Saints Cyril and Methodius

[Risto the Great]

An argument I have heard before:

Why didn't the Proto Bulgar ruling class impose their language (written and oral) on the Macedonians?
I have my beliefs but it is interesting to look at the parallels with this and the ancient Hellenes.

[Delodephius]

I think the Proto-Bulgars kept their language to themselves. Maybe that's why no one knew about the script they used or about their religion.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Slovak

Perhaps, but it is specifically mentioned in Cyril's biography that he created a script......

Yes it is, but then it could also be assumed that its creation was based on an older script lacking material evidence. The Chersonean 'connection' is a recent theory and is far from credible, it seem more like some would-be pioneering types trying too hard to 'read between the lines'.

No, nor is it surprising really.

It is suprising, very. How can the 'mystery' alphabet not be cited by ANY of writers during the 9th/10th century onwards, given its (according to this recent theory) significant contribution to Glagolica? Doesn't sound very solid, it's like there never having been mention of the fact that the Greek alphabet originates from Phoenician (Semitic), when, as history testifies, the connection is spoken of several times from antiquity onwards.

.....how is my opinion of lesser value if it just happens to agree with the opinion of the "people who live in the modern Bulgarian state"?

Not here to judge the value of your opinion, just stating the facts, you don't find it odd that most people who agree with your suggestion are people who live in the modern Bulgarian state, scholars or otherwise? Bulgarians need not know about Proto-Bulgar and Orkhon scripts, the fact that they have (in the last 20 years) been trying their utmost to distance everything they can from the dominant Turkic element of their supposed Asian Bulgar ancestry, speaks volumes.

Good thing I didn't put forward a hypothesis or a theory that Cyril used Proto-Bulgar letters to fashion the Glagolitic ones.

Uh huh.....

Originally Posted by Risto the Great

Why didn't the Proto Bulgar ruling class impose their language (written and oral) on the Macedonians?

Would have been a perfect opportunity to impose their runes i'd say, but instead they used the Greek language and letters as official in their state until the 9th century, when students of the Macedonian brothers gave them a script for a language most of their citizens understood (a language which like Greek, is non-Bulgar). A so-called power-house of an Asian horde, and they imposed neither language nor script. Makes you wonder....

I have my beliefs but it is interesting to look at the parallels with this and the ancient Hellenes.

An interesting parallel is yet another non-Greek speaking people using the Greek language and letters as official in their state/empire, like ancient Macedonians, Illyrians, etc did centuries earlier.

[Delodephius]

It is suprising, very. How can the 'mystery' alphabet not be cited by ANY of writers during the 9th/10th century onwards, given its (according to this recent theory) significant contribution to Glagolica? Doesn't sound very solid, it's like there never having been mention of the fact that the Greek alphabet originates from Phoenician (Semitic), when, as history testifies, the connection is spoken of several times from antiquity onwards.

History works without rules. No one knew of the Tocharians before their remains were found and even less was known that they had a written language. Hittites were lost from history and their enormous libraries were forgotten as well as their unique hieroglyphic script of which none speaks a word. Meroitic script was never mentioned and it was the royal script of Nubia. I am quite sure there are other examples. The fact is not one historical text speaks of the Proto-Bulgar script, but not one historical text speaks of the Hungarian or the Orkhon runes either. I personally don't find it surprising since it is from a historical point of view normal. People just never mentioned it, and why should they? And those people who did write history at the time most likely just didn't know about it. Cyril and Methodius never mentioned how they created the first Slavic alphabet and those after them did neither, most likely they didn't know. If they didn't mention anything is it surprising they didn't mention the Proto-Bulgar runes? Unless they mentioned them I can't think of a good reason for them to do so, in the context of their time.

Not here to judge the value of your opinion, just stating the facts, you don't find it odd that most people who agree with your suggestion are people who live in the modern Bulgarian state, scholars or otherwise? Bulgarians need not know about Proto-Bulgar and Orkhon scripts, the fact that they have (in the last 20 years) been trying their utmost to distance everything they can from the dominant Turkic element of their supposed Asian Bulgar ancestry, speaks volumes.

