The research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project No. 22-18-00493-П, carried out on the basis of the St. Petersburg State University.

The John of Nikiu’s Chronicle is an unique writing of early Byzantine historiography, composed by a Coptic bishop in the late 7th century AD half a century after the Arab conquest of Egypt. The genre of this text can be described as an universal chronicle, starting from Adam and Eve to the early Islamic period. The first part of the text concerns global history, while in the second part the focus shifts to Egypt and the events that concern its inhabitants. The last chapters of the Chronicle made it especially valuable as the only surviving source telling about the conquest of a Byzantine province from the point of view of the conquered.

A significant feature of the Chronicle is that it was translated at least twice: first from the original language into Arabic, and then from Arabic into Ge‘ez. Moreover, it was preserved only in the final translation into Ge’ez. There are no traces left of the previous versions of the Chronicle, so one can only guess what they looked like. The language of the original text is still unknown, because a Christian bishop in Egypt in the late 7th century AD could speak and write both Greek and Coptic [Frantsouzoff, 2010, pp. 78–80].

Since the editio princeps of the text was published by H. Zotenberg in 1883, there have been a range of different views which language the original work was written in. Over the past century, researchers dealt with this issue and put forward arguments in favour of one or another original language. However, a detailed study of the text has not been carried out yet. Furthermore, most scholars were inclined to retell the arguments of W. Crum, suggested at the beginning of the 20th century.

The main objective of this paper is to carry out a coherent analysis of the text of the Chronicle in order to identify any possible clues that could shed some light on the problem of the original language of the text. Each stage of the translation was considered separately from the point of view of its possible influence on the final version of the text. In addition, the study addresses different levels of linguistics:

phonology: the transmission of proper nouns;

morphology: morphemes potentially preserved from previous versions of the text;

vocabulary: borrowed lexemes and peculiarities in the final Ge’ez text;

syntax: possible influence of the syntax of the original language and preceding translations lost on the syntax of subsequent translations.

Finally, all the arguments made by previous scholars are discussed within our comprehensive approach. It includes non-linguistic arguments related to the cultural and historical context of the Chronicle.

Thus, our article is intended, if not to сlose the discussion on the issue of the original language of John of Nikiu’s Chronicle, but at least to arrange the arguments of predecessors and present a study connected with this problem.

OVERVIEW OF THE OPINIONS

In the course of previous studies of the Chronicle, the question of the original language of the text was dealt with by different researchers and four assumptions were made:

1.The Chronicle was written in Greek.

H. Zotenberg initially held this opinion during his study of this text [Zotenberg, 1877, p. 451]. R. Duval in his review on Zotenberg’s publication, also favoured Greek [Duval, 1884, p. 6]. In addition, S. Frantsouzoff, in his previous works, agreed with Zotenberg’s initial assumption [Frantsouzoff, 2010, p. 79].

2. The Chronicle was written partly in Greek, partly in Coptic.

In his edition of the Ge’ez text of the Chronicle with a translation, H. Zotenberg departed from his original view and suggested that some chapters of the Chronicle relating to the history of Egypt could have been written in Coptic [Zotenberg, 1877, pp. 451, 456–457; 1879, p. 348; 1883, p. 6–7]. The same view was shared by the next translator of the Chronicle R.H. Charles, who was concerned that the Chronicle was probably written in two languages, but the passages written in different languages could not be marked off [Charles, 1916, p. iv].

3. The Chronicle was written in Coptic.

This assumption first appeared in T. Nöldeke’s review on Zotenberg’s edition [Nöldeke, 1883, p. 1364–1374]. Then, it was elaborated by W. Crum in a review on Charles’ translation [Crum, 1917, pp. 207–209]. James Howard-Johnson agreed with it in his book on Middle Eastern historical writings of the 7th century [Howard-Johnston, 2010, p. 185]. D. Elagina in her PhD thesis on the Chronicle was also inclined to this opinion, as she considered the arguments in favour of the Coptic origin to be stronger [Elaginа, 2018, p. xxxviii].

4. The Chronicle was written in Greek and then translated into Coptic.

This opinion was expressed, apparently independently, by T. Orlandi [Orlandi, 1970, p. 109] and G. Colin, who examined some chapters related to the history of Pharaonic Egypt [Colin, 1995, p. 44]. Both authors did not provide any arguments. Finally, F.-S. Yirga considered this idea to be possible and found arguments to support it [Yirga, 2020, p. 7].

