon, translated the Koine Christian scriptures into vulgar Latin.
In the 4-th century AD, as the Empire became Christianized, the term "Hellene" fell into disuse and became redefined by common convention to include people who still worshipped the old gods and studied philosophy in hopes of resisting the new faith of Christianity!
In the final years of the 4-th century AD, Emperor Theodosius I [379-395] made Christianity the sole state religion after subduing the rebellion of an "Hellene" usurper, a westerner named Eugenius. After Theodosius critical decision, less people were willing to call themselves "Hellenes"! For centuries more, the word "Hellene" remained in bad repute, associated with outlawed religious ideas and disloyalty to the state. Koine speakers found the identity of "Romaioi" in place of "Hellene" to be a safe refuge in changing times.
In the 5-th century AD, the Armenians (annexed to the Empire as late as 387 AD ) acquired their own alphabet and began building up a literature of translations from the Classical Hellenic records and the Syriac which strengthened their feelings of national identity. The dominance of Aramaic dialects, of which Syriac is a member, extended throughout Syria, Palestine and Egypt when another element of the population of Empire consisted of Arabs (like the Nabataeans of Petra and the Palmyrenes).
In Egypt, Alexandria was an Hellenic city, but it was officially described as being ad Aegyptum, not in Aegypto, an intrusion into an alien country and Coptic was the language of Egyptian Christianity, while Koine was identified with the alien hierarchy that was imposed by the imperial government. Setting aside the Jewish colony, the bulk of the population continued to speak Egyptian (Coptic) that was gaining ground so by the 6-th century, even some official acts were published in the native tongue. The Koine, Coptic and Aramaic elements would thus have been on a footing of near parity. Compared to the spread of Latin in Gaul and Spain, it must be admitted that the artificial Koine language had made very limited progress between the 3 century BC and the 6-th century AD. This was no doubt due to the fact that Hellenization was centred only and exclusively on cities!
During the 6th century, the Byzantine Empire grew in size and Armies of Emperor Justinian I brought what is now Italy, and parts of North Africa and Spain into the Empire
The strongest ethnographic changes that the Empire witnessed after the 6-th century, started happening a few decades after Justinian's death.
In an oft-quoted passage John of Amida (also known as John of Ephesus) records that in 581: " An accursed people, called Slaonians (Slavs), overran the whole of Empire, and captured the cities, and took numerous forts, and devastated and burnt, and reduced the people to slavery, and made themselves masters of the whole country, and settled in it by main force, and dwelt in it as though it had been their own. By 586, they took the western Peloponnese, Attica and part of today southern Epirus and penetrated to Osum river valley”
Another source, the so-called Chronicle of Monembasia, states that: “ In the year 587-8 the Turkic Avars , with whom the Slavs were usually allied captured all the cities of Empire, Attica and Euboea, and after expelling and destroying the native peoples, they dwelt there. Those who were able to escape their murderous hands were scattered here and there. Thus, the citizens of Patras moved to the district of Reggio in Calabria, the Argives to the island called Orobe, the Corinthians to the island of Aegina”
Justinian II himself moved a great multitude of Slavs (110,000-200,000 ) from Peloponnese to Bithynia and Cappadocia (odiern Turkey) in the 760s AD. Armenians had started immigrating in the 6-th century in Cappadocia and other parts of eastern Asia Minor close to their original homeland, in Thrace, in the region of Pergamon etc. It is impossible to give even a rough approximation of their numbers. Unlike the Slavs, however, the Armenians quickly rose to prominent positions, even to the imperial throne, and dominated the military establishment throughout the Middle Byzantine period.
Constantinople, like all great capitals, was a melting-pot of heterogeneous elements: all seventy-two tongues known to man were represented in it! Another foreign element was provided by military units which in the 6-th century consisted either of barbarians (Germans, Huns, and others) or some of the sturdier provincials like Isaurians, Illyrians and Thracians. Syrian, Mesopotamian and Egyptian monks, who spoke little or not at all Koine, thronged to the capital to enjoy the protection of the Empress Theodora. The ubiquitous Jew earned his living as a craftsman or a merchant. Constantinople had been founded as a centre of latinity in the east and still numbered among its residents many Illyrians, Italians and Africans whose native tongue was Latin as was that of the Emperor Justinian himself. Furthermore, several works of Latin literature were produced at Constantinople, like Priscian's famous Grammar, the Chronicle of Marcellinus and the panegyric of Justin 11 by the African Corippus.
The Empire also possessed a foothold on the southern shore of the Crimea, while the high tableland of the Crimean peninsula was inhabited by Goths.
About Illyrian /Albanian identity in those times:
The written sources mention the Illyrians in Christian History of Euagri (Euagr II, 18) when it talks about Byzantium’s war against the Avars in the year 584, and sources don’t make mention of inhabitants or Slavic clans established in those areas! During those invasions the majestic remotness of Albanian 'White Hills' reinforced the cultural isolation of its people. This outlying mountains of Albania acted always as a natural bulwark and the Adriatic coast below them as a rampart against any foreign invasion. Albanians were the last and the most virile European nation of clans, preserving their doughty love of patriarchal freedom and the extraordinary degree of dignity. During the invasions both Illyrians and Thracian populations mix together and found refuge in the barren hills of Epirus, Thessaly, western Macedonia, Albanian alps and the Adriatic coast. And this is the reason why the early medieval Albanians emerged from the chaos of collapsing western Roman empire as the descendants of the ancient tribes of Dardanes, Albanoi, Paeones, Epiriotes (a.k.a. Molossian) who inhabited Illyria , and as the descendants of Thracians. This fact is showed very well by the recent genetic (DNA) researches and surveys as:
1- "HLA Class I Polymorphism in the Albanian Population"
2- “Survey of anthropological features of the Illyrians"
3- “Haplogroup E3b1a2 as a Possible Indicator of Settlement in Roman Britain by Soldiers of Balkan Origin" Steven C. Bird .
4- "Paleo-mtDNA analysis and population genetic aspects of old Thracian populations from South-East of Romania" etc
Only later during the era of Flavius Heraclius Augustus (575 - 641 AD) that was a Byzantine Emperor of Armenian descent (not hellen), a form of Koine was adopted and preserved replacing the latin, by the Orthodox Church as language of liturgy.
In the 9-th century, after the invasion of Avars and Slavs, all the Balcans was overun by the Turkic Bulgars who were completely Slavicized and Christianized in 865. The medieval Arabs believed that the Caucassian peoples were descendants of Banu Kureish, and the Nordic Sakaliba (Slavs), as well as the Turkic Bashgurd (Bashkirs) and Bulgars were descendants of the giant Yemenites of Ad.
The confusion, the fog created from Byzantine Orthodoxy (that wasn’t interested in national conscience or history) and its numerously artificially elaborated “koine” language was based only on some scholastic concepts (reflected in the language) and ‘covered’ by ‘divine mystery’. We must consider the fact that the educated people of Medieval Era had the conscience of a subject of the Eastern Roman Empire, and they did not considered themselves “Greeks” or Hellens, in it's modern concept of ethnic distinctiveness! The religious elite of the Byzantine Empire had no idea that they were Byzantines, but they regarded themselves as the authentic continuators of the Roman world, not Hellenic! Only educated persons in the East could speak a form of Koine, just as all educated persons in the West spoke Latin, but ordinary people and several populations “ruled” by Byzantine Empire spoke neither!