Loi Naturelle ou Raison Naturelle?

Le passage fameux de St Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, le voici:

Secundo, quia quidam eorum, ut Mahumetistae et Pagani, non conveniunt nobiscum in auctoritate alicuius Scripturae, per quam possint convinci, sicut contra Iudaeos disputare possumus per vetus testamentum, contra haereticos per novum.	Deuxièmement, puisque quelques-uns d'entre eux, comme les Mahometans et les Payens, ne sont pas d'accord avec nous dans l'autorité d'une quelconque Écriture, par laquelle ils pourraient être convaincus, comme contre les Juifs nous pouvons disputer sur la base de l'Ancien Testament et avec les Hérétiques sur la base du Nouveau.
Hi vero neutrum recipiunt.	Mais ceux-ci ne reçoivent ni l'un ni l'autre.
Unde necesse est ad naturalem rationem recurrere, cui omnes assentire coguntur.	D'où la nécessité de recourrir à la raison naturelle, avec laquelle tous sont obligés d'être d'accord.
Quae tamen in rebus divinis deficiens est.	Quoique elle est déficiente dans les choses divines.

Un journaliste de PRÉSENT avait bien cité, d'après un dominicain, "raison naturelle" comme "loi naturelle". Ce n'est pas tout à fait la même chose. La raison naturelle se divise en raison théorique et raison pratique, et encore en raison universelle et raison appliqué aux particuliers. La loi naturelle en est juste la partie pratique et universelle. Donc, on peut par exemple disputer avec des Mahometans - on dit souvent avec des Musulman*, puisque ils recusent le vocable Mahometans, quoique ils sont les disciples (non adorateurs, mais simplement disciples) de Mahomet* de Mecque - sur la base de la raison naturelle aussi bien théorique que pratique.

On peut donc ne pas se borner à la Loi Naturelle, mais aussi parler de la Saine Philosophie. Attention: quand je dis saine philosophie, je n'entends pas Averroës* par ça! Leurs théologiens tel que Avempace* sont normalement mieux en philosophie que cet Averroës* ou encore Avicenna*. Comme, quand je parle des choses de l'Inde, il ne s'agit pas des Oupanichades pour ce qu'il y a de Saine Philosophie: d'ailleurs, il n'est pas nécessaire que tel ou tel secte ait une saine philosophie chez eux, il suffit qu'ils ne soient pas devenus insensibles à la raison - ce qui devrait être une occasion assez rare.

D'abord, on peut accorder que Mahomet et Ardjouna ont eu des rencontres comme ceux qu'ils ont racontés, l'un avec un être sur-humain qui se présentait comme l'ange Gabriel ou Djibrîl, et pour l'autre le dialogue avec son conducteur de char, nommé Krishna, mort et brûlé sur un bûcher sur lequel se jetaient quatre de ses veuves, dialogue raconté en Bhagavad-Gita, et pourtant ne pas accorder une autorité divine, ni à Bhagavad-Gita, ni au Coran. Il y a dans la raison naturelle quelque chose comme épistémologie raisonnable.

Et le fait qu'une révélation donne ou plutôt accompagne une victoire militaire autrement non miraculeuse n'est pas une raison suffisante pour le philosophe de l'accepter comme la vérité divine. Si par contre les troupes d'Omar et le prince Ardjouna ont eu tort à accorder à la divinité du Coran ou aux mystères panthéistes de Bhagavad-Gita leurs victoires, il y a eu des généraux qui ont été plus heureux dans leur choix d'invocation: mais ce n'est pas ni Clovis, ni Constantin qui ont inventé le Christianisme, il est plus vieux que ça, et ses miracles sont des vrais miracles, non seulement les victoires militaires.**

Il y a aussi un autre malentendu à propos de ce fameux texte: que raisonner à la base de la raison naturelle revient à raisonner à la base des sciences modernes, censées être d'accord avec la raison naturelle.*** C'est un peu comme si au lieu de se référer à la loi naturelle pour voir si un acte de régime est légitime ou tyrannique, on se référerait à une constitution dans l'abstrait pas contre la loi naturelle et ensuite on se demandait si l'acte était constitutionnelle ou pas. C'est à dire formaliste au lieu de rationnel.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
La Clairière, Paris II
Jeudi de la Semaine Pascale, 2012

*Mousoulmane - en Arabe ça serait un pluriel incorrecte de Mouslime. Le pluriel correct est Mouslimine. Mais Talibane est un pluriel correcte de Talibe. Mahomet - en Arabe Mouhammade (avec un H aspiré audible). Averroës - en Arabe Ibn Rushd. Avempace - Ibn Bajja. Avicenna - Ibn Cinna (?).