One can see that most scholars nowadays believe the Coptic language was involved in the history of the creation and existence of John of Nikiu’s Chronicle.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Before studying the linguistic arguments it is worth turning to the historical and cultural context of creation of the Chronicle. John of Nikiu was a Coptic bishop living in Egypt after the Arab conquest. It is evident that the relationships between the Miaphysites and the Chalcedonians were hostile. After the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Miaphysite and Chalcedonian patriarchs replaced each other on the See of Alexandria: both parties elected their own candidates deposing the opponents, and the situation also depended upon the church policy of the emperor. Moreover, the anti-Chalcedonian community in the 6th–7th centuries was far from homogeneous being represented by a number of factions, in particular, the supporters of Severus, the patriarch of Antioch, who opposed the so-called Julianists [Booth, 2017, pp. 154, 172–173]. The latter adhered to aphthartism – the doctrine stating the incorruptibility of the Christ’s body before resurrection. The opposition increased after the persecutions of Justin I, when Egypt became a safe harbor for different factions which at the same time stood against the Chalcedonian confession [Booth, 2017, pp. 154]. In the end, the Severan church was established with the efforts of the patriarchs Peter IV (575–577) and Damian (577–c.606).

John of Nikiu belonged to this pro-Severan anti-Chalcedonian episcopate. J. Howard-Johnston considers unlikely that a Miaphysite bishop could write his opus magnum in the language of his ideological opponents [Howard-Johnston, 2010, p. 185]. In our opinion, this idea seems not improbable if we pay attention to John’s negative attitude towards the Chalcedonian community clearly expressed in the last chapters of the Chronicle. Indeed, the anti-Chalcedonian polemics are reflected in the Coptic written sources of the 6th–7th centuries [Johnson, 1986, pp. 220–225] and John of Nikiu’s Chronicle seems to accord with this trend. Many churchmen of that period were writing in Coptic. Among them were bishops Constantine of Siout, Rufus of Shotep, John of Shmun, John of Paralos, Pesynthios of Coptos, and most notably John’s contemporaries: patriarchs Benjamin, Agathon, John III, and also John of Nikiu’s successor, bishop Menas of Nikiu who compiled an important historical document devoted to the life of the patriarch Isaac (686–689) [Orlandi, 1986, pp. 75–78].

In public domain the spread of Coptic reached its peak during the first two centuries after the Arab conquest: it is from this period that the bulk of documentary texts compiled in Coptic, exceeding in some regions those in Greek, has come down to us [Richter, 2009, p. 405; Van der Vliet, 2013, p. 196]. At the same time, Greek remained to be the main official language of the Church in Egypt well in the 8th century and perhaps even later [Fournet, 2009, p. 433; Van der Vliet, 2013, p. 193]. So, John of Nikiu, as a bishop, should have had a good knowledge of Greek. Moreover, he obviously used Greek sources about which there is no evidence that they were translated in Coptic. A case in point is Chronographia of John Malalas which is the principal source for the first part of John of Nikiu’s Chronicle. For these reasons, F.-S. Yirga finds the idea of ​​translation from Greek into Coptic partly justified [Yirga, 2020, p. 7]. Even if the original text was written in Coptic, the author of the Chronicle in any case translated into Coptic all passages taken from Greek sources. In our research of the processes that could have occurred with the text of the Chronicle and Greek proper nouns borrowed into further translations we were guided by the same considerations.

There is also a number of arguments related to the features of Greek and Coptic literature. H. Zotenberg, expressing his ideas about the Greek origin, was nevertheless surprised that this Chronicle had not been mentioned by subsequent Greek authors and had not become a source for other Greek works [Zotenberg, 1877, p. 451]. Indeed, it is unusual for Greek literature where many texts are known primarily from references in the writings of later generations. It has been cautiously suggested that the passage of the Chronicle concerning the description of the Bulgars could have been used in the 8th century by an unknown Byzantine author whose text was subsequently conveyed in the Chronicle by Theophanes the Confessor and in Historia syntomos, breviarium by Nikephoros I of Constantinople [Mingazov, 2012, p. 13]. However, this only evidence of reception of the Chronicle in Greek literature is hypothetical and ambiguous.

