Our navigation bar is loading . . .

Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997

Click here to subscribe and connect!

Click here and add this page to your favorites!

Encyclopedia Britannica

TZETZES, JOHN

This article appears in Volume V27, Page 553 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: TUM-VAN

TZETZES, JOHN , Byzantine poet and grammarian, flourished at Constantinople during the 12th century A.D.

Tzetzes

TZETZES, JOHN

has been described as a perfect specimen of the Byzantine pedant. Excessively vain, he resented any attempt at rivalry, and violently attacked his fellow grammarians. Owing to want of books, he was obliged to trust to his memory; hence he is to be used with caution. But he was a learned man, and deserves gratitude for his efforts to keep up the study of ancient Greek literature. Of his numerous works the most important is the Book of Histories, usually called Chiliades (" thousands ") from the arbitrary division by its first editor (N. Gerbel, 1546) into books each containing r000 lines (it actually consists of 12,674 lines in " political " verse). It is a collection of literary, historical, theological and antiquarian miscellanies, whose

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

value consists in the fact that it to some extent makes up for the loss of works which were accessible to

Tzetzes

TZETZES, JOHN

. The whole production suffers from an unnecessary display of learning, the total number of authors quoted being more than 400 (H. Spelthahn, Studien zu den Chiliaden des Johannes Tzetzes, diss., Munich, 1904). The author subsequently brought out a revised edition with marginal notes in prose and verse (ed. T. Kiessling, 1826; on the sources see C. Harder, De J. T. historiarum fontibus gitaestiones selectae, diss., Kiel, 1886). The Chiliades is based upon a collection of Letters (ed. T. Pressel, 1851), which has been called an index to the larger work, itself described as a versified commentary on the letters. These letters (107 in number) are addressed partly to fictitious personages, and partly to the great men and women of the writer's time. They contain a considerable amount of biographical details. The Iliaca, an abridgment of and supplement to the Iliad, is divided into three partsAntehomerica, Homerica, Posthomericacontaining the narrative from the birth of Paris to the return of the Greeks after the fall of Troy, in 1676 hexameters (ed. C. Lehrs and F. Dubner, 1868, in the Didot

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

, with Hesiod, &c.) The Homeric Allegories, dedicated to the empress Irene, in " political " verse, are two didactic poems in which Homer and the Homeric theology are explained on euphemistic principles (ed. P. Matranga, in his Anecdota graeca, i. 185o). Tzetzes also wrote commentaries on a number of Greek authors, the most important of which is that on the Cassandra or Alexandra of Lycophron (ed. C. G. Muller, 1811), in the production of which his brother Isaac is generally associated with him. Mention may also be made of a dramatic sketch in iambic verse, in which the caprices of fortune and the wretched lot of the learned are described; and of an iambic poem on the death of the emperor Manuel, noticeable for introducing at the beginning of each line the last word of the line preceding it' (both in Matranga, An. gr. ii.).
' For the other works of Tzetzes see. J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca graeca (ed. Harles), xi. 228, and C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byz. Litt. (2nd ed., 1897); monograph by G. Hart, " De Tzetzarum nomine, vitis, scripts," in Jahn's Jahrbiicher fur classische Philologie. Supplementband xii. (

Leipzig

LEIPZIG

, 1881).
' This versification is called aXiiiaKWTOS (KaiaE, ladder), a term more commonly applied to a verse in which each word contains one

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

more than the one which precedes it.
U-UBEDA
553
U The twenty-first

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

of the English alphabet. It is a modification made in manuscript writing of the Latin inscriptional V, and is itself found on the

inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS (from Lat. inscribere, to write upon)

of Rome as early as the latter part of the 2nd century A.D. The symbols U, V, Y are all of the same origin, but what the origin is has been much disputed. In the Phoenician alphabet T is the last symbol, but there can be little doubt that when the Greeks introduced symbols for vowels, which had not been indicated in the alphabet they had borrowed, they took the

sixth

SIXTH

symbol of the Phoenician alphabet (see F) in its

ordinary

ORDINARY (med. Lat. ordinarius, Fr. ordinaire)

form Y and placed it at the end of the alphabet with the value of a vowel. This vowel was apparently u (English oo in moon), though Ionic and Attic Greek at a very early period changed it to the sound of the French u. In other dialects the earlier value long persisted, and in modern Tzakonian, the representative of the ancient Laconian, it still survives. In some places, e.g. Boeotia, the sound seems to have changed, in connexion with dental consonants, in the same way as the English sound, in certain cases i (y) being inserted in front of it. This seems to be the only feasible explanation of such spellings as rro0ca (ruxrl), Troatoi evos (aowaevos), which appear after the Boeotians adopted the Ionic alphabet. A similar change must have existed in very early Attic and Ionic to account for the change of
t before u into s in air, " thou " for r6; some authorities think it was universal in the earliest Greek. Greek nowhere shows the symbol in the bowl shape that it has in the Semitic alphabet. From the 7th century B.C. both Y and V are found, sometimes both in the same area. Another form somewhat later has the upper strokes curved outwards T, while the angle is much less deep than in the other forms. It is noticeable that the symbol for
u in the syllabary which was used to write Greek in Cyprus has this form amongst others. The name of the

sixth

SIXTH

symbol in the Phoenician alphabet was TVaw (Vau), but though U has taken its form, in Greek its name was v (i.e. English oo, as in moon, except in Attic and Ionic, where it was like the French u in lune), not upsilon, as is frequently stated. In Sweet's terminology u (oo), as pronounced in English " put " or " too, " is a high back wide round, while the sound in the French sou or the Scotch pronunciation of " book " is a high back narrow round. The high front corresponding sound is found in the French Lune. With this the German " modified u ". (u) is often equated, but it is not really identical, being a mid front narrow round vowel. The pitch of the vowel u is among the lowest of the vowel sounds; the rounding and protrusion of the lips make the breath passage longer than it is for other vowels, and so its production may be compared to that of a sound made upon a

flute

FLUTE

when all the

finger

FINGER

-holes are covered. In modern English u preceded by
(y) arises from three different sounds in middle English: (a) the long French u (ii) brought in with borrowed words from French (duke), (b) eu (Early English cow) as in " new, " (f) a more open sound eu (Early English caw) as in " dew" (Sweet, New English Grammar, 8o6). The y-sound was dropped after r, ch and dzh, as in " true, " " choose, " " juice " (ibid., 857). In the literary dialect also it generally disappears after 1, as in " lurid," " lute." In some provincial and American pronunciations it is dropped everywhere except initially, so that " Tuesday " is pronounced Toosday, " new " noo. (P. Gi.)

End of Article: TZETZES, JOHN

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/TUM_VAN/TZETZES_JOHN.html">
TZETZES, JOHN
</a>

(Previous)
TYUMEN

(Next)
U11

	The JCSM Study Center	America's Christian Foundation	Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained	NKJV Web Hosting and Services
JCSM's Sermons, Debates and the Bible on MP3	The Online Christ-Centered Ministries	Do You Have A Web Site? Your Ad Could Be Here!	Seminary Notes and Papers	The Picturesque Photo Albums

Dr. Jason Gastrich

Jason Gastrich, Ph.D.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries is directed by Dr. Jason Gastrich. It was founded in 1997 and it exists to bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that have been sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email

TZETZES, JOHN

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries, P.O. Box 70696, Pasadena, CA 91117JCSM is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization. Copyright © 1997-present.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries, P.O. Box 70696, Pasadena, CA 91117
JCSM is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization. Copyright © 1997-present.