**Voici sur ce qu'il y a de Mecque, comparé à la révélation faite à Hésiode:
Φιλολόγικα/Philologica:
Sur Hésiode et les Héros. Et des Choses non-Grecs.
filolohika.blogspot.fr/2012/04/sur-hesiode-et-les-heros-et-des-choses.html

***Voici mes commentaires sur les thèses souscrites par Louis Eugène Bautain:
Triviū, Quadriviū, 7 cætera:
Contre le Fidéisme - et Contre le Quasi-Fidéisme des Athées
triv7quadriv.blogspot.fr/2012/03/contre-le-fideisme-et-contre-le-quasi.html

Sur Hésiode et les Héros. Et des Choses non-Grecs.

Il y a quelque temps, j'ai du discuter avec un Muslime (Musulman, c'est un pluriel, comme Taliban de Talibe), qui parlait un peu vite et m'interrompait quand je voulais répondre. Donc il n'a pas eu une bonne vue sur mes convictions, il était trop occupé de se convaincre lui-même qu'il avait le dessus dans les arguments, comme il l'avait réellement dans la vitesse.

À propos Notre Seigneur, vrai Dieu et vrai Homme, notre foi nous ne dit pas du tout qu'il était pareil aux héros comme Héraclès, Romulus, Énée et les autres. Mais nous ne sommes pas non plus obligés à croire que ceux-ci n'ont jamais existé.

Les nephelim ont existé selon la Genèse, et la lecture qui est la plus proche de l'épître de St Jude Thaddée et des textes que nous avons, peut-être en état mauvais, du livre de Hénoch (c'est pour cette incertitude que ce livre compte comme Apocryphe et non comme Canonique), quoique c'est contraire à St Augustin, nous disent que les nephelim ont été engendrés par des êtres angéliques déchus. L'histoire de Merlin l'Enchantateur nous rappelle que ces ruses pour les âmes n'ont pas cessé de corrompre vierges et femmes, et il ne nous est pas permis de comparer la Sainte Vierge aux victimes des viols démoniaques. Par contre, nous pouvons croire que les mêmes démons qui ont corrompues la femme d'Amphitryon (si ce n'était pas simplement une imagination de la part d'Héraclès) et la fille de Numitor ont été assidus à introduire des fausses cultes. Quand à Énée, il me semble possible que "Venus Mater" dans son histoire à lui soit plutôt une femme humaine. St Thomas nous dit que les démons ne sont pas la seule cause de l'idolatrie, mais il y a aussi la nostalgie envers les morts. Bon, nephelim ou non, ces trois personnes ont existé selon une tradition Grècque de l'Histoire Mythologique qui me parait beaucoup plus sûre que les traditions de la "Théologie" Mythologique: je ne crois évidemment pas que leurs parents soient "le dieu du foudre" ou "le dieu de la guerre" ou l'étoile du matin.

Par contre, il est une Histoire comment on a commencé à croire la Cosmogonie connexe à ces divinités, adorés par les idolâtres.

Hésiode était berger. Neuf Mouses - femmes très belles et indépendantes de la société humaine connue à lui et qui vivianet quand même très richement - elles lui sont apparues, elles lui ont taquiné parce qu'il était berger. Ensuite elles lui ont raconté l'origine des dieux et des choses selon cette "Théologie" Mythologique.

Est-ce leur sœur qui s'est égarée en Arabie pour se présenter comme "l'ange Djibril" à un Mahomet? Ou serait-ce leur faire injustice, vu qu'elles avaient au moins averti que parfois elles mentent pour le plaisir d'inventer, tandis que Mahomet n'a pas eu cet avertissement?

Le Coran a beau être en très bon état textuel, comme ce Muslime m'a expliqué, ça ne garantit en rien une origine divine. Non plus que la Théogonie, quel que soit son état textuel.