At the same time, W. Crum claimed how incredible it was to suggest a mixed Greek-Coptic text of the Chronicle, since not a single example of such a vast text existed [Crum, 1917, p. 207]. Due to the absence of precedence, one more argument can be noted on behalf of the non-Coptic origin of the text: if the original language of the Chronicle was Coptic, this text can be considered as a unique example of a Coptic Chronicle [Emmel, 2007, p. 96].

Thus, there are profound arguments of a historical-social and historical-philological background both in support of Greek and Coptic as the original language of the Chronicle.

STAGES OF TRANSLATION

As stated above, the primary task of this paper is to analyze each stage of translation separately. Three stages are proposed:

The stage of writing the Chronicle in the late 7th century AD. According to the assumptions described above, the following could happen at this stage:

The author wrote in Greek. In this case, at the next stage, the translation was made directly from Greek into Arabic without the mediation of Coptic, with the exception of the very factor of John’s biliteracy.

The author wrote in Greek, but after some time the Chronicle was translated into Coptic. In this case, the text passed through a recorded Greek-Coptic translation in the 8th century AD or, most probably, later. Inasmuch as the Coptic language is commonly defined as a case of Egyptian-Greek bilingualism that appeared in its developed form in the Egyptian Christian milieu to make predominantly translations of the Holy Scripture and other Christian literature into vernacular tongue [Fournet, 2009, p. 431; Reintges, 2004, p. 36], this assumption is valid.

The author copied and rewrote passages of Greek texts in Coptic. In this case, the translation into Coptic was made simultaneously with the compilation of the Chronicle, so the influence of Greek should have been less.

The stage of translation into Arabic. Dating a translation into Arabic, whether from Greek or Coptic, causes difficulties. Until the present, almost no one has attempted to date the beginning of this stage. J. Howard-Johnson, who adhered to the Coptic original of the Chronicle, suggested that the translation took place in the 10th century or soon afterwards, during the period when the Coptic Church was increasingly moving over to Arabic [Howard-Johnston, 2010, p. 184]. S. Frantsouzoff supposed a later dating based on the existence of a specific term in the text of the Chronicle: ዠምከያት [ǯəməkəyāt], from Arabic جَمَكِيَّةٌ [ǯamakīya-] or جَامَكِيَّة [ǯāmakīya-] of Persian origin which means ‘salary of warrior, reward’. This term was first used in Persian texts in the second half of the 11th century AD, and the earliest Arabic text in which this borrowing could be found is Kitāb Qawānīn al-Dawāwīn ‘The book of rules for the diwāns’ by Ibn Mammati, dated to the end of the 12th century. For these reasons, S. Frantsouzoff did not consider it possible to date the translation of John of Nikiu’s Chronicle into Arabic earlier than the 12th century AD [Frantsouzoff, 2010, p. 80]. However, this term could get into the text during rewriting.

From the point of view of considering this stage of translation, the linguistic environment in Egypt cannot be ignored. During two centuries following the Arab conquest of Egypt, the prominence of Coptic increased, especially in the field of administrative and legal documentation issued at that time predominantly in the indigenous language rather than Greek. This trend started even before the final end of the Byzantine rule in Egypt, since the middle of the 6th century [Fournet, 2009, p. 441; Richter, 2009, p. 405; Van der Vliet, 2013, pp. 197–198]. Still, many of these documents were bilingual (including, for instance, the standard dating and accounting formulae in Greek) or even trilingual [Fournet, 2009, p. 442; Van der Vliet, 2013, pp. 197–199].

The language shift in public and administrative domains from Greek and Coptic to Arabic was happening in the 9th century, so that by the beginning of the Fatimid rule in Egypt in the second half of the 10th century the use of Coptic was limited basically to liturgy and the manuscript tradition preserved in churches and monasteries [Emmel, 2007, p. 84; Van der Vliet, 2013, p. 201]. In the following 11th century (or perhaps a bit earlier) the Coptic literary heritage began to be translated into Arabic [Richter, 2009, p. 404; Rubenson, 1996, pp. 6–7; Van der Vliet, 2013, pp. 201–202]. Samuel Rubenson distinguished three phases in the process of translations from Coptic into Arabic: early translations (biblical, liturgical, apocryphal and hagiographical texts, the canons of the Church) made until the middle of the 11th century; translations of the above-mentioned types of literature as well as Coptic canon laws, patristic authors and the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria made in the 11th–13th centuries; revisions of earlier translations and the new ones which include the Synaxarium, biblical, apocryphal and patristic texts made in the 13th–14th centuries [Rubenson, 1996 pp. 4–14].

