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From ‘Restsprachen’ to Contemporary Endangered Languages
The book deals with the concept of fragmentation as applied to languages and their documentation. It focuses in particular on the theoretical and methodological consequences of such a fragmentation for the linguistic analysis and interpretation of texts and, hence, for the reconstruction of languages. Furthermore, by adopting an innovative perspective, the book aims to test the application of the concept of fragmentation to languages which are not commonly included in the categories of ‘Corpussprache’, ‘Trümmersprache’, and ‘Restsprache’. This is the case with diachronic or diatopic varieties — of even well-known languages — which are only attested through a limited corpus of texts as well as with endangered languages. In this latter case, not only is the documentation fragmented, but the very linguistic competence of the speakers, due to the reduction of contexts of language use, interference phenomena with majority languages, and consequent presence of semi-speakers.
From ‘Restsprachen’ to Contemporary Endangered Languages
The book deals with the concept of fragmentation as applied to languages and their documentation. It focuses in particular on the theoretical and methodological consequences of such a fragmentation for the linguistic analysis and interpretation of texts and, hence, for the reconstruction of languages. Furthermore, by adopting an innovative perspective, the book aims to test the application of the concept of fragmentation to languages which are not commonly included in the categories of ‘Corpussprache’, ‘Trümmersprache’, and ‘Restsprache’. This is the case with diachronic or diatopic varieties — of even well-known languages — which are only attested through a limited corpus of texts as well as with endangered languages. In this latter case, not only is the documentation fragmented, but the very linguistic competence of the speakers, due to the reduction of contexts of language use, interference phenomena with majority languages, and consequent presence of semi-speakers.
This volume is a major contribution to the study of the life, work and standing of Joseph Brodsky, 1987 Nobel Prize Laureate and the best-known Russian poet of the second half of the twentieth century. This is the most significant book devoted to him in the last 25 years, and features work by many of the leading experts on him, both in Russia and the West. Every one of the chapters makes a real contribution to different aspects of Brodsky – the growth of interest in his work, his world view and political position, and the unique aspects of his poetics. Taken together, the sixteen chapters offer a rounded interpretation of his significance for Russian culture today.
This volume is a major contribution to the study of the life, work and standing of Joseph Brodsky, 1987 Nobel Prize Laureate and the best-known Russian poet of the second half of the twentieth century. This is the most significant book devoted to him in the last 25 years, and features work by many of the leading experts on him, both in Russia and the West. Every one of the chapters makes a real contribution to different aspects of Brodsky – the growth of interest in his work, his world view and political position, and the unique aspects of his poetics. Taken together, the sixteen chapters offer a rounded interpretation of his significance for Russian culture today.
Critical Edition and Notes Volume 2
Contributor:
For more than a millennium, Kālidāsa’s poem “Lineage of the Raghus” (Raghuvaṃśa) has been acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of Sanskrit literature. Thousands of manuscripts transmit it, and dozens of pre-modern commentaries expound the text.
This is the second volume (out of three) of the earliest surviving commentary, that of the tenth-century Kashmirian Vallabhadeva. The text that he had before him of Kālidāsa’s poems differs in many places from that printed in other editions, which generally follow the readings of the commentator Mallinātha, who wrote four centuries later.
Notes discuss the text and report the readings of three other hitherto unpublished commentaries that predate Mallinātha, namely those of Śrīnātha, Vaidyaśrīgarbha and Dakṣiṇāvartanātha.
This is the second volume (out of three) of the earliest surviving commentary, that of the tenth-century Kashmirian Vallabhadeva. The text that he had before him of Kālidāsa’s poems differs in many places from that printed in other editions, which generally follow the readings of the commentator Mallinātha, who wrote four centuries later.
Notes discuss the text and report the readings of three other hitherto unpublished commentaries that predate Mallinātha, namely those of Śrīnātha, Vaidyaśrīgarbha and Dakṣiṇāvartanātha.
Critical Edition and Notes Volume 2
For more than a millennium, Kālidāsa’s poem “Lineage of the Raghus” (Raghuvaṃśa) has been acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of Sanskrit literature. Thousands of manuscripts transmit it, and dozens of pre-modern commentaries expound the text.
This is the second volume (out of three) of the earliest surviving commentary, that of the tenth-century Kashmirian Vallabhadeva. The text that he had before him of Kālidāsa’s poems differs in many places from that printed in other editions, which generally follow the readings of the commentator Mallinātha, who wrote four centuries later.
Notes discuss the text and report the readings of three other hitherto unpublished commentaries that predate Mallinātha, namely those of Śrīnātha, Vaidyaśrīgarbha and Dakṣiṇāvartanātha.
This is the second volume (out of three) of the earliest surviving commentary, that of the tenth-century Kashmirian Vallabhadeva. The text that he had before him of Kālidāsa’s poems differs in many places from that printed in other editions, which generally follow the readings of the commentator Mallinātha, who wrote four centuries later.
