# German Kaiser, Russian tsar, Arabic qayṣar



## fdb

The etymological section of the excellent DWDS writes:

*Kaiser* m. Staatsoberhaupt in bestimmten Monarchien; gilt allgemein als höchste Würde bzw. höchster Titel eines Monarchen. Ahd. _keisur_ (um 800), mhd. _keiser_ beruhen wie asächs. _kēsur_, mnd. _keyser_, mnl. _keiser_, nl. _keizer_, aengl. _cāsere_ auf Entlehnung von lat. _Caesar_ durch die Germanen. Der erbliche Bei- bzw. Familienname _Caesar_ (des römischen Feldherrn und Diktators _Gāius Iūlius Caesar_) wird im römischen Weltreich zur festen Bezeichnung des Herrschers und auch von den Germanen in der Bedeutung ‘Herrscher’ entlehnt.

I have an objection concerning the last sentence. To my knowledge “Caesar” was used as an imperial title only in the first century of the Roman Empire; thereafter, and throughout the Byzantine period, “Caesar” is the title of the heir apparent; the emperor is called “Imperator” or “Augustus”, never “Caesar”. The same difficulty poses itself with the Slavic “tsar” and also with the Arabic qayṣar as standing designation for the Byzantine emperor. Why do these all use a word for “emperor” which went out of circulation among the Romans before the end of the first century?

My guess is that this anachronistic usage is based on the “give unto Caesar” pericope in the New Testament, and not on genuine Roman usage in the later periods. Does that sound at all plausible?


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## Frank78

The Duden and Kluge claim it's a very early loan from Julius Cesar's time, he actually says one of the oldest Latin loans.


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## fdb

I know. DWDS says that too. But it does not show up in Germanic for another 800 years. 

Rather than being a “very early borrowing from Latin”, OHG keysur could surely be a borrowing from Gothic kaisar, which in turn is merely a transliteration of the biblical _καῖσαρ_.


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## apmoy70

fdb said:


> ....
> 
> I have an objection concerning the last sentence. To my knowledge “Caesar” was used as an imperial title only in the first century of the Roman Empire; *thereafter, and throughout the Byzantine period, “Caesar” is the title of the heir apparent; the emperor is called “Imperator” or “Augustus”, never “Caesar”.* The same difficulty poses itself with the Slavic “tsar” and also with the Arabic qayṣar as standing designation for the Byzantine emperor. Why do these all use a word for “emperor” which went out of circulation among the Romans before the end of the first century?
> 
> My guess is that this anachronistic usage is based on the “give unto Caesar” pericope in the New Testament, and not on genuine Roman usage in the later periods. Does that sound at all plausible?


The title of Caesar in the Eastern Roman Empire was indeed bestowed by the emperor upon the heir apparent for about 100-150 years, it was then (roughly after Arcadius in the 390's-400's) replaced by *«συμβασιλεύς» symbasileús* (co-sovereign).
Caesar was never favoured for designating the Roman Emperor in the Eastern Roman Empire; Augustus -either translated as *«Σεβαστός» Sebastós* or transiterated as *«Αὔγουστος»*- was much more preferred but again used for a short time. After Heraclius, the Greek *«Βασιλεύς» Basileús* prevails. Caesar then for the next four or five hundred years was used as the title of an influential relative, until it faded away in the 9th-10th c. CE.
Your guess that the anachronistic usage is based on the gospely *«τὰ τοῦ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι»* is indeed intriguing.

In the Greek speaking East, the sole title of Caesar was never bestowed upon the Roman Emperor, primarily the title of *«Αὐτοκράτωρ» Autokrátōr* (the Greek translation of the Latin Imperator) was used instead, as the inscription dedicated to emperor Claudius found in northern Greece attests: *«(Τῷ) Αὐτοκράτορι Κλαυδίωνι Καίσαρι Σεβαστῷ»* => _To the Emperor Claudius, Caesar Augustus_.