If the translation was made from Greek, it is obscure who exactly could have initiated this proccess, despite that there were enough people well acquainted with the Greek language, especially among the clergy. It should be noted that the skills of translation from Greek into Arabic reached a highly professional level by the 12th century AD. By this point, there were at least two historical periods when a large number of texts was translated from Greek into Arabic. All possible errors and inaccuracies have already been recognised in the 9th century by the authors of the translation movement in Baghdad: they translated a wide range of literature through the mediation of the Syriac language [Brock, 2009, p. 3]. After that, in the 11th century, ecclesiastical literature was translated directly from Greek into Arabic in Antioch [Treiger, 2021, p. 643]. These achievements had led to high quality of translations from Greek into Arabic by the overviewed period.

The stage of translation into Ge’ez. This translation extant in the single version of the text was carried out in AD 1601. There were two translators: the Ethiopian royal historiographer Məhərkä Dəngəl and the diacon Gabriel of Coptic origin known for other works [Gusarova, 2023, p. 164]. In addition, there are even more recent retellings of the text in Amharic based on the Ge’ez version [Elagina, 2017, pp. 113–119], but the Amharic versions are not considered in this article.

PHONOLOGY

Greek => Coptic transmission

In the course of rendering Greek words the characteristic spelling variations of consonants included the interchanges k > g and g > k, d > t and t > d that reflected the absence of phonemic contrast between voiced and voiceless dental ([d], [t]) and velar ([g], [k]) stops [Reintges, 2004, p. 40].

Above all the ‘copticization’ of proper nouns could also include the introduction of Coptic letters (e.g. x [h] to render the Greek spiritus asper and occasionally spiritus lenis), the replacement of Greek terminations (e.g. -ος by -e) and variation of vowels that aligns with the processes in Koine Greek (monophthongization, iotaticism) and also referred to the tendency of the Coptic accent system to change vowel qualities along with the apparent ignorance of Greek quantities [Fournet, 2009, p. 444; Reintges, 2004, pp. 41–43; Ernstedt, 1986, pp. 66–68]. The peculiarities of vowel alterations in Greek loanwords transmitted into Coptic can be summarised as following:

o w

e h

u h, i, e (explained by the absence of [ü] in Coptic)

[e]: e – normal, other options: ai, u, oi

[i]: i – normal, other options: h, e, ei

Coptic => Arabic transmission

The correspondences between Coptic and Arabic consonants were more or less conventional, however due to the diversity of phonemic repertoire in Arabic, one Coptic grapheme could ‘regularly or sporadically encode a range of Arabic phonemes’ as it is described by Tonio S. Richter who investigated Arabic borrowings in Coptic [Richter, 2017, p. 517]. On the basis of the earlier evidence of Arabic words transcribed in Coptic texts (9th–11th centuries) and the later source of Copto (Bohairic)-Arabic allography dated to the 13th century (Arabic text transcribed with the Coptic writing system) [Worrell, 1934, pp. 134–136; Satzinger, 1972, pp. 42; Richter, 2017, pp. 513–517], the following multifarious correspondences can be attested:

t => ﺕ [t], ﺙ [ṯ], ﺩ [d], ﺫ [ḏ], ﺽ [ḍ], ﻁ [ṭ], ﻅ [ẓ]

c => ﺕ [t], ﺙ [ṯ], ﺩ [d], ﺫ [ḏ], ﻁ [ṭ]

k => ﻕ [q], ﻙ [k]

y => ﻙ [k], ﺥ [ḫ]

Thus, bearing in mind the variations [k] [g] and [t] [d] that could occur with the Greek loanwords in Coptic (initially voiceless sounds are interchanged with the voiced ones and vice versa).

Greek => Arabic transmission

The principles of phonetic transmission from Greek into Arabic were also predominately conventional. Ancient Greek voiced plosives ([b], [d], [g]), which became fricatives in Byzantine Greek ([v], [ḏ], [γ],) [Horrocks, 2010, p. 171], nevertheless, were mainly transmitted into Arabic as plosives ([b], [d]) and affricate ([ǯ]), but other variants were also possible. Voiceless consonants that did not receive fricative pronunciation ([k], [t]) were expressed predominantly by emphatic analogues ([ḳ], [ṭ]).