Et la tradition est normalement fiable en Histoire même chez les peuples égarés en Théologie. Les Grecs payens, après leur considérable oubli des choses avant le Déluge et après leur considérable abrégé des temps depuis le Déluge ont une tradition plus ou moins fiable, et elle soutient les chronologies qui séparent la famille de Moïse de celle de Notre Seigneur avec plus d'un millénaire d'années. Non, Miriam la soeur de Moïse n'est pas la Sainte Vierge, elles ont porté le même nom.

Le problème avec votre Coran, déjà sur le plan historique (sans parler de la théologie!) est cette abrégé considérable des temps pré-coraniques. Un peu comme chez les Grecs Payens. Et comme ceux-ci, vous avez eu un homme qui a vu une apparition qui a confirmé un tradition humaine - qui déjà humainement était probablement erronnée. Et ajouté pas mal - et non selon la vérité. La Bible ne se base pas en entier, ni en toute partie sur des apparitions: et là où elle s'y base, c'est très précisement vu que celle-là et conforme aux parties mieux prouvées.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI Georges Pompidou
Lundi de Pâcques, 2012

How to memorise the Presidents of US ...

Well, I was seeing one page in which cramming info into one's head bit after bit was useless, because 8 (at least supposedly) is the maximum.

I wonder if some could do fourteen, as the genealogy of Our Lord from Abraham to King David, from King David to Babylonian Captivity and from Babylonian Captivity to Our Lord goes in fourteens.

Either way, here is my take on how to tackle the Presidents.

Washington was first. Not easy to forget him if you have ever come across US. Between Washington and Jimmy Carter - the first one I recall as contemporary to the news I was watching (did he beat Gerald Ford?) - there are some major landmarks: Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson (was he just after Teddy Roosevelt?), FDR and Truman just after him, JFK and Nixon. So break up the table into the parts:

• a) Washington to Lincoln;
• b) Lincoln to Wilson;
• c) Wilson to Franklin Delano and Truman;
• d) Franklin Delano and Truman to John F Kennedy and Nixon;
• e) Nixon to Carter;
• f) Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama. Check if there was a president between Carter and Reagan. Refer to this part as Carter to Obama, for short.

Break up Washington to Lincoln. I do not know them, but one landmark would be the President who made peace with England in 1813, and, if it was the same purchased Florida from Occupied Spain, i e Joseph Bonaparte and the Louisiana Purchase (much more than just the present state of Louisiana) from his brother Napoleon Bonaparte. Was it Alexander Hamilton (often a reference for Lyndon LaRouche in economic theory, but I cannot for the present remember for sure if he was a president) or one other? Then there is Polk of the fifty-four forty or fight incident. Why before Lincoln? Well, Lincoln dealt with Secession, and Secession invoked the precedent of fifty-four forty or fight about breach of agreement between slave states and non slave states. So Polk must be before Lincoln. Between Lincoln and Wilson you have the president who made the Spanish-American War and got Cuba and Philippines as protectorates.

Then fill in all of the spaces and make smaller lists. If need be make more landmarks.

Then learn each list separately until you know it as well as the list from Carter to Obama.

Or other possibility: start with the Carter to Obama list, ask your ma how many presidents she can remember before Carter in a row. Add those to the row. Then ask your oldest grandparents, add those presidents to the row. Then use lifelengths in your family as far back as your records of those go to figure out what presidents they knew or would have known if US American. And so on, till you reach Washington. For your own state, take care of Governors in same way, except that there are states that reach back before Washington or whenever they joined the union, to English Colonies, French Colonies, Spanish Colonies, and, if you like you can call Utah and Texas US Colonies as soon as Brigham Young or Alamo, since then they were no longer Spanish-Mexican or Amerindian controlled territory. But as for states getting back to Spanish times, even Texas, do not forget the Hispanic colonisers. Claro que no!

Note that in this venture I have not yet memorised more than I have mentioned here.

Hold Good Friday Holy, whatever remains of it where you are, and a Good Triduum of Easter 2012,

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Rue d'Isly Day and Shoah Day.

1945 and 1962 two peoples each got out of a war.

The Jews came out as victors. Three years later they got a new land, the land of their forefathers a near two thousand years ago. The Black-Feet or Algerois came to the land their forefathers had left very much less time ago - sometimes 130 years, sometimes 90 years. And they had gone as victors and come back as loosers.

Now, who would celebrate the memory of the atrocities committed by their adversaries in a sad and who in a glad way?

One would expect Jews to say a service in synagogue or minyan for the dead, come out and sing Hevenu Châlôm Aleïkhem and of course There are No Cats in America* and the Algerois to be singing sad songs of mourning wearing black.