PS: The four firesteels on the tetragrammatic Byzantine Palaeologan cross of the late Byzantine era, have been interpreted as being the initials of the dynastic motto which was:
*«Βασιλεύς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλεύοντων»* = King of Kings Ruling over Rulers, or
*«Βασιλεύς Βασιλέων Βασιλεῦ Βοήθει»* = King of Kings, O King (=Christ) Help.
Neither Caesar, nor Augustus is used.


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## ahvalj

The Slavic (Old Church Slavonic) word is attested in three forms, _kěsaŗь_ (where _k_ attests a recent Greek loanword), _cěsaŗь_ (an earlier borrowing, from either Greek, Latin or Gothic, with the regular assibilation _k>c_ before the front vowel) and _cьsaŗь_ (an earlier borrowing with the deviating _ь<*i_ instead of the expected _ě, _perhaps passed through several languages). _Czar_ comes from this latter variant. Constantinople was called _Cьsaŗьgradъ_ "Imperial city, Emperor's city" (here _cьsaŗь_, the relative adjective, casually coincided with the original noun itself).


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## Frank78

fdb said:


> Rather than being a “very early borrowing from Latin”, OHG keysur could surely be a borrowing from Gothic kaisar, which in turn is merely a transliteration of the biblical _καῖσαρ_.



You theory doesn't convince me much.

The Goths spread that word from the bible throughout the rest of the largely pagan Germanic world (the Goths vanished between 500-700)? Even though the wandered around in Mediterranean regions and had surely far less contact to other Germanic peoples than the Romans along the Rhine and Danube centuries earlier.


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## fdb

OHG _sambaʒtag_, NHG Samstag is regarded as a Gothic/Byzantine loanword in West Germanic, replacing the Roman _dies Saturni_. For example.


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## fdb

ahvalj said:


> Constantinople was called _Cьsaŗьgradъ_ "Imperial city, Emperor's city" (here _cьsaŗь_, the relative adjective, casually coincided with the original noun itself).



Why did the Slavs call Constantinople "Caesar-grad" at a time when the Byzantines themselves did not call their emperor "Caesar"?


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> Why did the Slavs call Constantinople "Caesar-grad" at a time when the Byzantines themselves did not call their emperor "Caesar"?


They called it "Ville impériale" using the only available word for "emperor" (the Turkic term _kaganъ, _used e. g. for the Kievan great prince, was probably semantically inappropriate). As I have written, the form _cьsaŗь_ suggests that it was borrowed much earlier, probably second or third hand, and not necessarily from Greek.


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## danielstan

I read somewhere that this Latin word _Caesar _being imported in different European languages in different centuries
could be used as a marker for how the Latin groups _*ce/ci *_evolved during centuries.

So, the German _Kaiser _proves that the _*ae *_part of _C*ae*sar _was pronounced as a diphthong, probably in the Classical Latin time (1st century BC).

We know that later, probably from 1st century AD, the Latin group _*ae *_was pronounced as [e] and this is how the Romance languages inherited it.
For example: Latin _Caesar _has evolved in Italian _Cesare_.

But the (modern) Russian _царь _(pronounced [tzar]) how could be explain? Is the sound [tz] in _царь _in borrowed as such from Greek or is it an internal evolution of Russian language?

I also heard some people pronouncing the Latin _etcaetera _as [et-tze-te-ra] and I wonder if the Medieval Latin has lead to such pronunciation.


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## ahvalj

danielstan said:


> But the (modern) Russian _царь _(pronounced [tzar]) how could be explain? Is the sound [tz] in _царь _in borrowed as such from Greek or is it an internal evolution of Russian language?
> 
> I also heard some people pronouncing the Latin _etcaetera _as [et-tze-te-ra] and I wonder if the Medieval Latin has lead to such pronunciation.


The original_ k, g_ and_ x_ before the front vowels and _ı̯ _assibilated in Slavic into _ʨ, *ʥ_ and _ɕ _(the First palatalization). After this process stopped (in the first centuries CE, since it is not found in Gothic and Latin loanwords), the language acquired new _e_ and _i_ before velars in loanwords and after the monophthongization _*aı̯>*ē~ī_. In much of the Slavic area the velars assibilated again, but this time they produced *_ʦʲ, *ʣʲ _and *_sʲ _(the Second palatalization). This process stopped around the 8–9th centuries CE since the newest Greek loanwords into Slavic were not affected by it (_kěsaŗь_). Thus, the words _cěsaŗь _and _cьsaŗь_ (where _c_ stands for _ʦʲ_), must have been borrowed some time between the 3rd and 8th centuries to be affected by the Second palatalization. By the way, most Slavs were pagans in this period, so the Gospel expression was probably irrelevant for them.