I personally don't care who agrees with me or not nor do I care of other people's opinion, especially those people I don't know personally. And I care even less what modern Bulgarians are doing or did, I only care about the ancient past, present is of no interest to me. And I just care that they don't make my research into the matters I'm interested in more difficult.

[Makedonian]

Macedonian bloggers READ below:

Macedonia today is celebrating the all-Slovenes brothers Cyril and Methodius, missionaries of Christianity and creator of the slovene alphabet.

To read more about the Macedonian orthodox christian brothers and holiday in Macedonian go to the following link:

http://www.a1.com.mk/vesti/default.aspx...

Happy Saint Cyril and Methodius Day and may God bless their souls!

Orthodox Christian Greetings from Down Under!

Makedonija na Makedoncite!
Makedonia for the Makedonians!
FREEDOM TO QUEBEC / QUEBEC LIBRE!

[Soldier of Macedon]

May the memory of the brothers be preserved by their Macedonian descendants, and by the students of Slavonic letters in the world.

Вие обајцата сте солунчани, и сите солунчани зборуваат чисто словенски.

[Risto the Great]

People worthy of honour indeed.
I hope Ivanov's audience with the Vatican is fruitful.

[TrueMacedonian]

Happy Saint Cyril and Methodius Day. On this joyous occasion we should look at why they were chosen by the Emperor in the first place to go amongst the Slavic speakers.

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/l...ocsol-3-X.html

At the time St. Cyril, then still known as Constantine, was receiving his education in Byzantium, there was a strong German effort to convert the Slavic population in Moravia to the Roman Catholic faith. Their teachings however were in Latin, and as a result, in 862 or 863, the Moravian Prince Rostislav sent to the Byzantine Emperor Michael III for a "bishop and a teacher," saying, "My people have rejected paganism and hold the Christian law, but we do not have a teacher who could preach to us in our own native tongue." The Emperor quickly chose to send Constantine, accompanied by his brother Methodius, justifying his decision with the words "You two are from Salonika, and all Thessalonians speak pure Slavonic." Constantine immediately composed an alphabet and with his brother began the process of translating the Gospels into Slavonic. It appears that, at the time, the Slavonic dialects were little enough differentiated so that a translation could be made which would be broadly intelligible.

[Sovius]

Pavel Serafimov presented an interesting paper at the 6th International Conference Origins of the Europeans in Slovenia in 2008 regarding the origins of the Glagolithic script, ultimately attributing it to the Neolithic Script of the Balkans.

The Origin of the Glagolitic Alphabet

http://www.korenine.si/zborniki/zbor...glagolitic.pdf

The NSB was in use between Sarmatia and the Levant, providing a plausible explanation for the similarities discovered between the Sarmatian runes and Levantian writing systems such as Phoenician and Hebrew discussed in the paper and between the runes and Glagolithic. The proximity of the Sarmatian territories to what was known as Greater Bulgaria on the eastern shores of the Black Sea could explain the similarities between the proto-Bulgarian script and Glagolithic. The paper also provides an explanation regarding the similarities between the NSB and Linear A and B.

While rarely yielding a symbolic and phonetic correlation worth positing as relevant, there is a structural similarity between Glagolithic and Sanskrit alphabets (Brahmi, Devanāgarī, etc.) that should be of great interest to researchers now that there are chronologically defined migration paths connecting the two regions. The triangular symbol which stood and stands for the “s” sound in Glagolithic and Brahmi is one of those few instances.

I personally believe the origin of Glagolithic involves the origin of linear writing, itself, as many of the symbols found among the sites that make up the Danubian region can also be found among the artifacts discovered at the Neolithic village of Banpo in China. While its easy to pass the similarities off as coincidence, populations carrying the R1a marker did make their way into the eastern parts of Eurasia and I’m sure people from the Far East made their way into Europe as well, as prehistoric trade emerged and human exploration continued. Perhaps, the Silk Road is older and longer than previously reconstructed or human prehistory is much more complex than previously envisioned?

[Delodephius]

In Europe there existed three different runic alphabets: the Norse unes, the Hungarian rovas and the Turkic Orkhon runes. All these scripts look very much alike and share a set of common looking letters. The thing is however that none of those letters have common sound values and represent something else. Similar thing is with Greek and Carian alphabets though these are of common origin they just have been using the letters differently. As for the runes there is nothing but coincidence.