This Monday the day of Annunciation coincided with rue d'Isly Day. I had already gone to mass at noon. I overheard parts of the sermon while waiting for the soup kitchen. And while finishing my meal the Black-Feet came out.

"Chez nous soyez la reine, chez nous, chez nous
oh Vierge souveraine, chez nous, chez nous!"

"... mon camarade ...
... à la droite de Jésus!"

"C'est nous les Africains ..."

Et tout le monde de bonne humeur - and everyone in a sunny bright mood.

I have not heard that that is how the Jews celebrate Shoah day.

I can only conclude that the ones who do believe in Resurrection are ... Catholics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI, rue du Renard
26-III-2012, Fête de
l'Annonciation et
Mémoire de Rue d'Isly

*An American Tail: There are No Cats in America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPY6F1dnIAg

Linguistics for Romanides: Greek, Latin, Patois

Series straddling three blogs:
	Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ...on linguistic evolution ...on Tower of Babel or language evolution Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Milk and Gollum, and Nostratic M-L-Q Is Boromir a mimsy borogove? "If God spoke a language" - to correct Grimm On the "Reformed Egyptian" of the "Nephites" side issue on previous, Theology: A Gerald Smith on the theme of "Great Apostasy" and "Restored Gospel" - answered Is Romanides accurate? Was Romanides accurate? Bis! Not very much at all! Linguistics for Romanides: Greek, Latin, Patois Coniectura linguistica, pro casu unitatis vetustissimae indo-europaeae linguae. Creation vs. Evolution : 32 language families for 72 nations ...
To this essay:

Was the original Latin a Greek dialect? Are patois in France Latin dialects?

Greek	Latin
genos genous	genus generis	Greek	Macedonian
French	Picard	phil-ippos	bil-ippos
ceci est un cheval	chechi est un keval
Mycenian Greek		Oldest Latin
	genos genesos		genos geneses
V-s-V > V-V eo > ou		V-s-V > V-r-V -os, -es > -us, -is
	genos genous		genus generis

If you define Greek, as Linguists usually do, to include only the dialects in which #s-V > #h-V (h mute in new Greek, spelled as spiritus asper) and V-s-V > V-h-V > V-V, Latin is of course not a Greek dialect, since Latin is a language in which #s-V remains and V-s-V > V-z-V > V-r-V. (V=any vowel, #=limit of a word, > = becomes later).

If you define Greek as one of the dialects originally spoken in or closely around Greece, excluding oldest Cretan population (linear A of Crete and linear B of Mycene are same syllabic script and only the linear B of Mycene makes sense in Greek, for linear A only names can be identified), Latin probably separated from the common root with Greek before its earliest speakers came to Italy or before people having come to Italy became earliest speakers of Latin. Those earliest speakers which were called "aborigines" in traditions relating Latin and Roman fame to Latinus and Trojan Aeneas.

But when Greeks called Macedonians and Romans Hellenes and admitted their language was a Hellenic dialect, they did mean something. They did mean that, although it took a while before you could become fluent in the other language, there were things which you understood at once, and broadly speaking understood correctly. I would say that the ancient Macedonian was close to Greek, but one of the North Indoeuropean languages, in which Sanscrit #bh-/Greek #ph- always was #b- (from West to East in still existing families: Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavonic - Germanic is particular in so far that Greek and Sanscrit #b- does not coincide with #bh-/#ph- as #b-, but comes out as #p- (German #pf-). Celtic is peculiar in so far as Sanscrit/Greek/Latin/Slavonic #p- is totally missing, whereas in Germanic it is #f-).

Baltic and Slavonic are particular in sofar as they, via Macedonian seem to share the word for head that also Greek has.

First of all, Ionic and Attic for head is kephalee. Second of all, in non-Ionic dialects, this would be kaphalaa. Third, if you look at a word like thrix, trichos, you see that it was thrichos that became trichos in order to avoid a sequence of two aspirates: kaphalaa may have been khaphalaa. And that would make the Macedonian form gabalaa. Now, in Baltic and Slavonic V-b-V comes out as V-v-V (Modern Greek does that to all "betas" turning them to "vitas"). So you would expect a Baltic and Slavonic gavalaa. Now Lithuanian is Baltic and head in Lithuanian is galvá. In Slavonic it is for instance glava, glova.