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## fdb

ahvalj said:


> Thus, the words _cěsaŗь _and _cьsaŗь_ (where _c_ stands for _ʦʲ_), must have been borrowed some time between the 3rd and 8th centuries to be affected by the Second palatalization. By the way, most Slavs were pagans in this period, so the Gospel expression was probably irrelevant for them.



This is exactly what I am trying to problematize. Between the 3rd and 8th centuries "Caesar" did not mean "emperor" either in Greek or in Latin.


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> This is exactly what I am trying to problemactize. Between the 3rd and 8th centuries "Caesar" did not mean "emperor" either in Greek or in Latin.


I will check tonight what the big Slavic etymological dictionary thinks about this word. Meanwhile I'd re-emphasize that the non-standard (and short) vowel in _cьsaŗь _suggests that this word should have traveled through an additional language, so it could have been borrowed from Latin to, don't know, Dacian or from Latin to Germanic and then to Baltic Venetic (Vistula Veneti - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), and this could have happened pretty early.


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## ahvalj

As a sidenote: modern Russian has at least five words acquired from different sources and going back to _Caesar:_ _царь_ (oldest, of unknown exact provenance), _цесарь_ (Gothic or earlier Byzantine Greek), _кесарь_ (Christian), _цезарь_ (German, in the 18th century), _кайзер_ (German).


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## ahvalj

Church Slavonic texts use _cěsaŗь~cьsaŗь,_ among others, for the Roman emperors:
_pamętь svętumu … Konstatinu c[ьsa]ŗu_ "memory of holy … Constantine the Emperor",
_ježe Vespasьjanъmь i Titъmь rimьskima c[ьsa]ŗьma stvoreno bystь_ "which was made by Vespasian and Titus, the Roman emperors",

as well as to the Holy Roman emperors:
_po velěnьju poběděteļnago caŗa i av'gusta mirьskago Otty v'torago_ "at behest of the victorious emperor and worldwide augustus Otto II".


The form _kěsaŗь _I had mentioned is actually not attested: instead we find _ķesaŗь,_ with the short _e _(which, too, testifies its late origin from Byzantine Greek, probably in the 8–9th centuries). The usage seems to be the same as with the _c_-forms (at least I can't perceive the difference):
_izide povelěnьje otъ ķesara Avъgusta_ "Caesar Augustus issued a decree"
_jakože i bystь pri Klavьdьji ķesarě_ "as it was under Claudius the emperor".

Interestingly, we find _ne jьmamъ c[ěsaŗ]ě tъk'mo ķesarě_ "we have no king but Caesar" where the older loan is used for the title "king, emperor" while the newer one for Caesar.


Trubachov's Slavic etymological dictionary doesn't mention either form of this word. Vasmer (_Фасмер М · 1987 · Этимологический словарь русского языка. Том IV (Т – Ящур): _291) regards _cьsaŗь_ as an abbreviation of _cěsaŗь_ like English _king_ and Swedish _kung._ I find it less probable since there is at least one more word with _ē>i:_ _acētum>ocьtъ_.

_Cěsaŗьgradъ~Cьsaŗьgradъ_ is suggested (Vasmer) to be the calque of _Βασιλὶς Πόλις, Βασιλεύουσα Πόλις_.


So, resuming. I find it probable that the form attested in the 10–11th centuries as _cьsaŗь_ was borrowed in the 1st century to some barbarian language and eventually entered Slavic as _*kisār-; cěsaŗь _may go back directly to the Gothic_ kaisar _"emperor" (this is the most common explanation); _kesaŗь _must be a Byzantine loanword of the 8–9th centuries.