In this article, because of the peculiarities of Coptic phonology, the most interesting is an opportunity for voiceless Ancient Greek consonants to become voiced in Byzantine Greek and, consequently, to have a voiced rendering in subsequent translations. It concerns only one combination of sounds ντ, in which the second sound in Byzantine Greek had a voiced implementation: [nḏ] [Horrocks, 2010, pp. 275–276]. In addition, the common transmission of the Greek π [p] to the Arabic was ب [b]. In other cases, a voiceless plosive ([t] or [k]) in any Ancient Greek word could not become a voiced sound in Arabic. Similarly, a voiced plosive ([d] or [g]) in any Ancient Greek word, which subsequently became a voiced fricative, could not have a voiceless implementation in Arabic.

Arabic => Ge’ez transmission

Turning to Arabic and Ge’ez, it is worth paying attention to the correspondences between Arabic and Ge’ez consonants and Proto-Semitic consonants [Weninger, 2011, pp. 1127–1128]. Obviously, Ge’ez has a number of other phonetic features, while in the course of rendering proper nouns, titles and terminological vocabulary from Arabic to Ge’ez natural historical correspondences were not always preserved. First, the labiovelar sounds [kʷ], [gʷ], [qʷ] and [ḫʷ], which appeared in the loanwords of the Chronicle text in accordance with the phonetic laws of Ge’ez. Secondly, in the period, to which the translation of the Chronicle referred, guttural consonants had lost their original implementation: [ḫ], [ḥ], [h] > [h]; [ʕ], [ʔ] > [ʔ] [Butts, 2019, pp. 121–122]. Assimilation of gutturals led to numerous discrepancies of proper nouns in known manuscripts: ከነአን [kanaʔan] = ከነዓን [kanaʕān] (‘Canaan’). In addition, the pairs ፀ [ṣ́], ጸ [ṣ] > [ṣ]; ሠ [ś], ሰ [s] > [s] merged; only a graphical difference remained between them [Gragg, 1997, p. 173]. As a result of assimilation of sibilants mostly symbols of higher frequency were used in borrowed words: ጸ [ṣ] и ሰ [s]. Moreover, not all emphatic consonants remained emphatic: [ṣ] => [s]. Thirdly, under the influence of Old Amharic, unusual sounds penetrated into Ge’ez, therefore additional letters for writing palatal consonants, going back to dental and velar sounds [Kogan, 2009, p. 30], were invented. In the text of the Chronicle there were already symbols: ዠ [ž] < [*z], [*g]; ሸ [š] < [*s], [*ŝ]. However, the use of these signs was irregular and the translator did not regularly use the sign ዠ to convey Arabic ج and could replace it by either ገ [g] or ዘ [z]. Another influence of Old Amharic was shift [ṭ] => [ṣ]. Next, in stable borrowings from the Greek language (especially related to ecclesiastical terminology) ጰ [ṗ] occurred, but it did not occurred in other words, even of Greek origin.

Another complication at this stage of transmission was the possibility of an erroneous reading of the Arabic manuscript during translation from Arabic into Ge’ez. This manuscript was apparently not of good quality, therefore it caused some absurd distortions. The dots for Arabic graphemes were either carelessly or incorrectly placed, or in some places they were absent at all that led to the erroneous reading of a particular letter, since many letters in the Arabic script are distinguished solely by dots [Charles, 1916, p. vi]. Such distortions are easily recognized among others, because they usually involve arbitrary and incorrect replacement of letters:

Instead of the Arabic ف [f], the Arabic ق [q] was read, and instead of the Arabic ي [ī], the Arabic ب [b] was read: فينكس => ቀብኒክስ [qabniks] (‘Phoenics’).

Instead of the Arabic ي [y\ī] the Arabic ت [t] was read: فينيقي => ፉትኒኪ [futniki] (‘Phoenicia’).

Arguments on phonology

So far, there has not been any attempt to study the possible influence of the Coptic language on the Chronicle at the level of phonology. If we pay attention to a range of Greek and Latin proper nouns and common vocabulary preserved in the text in Ge’ez, unusual phonetic variations can be noticed: they cannot be explained by a simple transmission from Greek into Arabic and from Arabic into Ge’ez.

