01-04-2019, 09:56 AM
OK Geoffrey, let me be blunt. You have no knowledge of this script, of Hebrew, of Yevanic or of medieval Greek. Therefore, I trust your transription and translation as much as I trust my own - Not At All.
I know from first hand expierience how easy it is to get confused reading medieval handwritten Latin, and that's in my own alphabet with a passing knowledge of the language under study and its form.
MarcoP said it better than I could - what you can't do is squint at the page and a look-up table, then take a wild guess based on modern English pronunciation to come up with a solution.
That said, it never stopped me before. When I looked at it, I read several variants, such as nun - resh | vav - tsadhi - mem. What does it all mean? Not a clue. MarcoP came up with a third interpretation.
In their own way, all three interpretations are equally valid. There's no way to tell. It just shows how subjective the whole thing is.
As for the diacritics (nikkud really, a diacritic properly speaking is something else), it's semi cursive handwriting. They'll be using the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. system, with weak consonants. Remember that Yevanic is pronounced into Greek, not transcribed.
To take an example from Judeo-Spanish written in Greek (a similar thing - it's worth pointing out that Judeo-Spanish written in Hebrew has a much larger study base than Yevanic), we see that esto (this) is written as ^Estw. Can't get the Greek letters here so I'll stop with the example. It's a phonetic reading, not a direct translation. For more, see Romero Ray, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Certainly the explanation on how diacritics were reused by the Jewish author to indicate Spanish style stress on words is worth a read.
It's for this reason that your attempt is doomed - you are attempting to transcribe when your theory actually says it should be pronounced.
I know from first hand expierience how easy it is to get confused reading medieval handwritten Latin, and that's in my own alphabet with a passing knowledge of the language under study and its form.
MarcoP said it better than I could - what you can't do is squint at the page and a look-up table, then take a wild guess based on modern English pronunciation to come up with a solution.
Quote:I interpret this word as the Yevanic form of the Greek word νεκρον ("nekron"), the accusative singular form of νεκρος ("nekros"), meaning "dead", "dead body", "corpse", "dying person", "dead man". The root word will be familiar to everyone from words such as "necromancy".
I did not need any vowel diacritic dots or vowel letters to figure out that "n-k-r-n" likely means "nekron" in a Yevanic or Greek text. I doubt that the author or medieval Yevanic readers needed vowel diacritics or vowel letters to read and understand this word either.
That said, it never stopped me before. When I looked at it, I read several variants, such as nun - resh | vav - tsadhi - mem. What does it all mean? Not a clue. MarcoP came up with a third interpretation.
In their own way, all three interpretations are equally valid. There's no way to tell. It just shows how subjective the whole thing is.
As for the diacritics (nikkud really, a diacritic properly speaking is something else), it's semi cursive handwriting. They'll be using the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. system, with weak consonants. Remember that Yevanic is pronounced into Greek, not transcribed.
To take an example from Judeo-Spanish written in Greek (a similar thing - it's worth pointing out that Judeo-Spanish written in Hebrew has a much larger study base than Yevanic), we see that esto (this) is written as ^Estw. Can't get the Greek letters here so I'll stop with the example. It's a phonetic reading, not a direct translation. For more, see Romero Ray, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Certainly the explanation on how diacritics were reused by the Jewish author to indicate Spanish style stress on words is worth a read.
It's for this reason that your attempt is doomed - you are attempting to transcribe when your theory actually says it should be pronounced.