# ἡ ἒγερσις τοῦ Λαζάρου - Partial phrase. Language?



## KitNY

Hello, I am looking to identify and unknown language, and translate a phrase into English. I think the language may be Greek, but I am unsure. Half of the phrase is this: ἔΓἔΡϹΙϹ , It is all i could type, I believe it to be correct.

The source of this phrase is a picture, I cannot post the picture because i recently joined the forums, but if anyone with knowledge of the greek language would like to help me, I will message you a link to the picture.

Thank you,
KitNY

Link to picture


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## anthodocheio

I'm afraid it's hard to understand. At least for me it's imposible to see the two letters at the right and the left of the "I". 
So there is more written in the picture than this?


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## modus.irrealis

It's possible the C are Σ since that's how the letter was written in medieval times, so ignoring the accents on the second ε (which are confusing) it could be the word ἔγερσις which meaning "awakening" or possibly "raising from the dead."


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## ireney

Hello Kitny and welcome to the forums.
I can't see the letters either  PM me the link you want to put up and I'll see about editing your post and including it.


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## ireney

Wow! Modus are you that good at guessing? It says "The raising of Lazarus" as in "the resurrection of Lazarus". The picture uses the style of the Orthodox icons.


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## KitNY

Good guess, modus


 Thanks. I was going crazy trying to look through alphabets for a translation . ireney, you mentioned it uses orthodox symbols.. does that mean it's ancient Greek then?

Are there any resources on the site I could use to get familiar with these orthodox Greek symbols? (i'll be looking... haven't found anything yet.)


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## anthodocheio

Is it OK to right it here in Greek? As Irene didn't do it...

Is: Η ΈΓΕΡΣΙΣ ΤΟΥ ΛΑΖΆΡΟΥ.

As you can see, the "ΤΟΥ" (pronunced "tu") is writen in a special way. In this case is propably to fill less space, as is comon in acient writing for the "OY" to be writen this way, like one letter, BUT as you can notice, this is not happening. At the the name "Lazárou" is written regularly..

So..

I guess this is all for now...


PD: Why don't you have a look at wikipedia?


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## parakseno

KitNY said:


> Ireney, you mentioned it uses orthodox symbols.. does that mean it's ancient Greek then?



As far as I know, the Greek Orthodox Church uses Medieval Greek (Μεσαιωνική Ελληνική - or Byzantine Greek) rather than Classical Greek or Koine (Κοινή).


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## modus.irrealis

ireney said:


> Wow! Modus are you that good at guessing?





KitNY said:


> Good guess, modus



 -- but to be honest, I didn't really guess because what I see in KitNY's original post looks like ἔΓἔΡCΙC, but in his post they aren't real C's since when I copy and paste them I guess squares, so I'm guessing they didn't show up when other people read the post. That's why I said they might be the C form of Σ and then google showed that ἔγερση is used for the raising of Lazarus, and I associate the C form with icons anyway, so that's why I threw out that possible meaning .



parakseno said:


> As far as I know, the Greek Orthodox Church uses Medieval Greek (Μεσαιωνική Ελληνική - or Byzantine Greek) rather than Classical Greek or Koine (Κοινή).



I think Medieval Greek as a term is used mostly for the spoken language of the Medieval Ages, and the language used in the liturgy would be grammatically classified as Koine, although pronunciation-wise it's of course kept up with changes in the spoken language. I've read accounts (don't know how factual) that parishioners used to complain to St. John Chrysostom that his sermons were incomprehensible because he wasn't using the spoken language. (Hopefully not too off-topic but I think in non-liturgical settings the Church is one of the few bastions of Katharevousa, e.g. look at some of the Patriarch's speeches. )


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## jaxlarus

KitNY said:


> does that mean it's ancient Greek then?



Not ancient in the meaning of classical Greek. They then (750 BCE - 300 CE) used a more 'straight lines' way of writing, because...it was quite difficult to carve curves on marble, wasn't it? At least at first, because during the last centuries of the classic era, the inscriptions became more 'elegant' and O's and Θ's were written as curves. They are not difficult for us to read, because they used almost the same letters we do today, except that they used all caps, no accent marks until ca 200 CE and didn't separate words with a space. Ιn late antıquity you can encounter C for capital Σ which was previously written as a thunder like symbol, ò.

An example of how ancient Greek fonts would look like

See some more examples here, here and here. 

During the Byzantine era (330 - ca 1500 CE) the minuscules evolved through cursive writing and some ligatures occurred as well, like the υ above the ο for OY, ς for CT,   қ for και and abridgments for commonly used words in iconography, like IC for Jesus, XC for Christ etc, still used on icons today - so we're also familiar with them as well.    

An example of how Byzantine Greek fonts would look like

See some byzantine - renaissance inscriptions here and here.


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