Romanides identifies gens with genos. But as shown above, genos really is genus. However, gens corresponds to some usages of genos. Take gentilis, it means eugenicos. Gens, gentilis can also correspond to ethnos, ethnikos.

Gens, gentis is really older gentis gentes (not to be confounded with gentees=nom pl). So, analyse gen-tis. In Greek you have a word po-tis. It also exists in Latin as com-pos, genetive compotis (older of course compotis, compotes): compos sui means "master of oneself"="not mad"+"awake" in legal terms. I just had this fantasy that maybe nepos also comes from potis: grandson/nephew is so not-master of a household, and before we adored the Child of Bethlehem that was even more true, as it still is among Jews, Moslems, Confucians. In Latin you do not say dynamai, you say possum=potis sum=potis eimi (you would like Lithuanian in so far as eimi in Lithuanian is esmi in very old texts, now usually esu).

Po- then is no verb in Greek, where you have the noun po-tis, but that noun is formed like an infinitive of Lithuanian or of Serbian: -ti in those languages = -tis in this context. And if a po-tis is someone who can, a gen-tis is something that genit, from which someone genitur/gignetai.

So, when Greeks decided Latin was a Greek dialect they meant: Latin is close enough to the dialects we have in Greece. An Athenian can learn Latin as easy as he can learn Achaean. Much easier than learning Celtic: and Latin is at least as close to Celtic of Gaulish and British type as to Greek, therefore between them: as Macedonian is clearly close to both Greek and Slavonic or Baltic. They also meant they did not want to offend people coming to rule them, whether they were called Philip and Alexander or Scipio.

Romanides claims oldest Roman Historians wrote in Greek. But he does not deny that the law of twelve tablets was written in an old form of what is now known as Latin, not as Greek. So, when he poses a rhetorical question in the essay from 1998 (ominous year, if you divide it by three), there is a pretty simple answer: literature, including literary history, was not written at all by Romans, before they had started writing it in a foreign language.

Romanides also claims the Conquest by the Franks reduced Latin to Patois and divided it. But actually languages tend to change: every generation the change is very small, so one can honestly, if one is not attentive, claim it was not change. In France the â of pâte is now pronounced as the a of patte - because the Pieds-Noirs who came back in 1962 did not distinguish the â of pâte any more than Occitans do. Occitan is, like French, Gallo-Roman, but another language. But between the Massiliotic patois and that of Nice (Nikaia Antipolis as the university calls itself in memory of Greek origins) or of Monaco one can understand each other. Between standard French (however pâte is pronounced) and Picard, one can understand each other: "ceci est un cheval" and "chechi est un keval" is at least as inter-understandable as the ancient Greek dialects.

And this brings us to Latin versus vernacular.

Justinian wrote his code in Classic Latin.

Charlemagne could read it, or simpler passages of it, with some difficulty, and so could any of his leudes of West Francia, Neustria. But its spelling was as close to his pronunciation as Greek spelling, inherited from Koiné, is to Modern Greek, essentially dhimotiki pronunciation. Because speach habits had changed considerably, especially where Franks ruled. Not because they forced anyone to speak differently, but because they spoke Latin with an accent.

Here is Platt-Dütsch, the language spoken from Belgium to Berlin, and the language of Frankish rulers:

Ik snack platt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtDNBj0Hvy0

When people with that sound in their beak (an expression used in those regions) speak Latin, after a few centuries it sounds a bit more like French than it did to start with, and quite close to Modern Spanish. Indeed, one can say that the scale from Latin to French is divided pretty equally this way:

Latin - Italian - Spanish - French.

And Occitan comes in between Spanish and French.

Just before Charlemagne was made emperor, people had noticed Latin in France did not sound as Latin should sound. In came Alcuin of York, he repaired the French pronunciation by using the one Englishmen had received centuries earlier and not worn down, because used only by clerks. Some faults as compared with Classic pronunciation, like pronouncing -um like -u-m rather than like nasalised -u, but much closer to the real thing than the pronunciation of the Roman language in France. And after that one found that the people did not understand the new pronunciation, which was a centuries more oldfashioned one, and after Gospel in Latin (restored pronunciation), one asked the priests to make a sermon not quite as exegetic as Church Father homilies, but simply to translate the Gospel story to Rustic Roman Tongue as the Council of 813 put it: Occitan patois in the South, French patois in the North. Roman patois everywhere.