The first case refers to the transitions [t] > [d] and [d] > [ṭ]. [t] > [d] is apparently a result of more or less regular transcription of Coptic t [t], or maybe c [t^h] in Bohairic spelling, with Arabic د [d], while [d] > [ṭ] can be regarded as an elaboration of what has been mentioned before concerning the alteration d > t in Coptic words borrowed from Greek. Here are some examples:

The same concerns the transitions [g] > [q] and [g] > [k], starting from the possible g > k variation that was followed by regular k ق and less regular k ك, or more frequent y ﻙ (in case of Bohairic), correspondences. For ‘regular’ and ‘irregular’ correspondences, see the table ‘Coptic transcription of Arabic consonantal phonemes’ [Richter, 2017, pp. 518–519]:

A remarkable case also refers to the transition b > f attested, for example, in the above-mentioned Βοττία > fudidyā. It can be explained by the alteration in Arabic where ف [f] may correspond to both b [b] and f [f] in Coptic [Richter, 2017, pp. 517–518]. One more peculiarity is represented by the name Ἀμφιλόχιος in which χ was transformed into [g] in Ge’ez: ፊልጎስ [filgos]. Coptic y could have been transcribed as ك [k] in Arabic being more or less regular phoneme-grapheme correspondence, however the following transition into [g] in Ge’ez is vague. Of course, there might have been a scribal error at one or another stage when the text was being copied or even translated. An alternative explanation, including the rare interchange y > k (attested in non-literary texts of the 6th–7th centuries from the Theban region)¹ that could have been further transcribed in an irregular way as ج [ğ] or غ [ġ], seems doubtful.

The observations proposed cannot be verified with certainty because of the lack of any copies with the Chronicle preceding the late translation in Ge’ez. Nevertheless, the theoretical basis as well as other textual evidence taken into consideration enable us to figure out specific phonological values that, in turn, may point at the existence of the Chronicle in Coptic.

MORPHOLOGY & VOCABULARY

Greek => Coptic transmission

The influence of Greek on the Coptic language led to a significant number of borrowings of content words and function words (in average 20%) [Fournet, 2009, p. 431]. The following morphological features of Greek loanwords in Coptic can be denoted:

the nouns remained basically unchanged, with occasional spelling variations;

the adjectives with a range of exceptions usually appeared with the ending -os (sg. m.);

the forms of the majority borrowed verbs reminded in Sahidic Coptic the Greek Imperativus praesentis activi (e.g. baptize, aitei, apanta, yarize), yet there is an assumption to regard it as uninflected stems with the Greek endings of infinitives -ειν and -εσθαι contracted [Reintges, 2004, p. 39]. The very forms of infinitives ending with -in and -esce appear in the verbs of Greek origin in Bohairic that should be taken into consideration as a language from which the Chronicle could have been translated into Arabic. One more peculiarity in Bohairic is the addition of the auxiliary er-, for instance, er vorin (‘bear’), er aspazesce (‘embrace, greet’) [Shisha-Halevy, 1991, p. 55b].

The arbitrary character of Greek borrowings in Coptic makes it difficult to define whether one or another lexical item was used in the originally Coptic or Greek text.

Coptic => Arabic transmission

Although the lexical influence of Coptic on Egyptian Arabic turned out to be insignificant [Bishai, 1964, pp. 39–47], quite a number of modern toponyms of Egypt derived from Coptic. They are widely attested in the Chronicle of John of Nikiu even implicitly.

Greek => Arabic transmission

The main morphological influence that can be noted in the Greek-Arabic translations is the borrowing of some nouns not in the form of Nom. sg., but in the form in which this word was found in the text. Since the declension of a Greek noun often revealed its stem consonant, which is not visible in the form Nom. sg., during such contextual borrowing, the same name can be written in Arabic in completely different ways. Only rare similar discrepancies in the rendering of proper nouns, which could be explained by the peculiarities of Greek morphology, were found in the text of the Chronicle. Indeed, some Greek words may have been borrowed into Arabic during translation, but this primarily concerned very specific terms, for example, medical ones. There are almost no Greek words in the text of the Chronicle except personal names, while the existing borrowings can be mostly explained by the influence of Greek on Ge’ez in general, and do not depend on the hypothetical stage of the Greek-Arabic translation.

Arabic => Ge’ez transmission

In the text of the Chronicle there are quite a lot of lexical borrowings from Arabic [Gusarova, 2024, pp. 149–152]:

نَسَّاخ* (‘copyist’) => ነሳሕ [nasāḥ] etc.

Arabic words also appear between proper nouns:

صور* (‘Tyre’) => ሱር [sur]

شام*‎ (‘Syria’) => ሻም [šām]

تونس* (‘Tunis’) => ቶና [tonā] etc.