Notes discuss the text and report the readings of three other hitherto unpublished commentaries that predate Mallinātha, namely those of Śrīnātha, Vaidyaśrīgarbha and Dakṣiṇāvartanātha.
Abstract
This paper focuses on the notion of ‘Alexandrian Greek’ by comparing the direct evidence available for Alexandria with the ways in which ancient Greek erudite sources employ the category of ‘Alexandrian Greek’. Given that the dearth of direct sources prohibits any linguistic definition of ‘Alexandrian Greek’ within the macro-category of Hellenistic Greek, this elusive variety may at first glance qualify as a ‘Restsprache’. However, the picture is complicated by ancient erudite sources in which ‘Alexandrian’ refers not to the Greek spoken in Alexandria, but rather to a sociolinguistic category that corresponds to the lower registers of the koine. The ideologically charged term ‘Alexandrian Greek’ thus identifies a diastratic and diaphasic—rather than diatopic—variety within post-Classical Greek. Given that informal and colloquial language may indeed qualify as a fragmentary variety of Greek, the notion of ‘Alexandrian Greek’ adopted by the erudite sources documents its metalinguistic perception and the different ways in which ancient grammarians and lexicographers grappled with it.
Abstract
This paper deals with the interpretation, analysis, and classification of fragmentarily attested languages, focusing on the languages of Pre-Roman Italy. Specifically, through case studies from Venetic and Celtic of Italy, it explores the theoretical and methodological challenges in the study of these languages, emphasizing the unstable nature of their knowledge in relation to different aspects due to the complex interplay between known and new information.
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Abstract
The present contribution will discuss fragments of Greek in Babylonian sources from the very end of the cuneiform culture, addressing the issue of fragmentariness in the sense of ‘fragmentarily attested’. The analysis will be based on quantitatively limited corpora of occurrences of Greek, both language and script, in Babylonian sources. Their characteristics and specific nature will be examined in detail. The evidence under discussion will be interpreted as tangible expression of the multilingual environment of Hellenistic and Parthian Babylonia, and of the intricate mechanisms that regulate the relationship between different languages and writing systems in this context.
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Abstract
The flowering of the phenomenon of archaism in 4th century BCE Egypt also includes the revival of a series of New Kingdom texts connected to the solar tradition and focused on the figure of the sovereign. The study aims to reconstruct the ways in which different types of ancient texts (liturgical and funerary) are taken up and elaborated as evidence of ancient culture. The selected sources include the Solar Royal Liturgy and excerpts from the Netherworld Books, recorded in tombs and stone sarcophagi of the period. The examples analysed allow us to reconstruct some of the procedures used by the scribal schools of the period in the revision and editing of ancient compositions; particular attention is given to those original interventions that testify to the affirmation of the culture of the written text as a fundamental element in the semantics of late Egyptian culture.
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This paper discusses the status of the extinct autochthonous Romance varieties of Dalmatia in historical linguistics. Recent revisions of the concept of ‘Dalmatian’ suggest, on one hand, that this traditional subgrouping is not based on valid comparative evidence, and on the other that the study of Vegliote, still spoken in Krk (It. Veglia) in the second half of the 19th century, should be kept separate from the study of the indirect sources attesting early medieval Romance varieties in the rest of historical Dalmatia. Partial reconstructions of these indirectly attested varieties have been dismissed as conjectural languages that cannot be regarded as coherent linguistic systems. While I welcome the revision of the concept of ‘Dalmatian’, I argue that indirect sources, particularly autochthonous Romance loanwords in Croatian and Montenegrin vernaculars, can lead to a more substantial understanding of the evolution of Vegliote. The indirect sources allow identifying a primitive linguistic unity of which Early Vegliote was part, involving a particular set of innovations and retentions, in the northern part of the area traditionally ascribed to ‘Dalmatian’. They also enable establishing, with the aid of Slavic relative chronology, a reliable dating for some of the defining features of Vegliote.
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Abstract
After taking a cursory look at the ancient world at the beginning, the article moves on to consider a language variety that is still spoken today, albeit in an advanced state of language shift: Istro-Romanian. Its high degree of permeability to the contact language (Croatian) will be discussed by adducing examples from morphology (verb tense and aspect; comparative and superlative formation) and syntax (clitic placement; conjunctions) and concluding that Istro-Romanian in its current phase has properties that allow it to be termed a ‘Restsprache in re’. Given the uniformitarian principle, the study of such a language can provide insights and serve as a term of comparison for ancient ‘Restsprachen’.
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Abstract
By comparing the language of the oldest Mòcheno text, the translation of the Parable of the Prodigal Son transmitted in the Montbret manuscript 489 (folios 71–72) with the indirect documentation of 19th century Mòcheno in Schmeller (1833), this chapter provides evidence that the translation was written in the now extinct variety of Vignola and thus documents a ‘Restsprache’.