But a Jurist in Constantinople could not read the Latin text of Justinian at all - except perhaps at the court of the Basileus.

So, no, Louis the Bald or Louis the Pious - see link to Romanides in previous essays, I will not link to it on a Sunday! - was not lying about Greeks abandoning Latin. He spoke the exact truth.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI, Beaubourg/Paris
I:st Passion Sunday
25-III-2012

I do not know how you Greeks do, but we Latins, Roman as we are, celebrate the feast of Annunciation tomorrow, when it falls on I:st Passion Sunday. I did post a link to the hymn of St Nectarius. I do believe all that hymn says as much, as little as I believe what Romanides has to say about Franks.

Was Romanides accurate? Bis! Not very much at all!

Series straddling three blogs:
	Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ...on linguistic evolution ...on Tower of Babel or language evolution Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Milk and Gollum, and Nostratic M-L-Q Is Boromir a mimsy borogove? "If God spoke a language" - to correct Grimm On the "Reformed Egyptian" of the "Nephites" side issue on previous, Theology: A Gerald Smith on the theme of "Great Apostasy" and "Restored Gospel" - answered Is Romanides accurate? Was Romanides accurate? Bis! Not very much at all! Linguistics for Romanides: Greek, Latin, Patois Coniectura linguistica, pro casu unitatis vetustissimae indo-europaeae linguae. Creation vs. Evolution : 32 language families for 72 nations ...
To this essay:

30. The ancient Roman race called itself by the Greek name γένος, which in Latin became gens, and by which they identified themselves with the Greek race in general and by which they distinguished themselves from non Greek races and nations. It was this term gens which was taken over by the Germanic races to designate their own nobility as contrasted by their conquored West Romans whom they reduced to slavery under the titles of vilains and serfs right up to the French Revolution in 1789.

31. However, in sharp contrast to these serfs and vilains of 1789, the ancestors of the middle class of 1789 were those Romans who had been escaping from the slave camps of their Frankish Castelani (fortress dwellers) beginning in about the 11th century and began forming fortified towns at about the time that these castellani were in turn becoming independent of their royal power. By about the same 11th century the king in turn began offering protection to these independent village dwellers by installing his soldiers within the walls of these towns quartered within a citadel, which on surviving maps are called Frankish Quarters. The king was paid handsomely for this protection, especially since the descendants of these Franchised (adopted Franks and set free) villagers and their cities developed into the very wealthy middle class which made the King of France the most wealthy man in Europe. One sees clearly how both the French middle class and the serfs and vilains of 1789 are direct descendants of the imperial Romans of both Elder Rome and New Rome.

...

51. As the French Revolution* was in its infant stages the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbons was being translated by a pseudonym of King Louis himself into French. This history became very popular, not only because the middle class knew that they, the vilains and the serfs were descendants of the Gallo-Romans, but also because the so-called Greek Empire in the East which had fallen to the Ottoman Turks never existed since it was the same Roman Empire composed of Romans like themselves. It was no accident that an a secret organization was established to promote a Roman Revolution within the Ottoman Empire as part of the Gallo-Roman Revolution underway in France. Unfortunately the coordination between this secret East Roman revolutionary organization and the French Government fell to the lot of Napoleon who had taken over the command of the French Army of Italy at war with the Austrian Empire. Thus we find Rhigas Pheraios, one of the chief leaders of the East Roman revolutionaries, as one of Napoleon's advisors at the signing of the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797[ 44 ] which put an end to the war between France and Austria. In this way Napoleon purposely got the Austrians to take a good look at this East Roman who was about to go to South Rumeli (land of the Romans) with his companions to guide already well organized insurgents to begin their Roman Revolution against the Turks. The reason for this is that Napoleon himself was a fanatic Frank who believed and called himself Charlemagne. At his coronation as Emperor the statues Kings Clovis and Emperor Charlemagne adorned the Portico of Notre Dame. Indeed his code name among the East Roman Masons was Carolosmanoglou, Turkish for The Son of Charlemagne. In no way was Napoleon about to aid an East Roman Revolution since at the first opportunity he would quell the one still going on in France. So the Austrians captured Rhigas with his companions about to embark for Rumeli and finally turned them over to the Turks for execution.