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## sotos

The title of Caesar survived as synonym to "emperor" not only because of that Gospel pericope but through legal and other texts used in byzantine period. e.g. Justinianus, Nov. 30. initio: "_the caesar's name is most famous all over the nations,_ ...". Also, through quotes like "the ceaser's wife".


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## fdb

sotos said:


> The title of Caesar survived as synonym to "emperor" not only because of that Gospel pericope but through legal and other texts used in byzantine period. e.g. Justinianus, Nov. 30. initio: "_the caesar's name is most famous all over the nations,_ ..."



Thank you for this reference. Novella XXX does not refer to Justinian as “Caesar”. The passage to which you allude is about the city of Caesaria (_Populosa enim consistit et urbem praebet magnam amantissimi Caesaris nobis cognominem, qui dedit principium bonum quae nostra est monarchiae, per quem in omnibus terrae gentibus nominatissimum est Caesaris nomen et quo nos pro alio quodam imperialium signorum nobilitamur._) "Caesar" here means Julius Caesar.


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## berndf

fdb said:


> The etymological section of the excellent DWDS writes:
> 
> *Kaiser* m. Staatsoberhaupt in bestimmten Monarchien; gilt allgemein als höchste Würde bzw. höchster Titel eines Monarchen. Ahd. _keisur_ (um 800), mhd. _keiser_ beruhen wie asächs. _kēsur_, mnd. _keyser_, mnl. _keiser_, nl. _keizer_, aengl. _cāsere_ auf Entlehnung von lat. _Caesar_ durch die Germanen. Der erbliche Bei- bzw. Familienname _Caesar_ (des römischen Feldherrn und Diktators _Gāius Iūlius Caesar_) wird im römischen Weltreich zur festen Bezeichnung des Herrschers und auch von den Germanen in der Bedeutung ‘Herrscher’ entlehnt.
> 
> I have an objection concerning the last sentence. To my knowledge “Caesar” was used as an imperial title only in the first century of the Roman Empire; thereafter, and throughout the Byzantine period, “Caesar” is the title of the heir apparent; the emperor is called “Imperator” or “Augustus”, never “Caesar”. The same difficulty poses itself with the Slavic “tsar” and also with the Arabic qayṣar as standing designation for the Byzantine emperor. Why do these all use a word for “emperor” which went out of circulation among the Romans before the end of the first century?
> 
> My guess is that this anachronistic usage is based on the “give unto Caesar” pericope in the New Testament, and not on genuine Roman usage in the later periods. Does that sound at all plausible?


I have been contemplating ever since I first saw this thread. The reason why I hadn't replied yet was that I can't find a good argument for or against the two rivaling hypotheses: Loan from Geek and or Gothic based on the bible or an early loan from Latin. I find your idea rather plausible but I wouldn't know how to substantiate it.


Frank78 said:


> The Duden and Kluge claim it's a very early loan from Julius Cesar's time, he actually says one of the oldest Latin loans.


But he also admits that the form may be due to Greek influence.


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## Christo Tamarin

apmoy70 said:


> *«(Τῷ) Αὐτοκράτορι Κλαυδίωνι Καίσαρι Σεβαστῷ*


Neither Αὐτοκράτωρ, nor Σεβαστός actually replaced Ceasar/Καίσαρ.



apmoy70 said:


> After Heraclius, the Greek *«Βασιλεύς» Basileús* prevails.


This is the key phrase.

Before Heraclius (610-641), the rulers of the Roman Empire were just Ceasars/*Καίσαρes. *Especially, outside of the Hellenophone and Romanophone  communities, e.g. among people speaking Germanic or Slavic dialects, the rulers of the Roman Empire were just Ceasars/Καίσαρes, those people did know such complicated words Αὐτοκράτωρ or _imperator_. So, borrowings from "Ceasar/Καίσαρ" into Germanic and Slavic can be expected.

By the way, Slavic did not borrow that word directly from Greek. It borrowed it from Germanic (e.g. Gothic) or directly from Romance. 

