"Quora's Cassandra" Follows Me

Jason Almendra
Bachelor's in Arts Geography 2000 Hunter College NY
https://www.quora.com/profile/Jason-Almendra

My preferred pronouns are USA.

I've decided to take a sabbatical from the comments section. Sorry for the inconvenience. I have a full-time job.

My thanks to the foreign language translators of my answers. I may yet surprise you with more information.

I would also like to thank my followers for being emotionally supportive.

My mission is to be the Cassandra of Quora.

What I can see above his name is "FOLLOWS YOU" ... I noted when instead of "Follow" a button said "Follow Back" ...

Here is one of his answers, and it is incorrect:

Q

Have there always been people who understood Latin and ancient Greek, or did they have to be rediscovered at any point?
https://www.quora.com/Have-there-always-been-people-who-understood-Latin-and-ancient-Greek-or-did-they-have-to-be-rediscovered-at-any-point/answer/Jason-Almendra

Jason Almendra

Most Viewed Writer "Ancient Greece"

22 Aug 2000

The monks of Ireland preserved some books of Cicero's speeches. In fact when Saint Boniface, an English monk, met Pope Gregory c.700 Western Europe forgot about Classical Latin and began evolving into Romance Languages. They could barely understand each other. Charlemagne needed the services of Anglo-Irish monks like Alquin of York to restore Latin to its Classical form.

Constantinople had always preserved Homer's Epics. They always emulated Attic Greek styles. Even though they spoke the Koine Greek used to write the New Testament. So when the city fell to the Turks in 1453. There were plenty of Greek tutors all over Europe.

Let's pick this apart a bit.

The monks of Ireland preserved some books of Cicero's speeches.

I cannot check. On wiki, most speeches listed have no notice on text transmission, and Pro Lege Manilia, which has, has no Irish manuscript. He may have referred to Irish monks in continental Europe if that's where the text in Verona, viewed by Petrarch, came from.

In fact when Saint Boniface, an English monk, met Pope Gregory c.700 Western Europe forgot about Classical Latin and began evolving into Romance Languages.

Partly very wrong. A minor quibble is, Saint Boniface met Pope Gregory II, not Pope Saint Gregory I the Great. But now to next one:

They could barely understand each other.

Possible. Pope Gregory II would have spoken Latin with an Italian pronunciation, conflating the endings -um and -o as -o, and -am and -a as -a. St. Boniface was learning Latin as a foreign language. And his pronunciation was probably closer to that of Pope St. Gregory I, who sent St. Augustine of Canterbury, and further diverging from getting closer to the letters. When you learn foreign languages or just single words from books, sticking to what the letters spell out would definitely make it easier than complex rules of pronunciation.

They were not forgetting Classical Latin, they were just pronouncing it differently ... like if we had exactly the same spelling as in the time of Chaucer, and ignored the verb ending -en for infinitives and plurals. Always writing "worken" and always saying "work" ... in fact the relation of spelling and sound will do even in words that are spelled the same.

"The cow" [ðeh kuh / ðö kau in German spelling] ... so also "factum est" at this time [faktum est / fatto ess or fatto eh].

Charlemagne needed the services of Anglo-Irish monks like Alquin of York to restore Latin to its Classical form.

Alcuin, not Alquin. And English. Not Anglo-Irish! The Irish of Ireland at this point were in schism from Rome and did not contribute to preservation of learning apart from when they planted monasteries on the continent (Bobbio, for instance). But Charlemagne did not get a man from Bobbio, he got Alcuin, at least for the job in Tours. Once he had done his job, the unlearned of the area found Ecclesial Latin much harder to understand than Pope Gregory II had found St. Boniface [faktum est / fayth ess, this time] ... meaning the Latin one was speaking was no longer regarded as Latin, but as something you had to translate Latin to, if normal people were to understand it.

Constantinople had always preserved Homer's Epics.

Sure, but they never had any Alcuin to give them a more correct ancient pronunciation, and when Erasmus did the job, people from there reject him. Here is line 410 of book IX:

μήτηρ γάρ τέ μέ φησι θεὰ Θέτις ἀργυρόπεζα
Erasmus: mähtähr gar te me fähsi theah thetis argüropeddsa
Byzantium : mitir gar te me fisi theea thehtis aryüropehsa.

They always emulated Attic Greek styles.

On and off. But again, modern pronunciation, just as in Tours before Alcuin, just as in Gregory II's Rome, Plato's Apology, [17α]:

ὅτι μὲν ὑμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, πεπόνθατε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, οὐκ οἶδα:
Erasmus: hoti men hümejs, oh andres athenayoi, peponthate hüpo tohn katähgorohn, uhk oida.
Byzantium: oti me ümihs, o andres athenähü, peponthate üpo to katighoro, uhk ühdha

Even though they spoke the Koine Greek used to write the New Testament.

With notable changes in pronunciation, though less than compared to Attic or Homeric. And sometimes it was more this koiné Greek they emulated. And the common people were changing the language well beyond that. Something which those speaking Katharevousa didn't view as another language, but as a Dhimotiki debasing of their purity of language, like we tend to view Cockney, if we're bourgeois.

Just like with Latin prior to Alcuin.

So when the city fell to the Turks in 1453. There were plenty of Greek tutors all over Europe.

Correct. In Western Europe, Greek was largely forgotten, but then revived at the Renaissance. However, as said, Erasmus thought (correctly) his tutors from Greece must be pronouncing some letters wrong ...

Now, Jason Almendra is watching me. He poses as a woman who rejected the advances of but got a gift from the demon Apollo, but that person was also supposed to warn. He's watching me, but he refuses to interact, he disabled his comments. Oh, he has a full time job ... mine is to debate on quora, youtube, facebook, and write things on occasion of such debates. It could pay me decently if I had an editor, even if debates were often by co-debaters refusing to cede rights and therefore mostly left out. Meanwhile he has a fulltime job off the internet and pretends to be watching me. And while we are at it, I studied at Lund University with a total of five years of exams and more than that in time spent there, with Latin and Greek being my most studied subjects, my "majors" if I had made a licentiate/bachelors.

His most relevant credits seem to be:

Former Berlitz Instructor, future fly-fisherman 1998–2003
Bachelor's in Arts in Geography & Media Communication, Hunter College Graduated 2000

Geography is not the best subject to learn these details about the history of Latin or Greek, Latin and Greek are somewhat better ones. And even geography is more to the point than media communication.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris, Georges Pompidou
Vigil of Sts. Peter and Paul
28.VI.2024 (just before First Vespers)