Ok, if Romanides was correct

• a) Frankish conquerors were 2%
• b) All the rest were Romans
• c) All the Romans were originally reduced to slavery, and if only 85% remained so till the French Revolution (his estimate) the 13% were only later distinct from the 98% "Romans reduced to Slavery"!

Is this even a possibility, militarily speaking?

I do not know where he gets his information on what happened around Clovis from, but the author he relied on was far from accurate.

Fustel de Coulanges gives us quite another story of what happened** - the Franks took one third of the estates from existing ones. No Roman free populations were reduced to slavery, but the slaves they had remained slaves. And Latin remained the tongue spoken by all, except that Low Dutch was also spoken in some areas.

His article in Révue des Deux Mondes*** says that there is really no parallel in Gaulic History to the British lamenting of the Saxon invasion, neither from Roman stock writers, like Gregory of Tours, nor from Germanic stock writers like Jornandes (Jordanes). And the Middle Ages wrote sufficiently for such an event to have left a paper trail. And the letters of Bishop St Remigius to Clovis indicate that the latter was simply a Provincial Commander - under Rome - when he started.

Calling the Franks un-Roman is like calling the Normans un-French.

Cities indeed grow poorer for a while, but never ever do they cease to exist. So much for saying all the "13%" of Middle Class came from runaway slaves.

Sorry, but if Romanides could have had a point about Aeneas speaking in Greek to King Latinus, because he had not learned Latin, he has no point at all in painting the Frankish rule as a deromanisation, as an enslavement of Romans.

And it is also sad that he when making such a gross claim shows how much he admired the French Revolution.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI, rue du Renard
St Gabriel's Day,
24-III-2012

*CHARLEMAGNE'S LIE OF 794 AD, THE GREEK LATINS OF ALBA LONGA AND OF ROME, THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE LIE AND BALKANIZATION
© John S. Romanides
http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.21.en.the_ethnic_cleaning_of_roman_history.01.htm

**Histoire des institutions politiques de l'ancienne France. Première partie. L'empire romain, les Germains, la royauté mérovingienne. Paris, Hachette, 1875. Une deuxième édition « revue, corrigée et augmentée » a paru en 1877. Repris en plusieurs volumes dans Histoire des anciennes institutions françaises, Paris, Hachette, 1901-1914. Les six volumes de L'histoire des institutions politiques de l'ancienne France ont été réédités en 1964 à Bruxelles par la librairie Culture et Civilisation

***L’invasion germanique au cinquième siècle, son caractère et ses effets
Fustel de Coulanges
Revue des Deux Mondes T.99, 1872
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/L%E2%80%99Invasion_germanique_au_Ve_si%C3%A8cle,_son_caract%C3%A8re_et_ses_effets

Is Romanides accurate?

Series straddling three blogs:
	Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ...on linguistic evolution ...on Tower of Babel or language evolution Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Milk and Gollum, and Nostratic M-L-Q Is Boromir a mimsy borogove? "If God spoke a language" - to correct Grimm On the "Reformed Egyptian" of the "Nephites" side issue on previous, Theology: A Gerald Smith on the theme of "Great Apostasy" and "Restored Gospel" - answered Is Romanides accurate? Was Romanides accurate? Bis! Not very much at all! Linguistics for Romanides: Greek, Latin, Patois Coniectura linguistica, pro casu unitatis vetustissimae indo-europaeae linguae. Creation vs. Evolution : 32 language families for 72 nations ...
To this essay:

Mettius* Fufetius, the Latin King of Alba Longa, claims that the Romans of Tullus Hostilius (672-640 BC), the Latin King of Rome, are no longer pure Greeks, whereas his Albanians (Alvanoi) are still pure Greeks.[ 3 ]

Is that exactly what he said? Not quite:

[ 3 ] Dionysius of Halicarnassus*, Roman Antiquities, III, x, 1-6. Mettius Fufetius argued that "...one cannot point to any race of mankind, except the Greeks and Latins, to whom we (Albanians) have granted citizenship; whereas you (Romans) have corrupted the purity of your body politic by admitting Tyrrhenians, Sabines, and some others..." Evidently the Sabines, who were Lacedaemonians, as we shall see, had intermarried with non-Greeks.

His "evidently" is balderdash.

Mettius Fufetius is not arguing that Rome is no longer "Greek only", but that it is no longer "Greek and Latin" only.

Tyrrhenians are Etruscans. Unlike Greeks and Latins not even Indo-European in language.