*At the time of Heraclius, our world changed.
*
The Roman Empire completely destroyed the Persian Empire. While those two great empires were in war (*the most important war of our civilization*, 602-628), Islam appeared. Soon, Islam conquered all the territories of the former Persian Empire and the good half of the territories of the Roman Empire.

Anyway, before Heraclius, it was politically incorrect to call the ruler of the Roman empire as *rex* or *Βασιλεύς *because the Roman Empire was a republic. Those titles, *rex* and *Βασιλεύς*, were used for the celestial king and for some Eastern kings (Solomon, Herod, etc.).

Heraclius claimed to have taken the title *Βασιλεύς *from the destroyed (by him) Persian Empire of Sassanids. After Heraclius, there were *Βασιλεις* and no more *Καίσαρes. *

However, in Slavic, e.g., before Heraclius and after him, there were Ceasares - nothing changed in Slavic. And the city of Constantinople, before Heraclius and after him until present days, has always been called *Цариград* "Ceasarstown".


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## fdb

Christo Tamarin said:


> Before Heraclius (610-641), the rulers of the Roman Empire were just Ceasars/*Καίσαρes.*



I am not in habit of referring people to "Wikipedia", but this article does give a broadly correct account of the use of the title "Caesar" in the Roman and Byzantine periods:

Caesar (title) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Karton Realista

danielstan said:


> I also heard some people pronouncing the Latin _etcaetera _as [et-tze-te-ra]


Literally every Polish person.


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## berndf

danielstan said:


> I also heard some people pronouncing the Latin _etcaetera _as [et-tze-te-ra]


I am a bit confused. How else would you pronounce it?

(I suppose you meant _et cētera_; _caetera_ is a rare by-form).



danielstan said:


> I wonder if the Medieval Latin has lead to such pronunciation.


Of course. That is the "normal" Late Latin pronunciation and that is how it is pronounced in most modern Languages as well (not all respect the long _ē_, though).


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## Karton Realista

berndf said:


> I am a bit confused. How else would you pronounce it?


In English it's pronounced with a schwa after t. They also don't pronounce c as ts, but as s. 
So it's almost etsetra.


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## danielstan

In Romanian we pronounce it like in Italian: [et-ce-te-ra], i.e. the group _ce _is pronounced like in Italian _cena_.


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## ahvalj

ahvalj said:


> I find it probable that the form attested in the 10–11th centuries as _cьsaŗь_ was borrowed in the 1st century to some barbarian language and eventually entered Slavic as _*kisār-; cěsaŗь _may go back directly to the Gothic_ kaisar _"emperor" (this is the most common explanation); _kesaŗь _must be a Byzantine loanword of the 8–9th centuries.


In addition to _Caesar_ (> Common Slavic _*kisār-_) and _acētum_ (Common Slavic _*akit-_), there is one more Latin word with a long _e_ that reached Slavic with the short _i,_ namely Latin _graecus_ > Common Slavic _*grik_- > Old Church Slavonic _грькъ/grьkъ_.


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## franknagy

Hungarian: Császár (pronounce Часар).


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## ahvalj

franknagy said:


> Hungarian: Császár (pronounce Часар).


Where is this _cs_ from? Phonetically, _ʨ_ and _s_ point to the Romanian source, which would be rather strange politically.


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## apmoy70

Christo Tamarin said:


> Before Heraclius (610-641), the rulers of the Roman Empire were just Ceasars/*Καίσαρes. *Especially, outside of the Hellenophone and Romanophone  communities, e.g. among people speaking Germanic or Slavic dialects, the rulers of the Roman Empire were just Ceasars/Καίσαρes, those people did know such complicated words Αὐτοκράτωρ or _imperator_. So, borrowings from "Ceasar/Καίσαρ" into Germanic and Slavic can be expected


Not so sure about that. The last Roman emperor who officially bore the title of Caesar was Licinius (308-324); in the coins of his era the title bestowed upon him is "CÆSARUM NOSTRORUM".
After Constantine the Great (who took over from Licinius) the title was officially changed to Augustus (or Αὔγουστος) as it appears on his coins (CONSTANTINVUS AVG). And the empire back then was officially Romanophone.
After Heraclius, while the title of the emperor was «βασιλεύς» the title for the Empress remained *«Αὐγούστα» A̯ugoústa* (neither *«βασίλισσα» basílissa* nor (the ancient and highbrowed) *«βασιλεία» basile̯ía*, or *«βασιλίννα» basilínna*) as Byzantine *frescoes attest*.