Arguments on morphology & vocabulary

The Chronicle contains a lot of Greek and Coptic proper nouns as well as some terms. However, there is no substantial argument for one language or another.

S. Frantsouzoff in his article published in 2010 followed H. Zotenberg and stated that the word መስተገብራን፡ [mastagabrān] (‘workers’) denoting the Green fraction in the Chronicle is the misunderstanding of ‘οἱ Πράσινοι’. According to Frantsouzoff, instead of this term an active participle from the verb πράσσειν (‘do, work, make’) was read [Zotenberg, 1883, p. 410 n. 2; Frantsouzoff, 2010, p. 79]. In 2011 this argument was rejected in the article on the Blue and Green fractions by P. Booth who argued that the verb πράσσειν could be used in Coptic with the same meaning [Booth, 2011, p. 563]. D. Elagina believes that this mistake could have occurred at the stage of compiling the Сhronicle, not necessarily in Greek [Elagina, 2018, p. xxxviii].

Another argument is offered by one of the authors of this article. At the beginning of the text ‘the wise men of the heathen’ Ovid and Plutarch are attested as scholars who wrote after the Great Flood. In Ge’ez Plutarch is called ጽውስ [ṣəwwəs] ‘weak, weakened, feeble’. The mention of Ovid and Plutarch in such a context goes back to the Chronicle of John Malalas [Thurn, 2000, p. 5], but there Plutarch has the usual epithet ὁ Χαιρωνήσιος after his hometown of Chaeronea. It seems that due to a slip of an illiterate copyist this definition was confused with comp. χείρων ‘worse, weaker, less significant’. This error could have occurred in the text of the Chronicle itself, which would indicate a Greek original. However, an alternative explanation is possible: it could be mistake of John himself, who regularly made inaccuracies working with sources, or John could use an already defective version of the text.

Most of the arguments for Coptic as the language of the original were suggested by W. Crum. A case in point is a possible indication of the definite article, presumably in its Bohairic form pi- reflected, in particular, in different appellations of Zeus called Bīrūs or Nīrūs [Crum, 1917, p. 208]. S. Frantsouzoff assumed it could have stemmed from Arabic نيروس < بزيوس [Frantsouzoff, 2017, p. 327]. The former, in turn, could have been transcribed from Coptic pizeus (B) [Horner, 1905, p. 290] / pzeus (S) together with the definite article just like some Coptic words which were borrowed into Egyptian Arabic [Bishai, 1964, pp 40–41]. At the same time, it is possible to explain unusual በ [ba] in Ge’ez as a result of misunderstanding of the Arabic preposition ب [bi], which is appropriate in some corresponding places where one could hardly expect the Coptic article pi- behind the Arabic bi, but instead there should have been another grammatical equivalent of the letter.

As for other traces of the Coptic definite article, Crum also pays attention to the word Henoticon transcribed as በቡኒቁን [babuniqun] in the Chronicle [Crum, 1917, p. 208]. The scholar designates it could derive from painotikon referring to the catalogue by Zoega. Yet, there is pai enwtikon in the latter [Zoëga, 1810, p. 98] that represents demonstrative pronoun pai (‘this’) rather than the definite article p- before regularly written ἑνωτικόν. In any case, we may presume that the merge of pai with enwtikon could have resulted in the augmentation ba- first in the Arabic and then in the Ge’ez translation.

One more remarkable case is represented in mentioning Orpheus who is said to be ‘the lyric poet’ in the translations by H. Zotenberg and R. H. Charles [Zotenberg, 1883, p. 261; Charles, 1916, p. 31]. Yet, another possible translation of እንላሪኩስ [ʔənlārikus] [Zotenberg, 1883, p. 41] would be ‘of Larcus’ (presumably, a place name) which could have been distorted from the initially stated λυρικός (‘lyricist’) as it is attested in the Chronographia of John Malalas [Thurn, 2000, p. 72], one of the principal sources of John of Nikiu. Anyway, the first syllable ending with [n] seems to be odd in both cases despite the meaning of the following word. If we presume that [lārikus] is a result of the corrupted λυρικός (which would be more suitable bearing in mind the possible reference to Malalas and the occupation of Orpheus in general, while the attribution of Larcus to Orpheus hardly makes any sense), then the argument of W. Crum concerning an ‘attributive en-’ [Crum, 1917, p. 207] can be taken into consideration. In this case, it can be regarded as a possible indication of a Coptic marker N- / ṅ- (with a djinkim in Bohairic) attached to the following noun to make an attributive construction composed of the first head noun and the second dependent noun mediated by n- that usually designates an attribute or an adjective [Reintges, 2004, pp. 85–87]. Thus, the word meaning ‘the lyric poet’ following ṅ- [ǝn] could have served as an attribute concerning the occupation [Layton, 2000, p. 82] of the referent – the preceding person of Orpheus. What is also remarkable is that the example regarding Orpheus as well as some other cases noted by W. Crum including possible indications of the articles in their Bohairic forms appear in the passages not related to Egypt and this, in turn, contradicts the suggestion of H. Zotenberg about only specific chapters devoted to Egypt which could have been compiled in Coptic [Zotenberg, 1879, p. 348 n. 1].