Sabines are related to Latins, but more rustic.

But let us first see what Dionysius of Halicarnassus actually says** about origin of Aborigines:

10 There are some who affirm that the Aborigines, from whom the Romans are originally descended, were natives of Italy, a stock which came into being spontaneously24 (I call Italy all that peninsula which is bounded by the Ionian Gulf25 and the Tyrrhenian Sea and, thirdly, by the Alps on the landward side); and these authors say that they were first called Aborigines because they were the founders of the p33families of their descendants, or, as we should call them, genearchai or prôtogonoi.26 2 Others claim that certain vagabonds without house or home, coming together out of many places, met one another there by chance and took up their abode in the fastnesses, living by robbery and grazing their herds. And these writers change their name, also, to one more suitable to their condition, calling them Aberrigenes,27 to show that they were wanderers; indeed, according to these, the race of the Aborigines would seem to be no different from those the ancients called Leleges; for this is the name they generally gave to the homeless and mixed peoples who had no fixed abode which they could call their country.28 3 Still others have a story to the effect that they were colonists sent out by those Ligurians who are neighbours of the Umbrians. For the Ligurians inhabit not only many parts of Italy but some parts of Gaul as well, but which of these lands is their native country is not known, since nothing certain is said of them further.

11 But the most learned of the Roman historians, among whom is Porcius Cato, who compiled with the greatest care the "origins"29 of the Italian cities, p35Gaius Sempronius30 and a great many others, say that they were Greeks, part of those who once dwelt in Achaia, and that they migrated many generations before the Trojan war. But they do not go on to indicate either the Greek tribe to which they belonged or the city from which they removed, or the date or the leader of the colony, or as the result of what turns of fortune they left their mother country; and although they are following a Greek legend, they have cited no Greek historian as their authority. It is uncertain, therefore, what the truth of the matter is. ...

OK, Denys of Halicarnass is not quite on Romanides' side, to say the least. He goes on to give an account of what might just possibly be true about Cato's guess. Or claim. And his reasoning** is that those Greeks are the first to leave Greece for Italy, thus most likely to have lost track of, most likely to have changed langued into what is known as Latin:

... But if what they say is true, the Aborigines can be a colony of no other people but of those who are now called Arcadians; 2 for these were the first of all the Greeks to cross the Ionian Gulf, under the leadership of Oenotrus, the son of Lycaon, and to settle in Italy. This Oenotrus was the fifth from Aezeius and Phoroneus, who were the first kings in the Peloponnesus. For Niobê was the daughter of Phoroneus, and Pelasgus was the son of Niobê and Zeus, it is said; Lycaon was the son of Aezeius and Deïanira was the daughter of Lycaon; Deïanira and Pelasgus were the parents of another Lycaon, whose son Oenotrus was born seventeen generations before the Trojan expedition. This, then, was the time when the Greeks sent the colony into Italy. 3 Oenotrus left Greece because he was dissatisfied with his portion of his father's land; for, as Lycaon had twenty-two sons, it was necessary to divide Arcadia into as many shares. For this reason Oenotrus left the Peloponnesus, p37prepared a fleet, and crossed the Ionian Gulf with Peucetius, one of his brothers. They were accompanied by many of their own people — for this nation is said to have been very populous in early times — and by as many other Greeks as had less land than was sufficient for them. 4 Peucetius landed his people above the Iapygian Promontory, which was the first part of Italy they made, and settled there; and from him the inhabitants of this region were called Peucetians. But Oenotrus with the greater part of the expedition came into the other sea that washes the western regions along the coast of Italy; it was then called the Ausonian Sea, from the Ausonians who dwelt beside it, but after the Tyrrhenians became masters at sea its name was changed to that which it now bears.

No, I do not find that the oldest Romans necessarily talked Greek only, as he claimed. Aeneas may have brought along Greek, unless the language both he and Latinus spoke was Canaanean. But Latinus did hardly have Greek as his mother tongue, or if he did, it was because it was a luxury.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI, Paris
St Gabriel's Day, 24-III-2012

*CHARLEMAGNE'S LIE OF 794 AD, THE GREEK LATINS OF ALBA LONGA AND OF ROME, THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE LIE AND BALKANIZATION
© John S. Romanides
http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.21.en.the_ethnic_cleaning_of_roman_history.01.htm

**Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Roman Antiquities
p29 (Book I, continued)
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/1B*.html