Christo Tamarin said:


> Anyway, before Heraclius, it was politically incorrect to call the ruler of the Roman empire as *rex* or *Βασιλεύς *because the Roman Empire was a republic. Those titles, *rex* and *Βασιλεύς*, were used for the celestial king and for some Eastern kings (Solomon, Herod, etc.)


In the 10th-11th c. CE the title of Rex (ByzGr. *«Ῥῆξ» Rhêk͡s*) was given to (i) either Byzantine vassals who seeked their legitimacy to the Byzantine emperor, who then offered in return crowns or regalia as token of his approval (e.g the king of Hungary Géza I received the famous Hungarian crown from the Byzantine emperor Michael VII Doukas in 1074 and in Byzantine manuscripts he is called *«Ρῆξ Τουρκίας» Rhêk͡s Tourkías* --> _King of Turkey_ (as Hungary was called by the Byzantines...Turkey)), or (ii) lower status monarchs who seeked recognition from the Byzantine emperor (e.g. Roger IΙ Hauteville of Sicily appears in the *Byzantine made fresco* painting of Martorana in Palermo, Italy with the title *«Ῥογέριος Ῥῆξ» Rhogérios Rhêk͡s* in Greek)


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## Ben Jamin

apmoy70 said:


> The title of Caesar in the Eastern Roman Empire was indeed bestowed by the emperor upon the heir apparent for about 100-150 years, it was then (roughly after Arcadius in the 390's-400's) replaced by *«συμβασιλεύς» symbasileús* (co-sovereign).
> Caesar was never favoured for designating the Roman Emperor in the Eastern Roman Empire; Augustus -either translated as *«Σεβαστός» Sebastós* or transiterated as *«Αὔγουστος»*- was much more preferred but again used for a short time. After Heraclius, the Greek *«Βασιλεύς» Basileús* prevails. Caesar then for the next four or five hundred years was used as the title of an influential relative, until it faded away in the 9th-10th c. CE.
> Your guess that the anachronistic usage is based on the gospely *«τὰ τοῦ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι»* is indeed intriguing.
> 
> In the Greek speaking East, the sole title of Caesar was never bestowed upon the Roman Emperor, primarily the title of *«Αὐτοκράτωρ» Autokrátōr* (the Greek translation of the Latin Imperator) was used instead, as the inscription dedicated to emperor Claudius found in northern Greece attests: *«(Τῷ) Αὐτοκράτορι Κλαυδίωνι Καίσαρι Σεβαστῷ»* => _To the Emperor Claudius, Caesar Augustus_.
> 
> PS: The four firesteels on the tetragrammatic Byzantine Palaeologan cross of the late Byzantine era, have been interpreted as being the initials of the dynastic motto which was:
> *«Βασιλεύς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλεύοντων»* = King of Kings Ruling over Rulers, or
> *«Βασιλεύς Βασιλέων Βασιλεῦ Βοήθει»* = King of Kings, O King (=Christ) Help.
> Neither Caesar, nor Augustus is used.


I think it is important to ascertain how the Greek *Καίσαρ* was pronunced in the I century CE_._
Was it "*Kesar*" or "*Ka-i-sar*"?


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## apmoy70

Ben Jamin said:


> I think it is important to ascertain how the Greek *Καίσαρ* was pronunced in the I century CE_._
> Was it "*Kesar*" or "*Ka-i-sar*"?