A similar attributive construction proposed by W. Crum [Crum, 1917, p. 207] is related to the canal named after Trajan. Nevertheless, the same እን [ʔən] appears before the name Trajan not only in one sentence, but throughout the whole chapter [Zotenberg, 1883, pp. 65–67], where እንድርያኖስ [ʔəndəryānos] is used as a subject and there would have been no need in the linkage marker N-. Still, a possible explanation is to consider the definite article masc. sing. with a djinkim (indicates shwa) – p͘- [ǝp] [Boud’hors, 2020, p. 626], although it is not a widespread practice to mark personal names with a definite article [Layton, 2000, p. 98 §127]. Anyway, the transmission of Coptic p [p] through Arabic ب [b] into Ge’ez [n] aligns with the above mentioned example of pizeus that occurred to be Nīrūs and there is one more example of that kind: Ἑπταστάδιον > እንጠስጣድዩን [ʔənṭasṭādyun].

As for peculiar lexical features noted by W. Crum, an apparent mistranslation of a toponym from Coptic into Arabic and then in Ge’ez refers to the town of Edfu which seems to be implied following Esna [Zotenberg, 1883, pp. 38–39; Crum, 1917, p. 208]. It was known as tbw/cbw/atbw in Coptic deriving from DbA – the name attested first in the 12th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom [Gomaà, 1986, p. 47]. Nevertheless, the translator who appeared to come across with cbw (B) (tbw (S)) interpreted it as a word ‘tree’ (bw) [Crum, 1939, p. 28a-b.] with a definite article fem. sg. instead of Edfu. Since ancient times it was a well-known religious centre devoted to Horus and the ‘building’, which is said in the Chronicle to be worshipped there along with those in other cities, is likely to be the magnificent Ptolemaic temple complex of Edfu.

Finally, one more issue for the translator may have been the word እልመንጣጡን [ʔəlmanṭaṭun] [Zotenberg, 1883, p. 56] which W. Crum quite reasonably assumed to stand for Coptic ma N+twn [Crum, 1917, p. 207] apparently with the Arabic article al-, probably added when the text had been translated to Arabic. Literally, it means the ‘place of strife/dispute/contest’ that repeats verbatim the preceding text in Ge’ez: ‘he appointed a place of conflict/strife’ called [ʔəlmanṭaṭun]. W. Crum proposed it was ‘mistaken by the Arab as a place-name and so left untranslated’ [Crum, 1917, p. 207]. Yet, it seems that in the Arabic translation there might have been a kind of a gloss – the Coptic expression transcribed and supplied with an explanatory note in the margin that was later added to the main text by some copyist, or the translator to the Ge’ez.

Some of Crum’s ideas may be questioned over time. Bearing in mind the long history of the text, there might have been many copies, probably even redactions of the text in different languages. So, the majority of errors in morphology and phonology could have been made unconsciously in the process of copying the text in one particular language and then those deviations from the original may have been reflected in the following translations.

SYNTAX

Although there is a number of attributes of the influence of Greek syntax on Coptic, as well as Coptic or Greek syntax on Arabic, unfortunately these arguments are not applicable to our research. The syntax of the Chronicle’s text has all features of common Ge’ez syntax influenced by Arabic (аs a result of translation from Arabic, quite a lot of complex sentences and analytical verbal constructions with the verb ኮነ [kona] (‘to be’) or phase verbs are encountered [Gusarova, 2024, pp. 152–153]; similar syntactic constructions appear consistently in the texts translated from Arabic [Butts, 2019, p. 134]). The possibility of influence of the original syntax on Ge’ez was considered, but neither Greek, nor Coptic features were found.

CONCLUSION