1st c. CE falls into what linguists call "The Roman period of Koine Greek" (which roughly lasts until the mid-4th century).
In Greek manuscripts found in Egypt and Israel dated from 100-154 CE (so, end of 1st c. - mid-2nd c.) misspellings show that a shift in the pronunciation of certain diphthongs and vowels has occured, a change that in the case of the diphthong -αι- by the end of mid-4th c. CE is complete, and is now pronounced as the mid/low vowel /e̞/:
*«Ποιήσητ-αι»* instead of *«ποιήσητε»* (2nd p. pl. Future indicative of v. *«ποιέω/ποιῶ»*).
*«Ἑτ-αί-ροις»* instead of *«ἑτέροις»* (dative pl. of masc. pron. *«ἕτερος»*).
No-one is certain however, if this is the first attestation of the shift that begins at the periphery of the Greek speaking world, and spreads across the mediterranean by the mid-4th century, or it's just dialectal.
So, I would assume that «Καῖσαρ» in 1st c. Attic Greek stubbornly remains [ˈkai̯sar] while in Egypt and the Middle-East the Grecophones there pronounce it as [ˈke:sar]


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## PersoLatin

Does anyone know what the Sasanian/Parthian Persians called 'Caesar'? In contemporary Persian, the Arabic or the Arabised version is used (maybe also Emperator), it is reasonable to assume that Persians had their own version of the name, especially after nearly 700 years of contact with the Romans/Byzantines, before the Arabs conquered Persia.


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## fdb

PersoLatin said:


> Does anyone know what the Sasanian/Parthian Persians called 'Caesar'? In contemporary Persian, the Arabic or the Arabised version is used (maybe also Emperator), it is reasonable to assume that Persians had their own version of the name, especially after nearly 700 years of contact with the Romans/Byzantines, before the Arabs conquered Persia.



In the trilingual inscription of Šābuhr I on the so-called Kaʽba-i Zardušt, describing his wars with the Romans in the middle of the third century, the emperor Gordian III is repeatedly called _καῖσαρ _in the Greek version, kysr /kēsar/in the Middle-Persian text, and kysly /kēsar/ in the Parthian version. This underlines precisely the problem that was raised in the original question: within the Roman Empire the emperor is called “Caesar” only in the first century, but in documents from outside the Empire this nomenclature lives on for a long time.


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## PersoLatin

Thanks fdb.



fdb said:


> This underlines precisely the problem that was raised in the original question: within the Roman Empire the emperor is called “Caesar” only in the first century,



I wonder if there is any knowledge about the name(s) the Parthians used for the Roman leaders prior to the first century, e.g. around the time of Battle of Carrhae.


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## Christo Tamarin

I have read somewhere that a Chinese traveller-voyager had reached Parthia and had been (with no success) negotiating to be guided to the country of *Antun*. The latter seems to be Marc Antony.


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> Why did the Slavs call Constantinople "Caesar-grad" at a time when the Byzantines themselves did not call their emperor "Caesar"?





fdb said:


> This underlines precisely the problem that was raised in the original question: within the Roman Empire the emperor is called “Caesar” only in the first century, but in documents from outside the Empire this nomenclature lives on for a long time.



A somewhat parallel development can be found in the history of the Slavic and Lithuanian term for "king": this title was taken from the Germanic name of Charlemagne, _Karl,_ in the form _*karļ-,_ and has been used since then as the word for the western kings, despite this usage having no ground in Germany herself. In particular, the name of Königsberg was later calqued as _Królewiec_ (Polish), _Královec_ (Czech), _Королевец/Korolʲevʲeʦ_ (Russian), _Karaliaučius_ (Lithuanian) etc.

Once again this story has repeated in Lithuanian, which has borrowed the East Slavic prince name _Владимѣръ/Vladiměrъ_ as _valdymieras_ "Herrscher, Regent" (_Fraenkel E · 1962 · Litauisches etymologisches Wörterbuch: _1188).


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## fdb

Thanks, interesting.


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## PersoLatin

fdb said:


> within the Roman Empire the emperor is called “Caesar” only in the first century, but in documents from outside the Empire this nomenclature lives on for a long time.


The case with the Persians (& maybe others too) could have been different, as peace treaties & wars maintained contacts between the two at high level, that is, if they cared enough about getting the name right. A good case is when Valerian the Elder (3rd century), together with a large no of soldiers were taken captive by Shapur I. The soldiers later helped build Bande Kaisar (Caesar's dam) near Susa.


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