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This is the first book-length study of the roles played by the Manchu language at the center of the Qing empire at the height of its power in the eighteenth century.
It presents a revisionist account of Manchu not as a language in decline, but as extensively and consciously used language in a variety of areas.
It treats the use, discussion, regulation, and philological study of Manchu at the court of an emperor who cared deeply for the maintenance and history of the language of his dynasty.
Oriental Studies, Politics, and History between Gotha and Africa, 1650-1700
Volume Editors: , , and
Hiob Ludolf (1624-1704) and Johann Michael Wansleben (1635-1679), the master and his erstwhile student could not be more different. Ludolf was a celebrated member of the Republic of Letters and the towering authority on Ethiopian studies. Wansleben, himself a brilliant scholar and, unlike Ludolf, a seasoned traveller in the Middle East, converted to Catholicism and eventually died impoverished and marginalized. Both stood at the centre of the burgeoning study of Ethiopia and spent a formative part of their career in middle sized Duchy of Saxe-Gotha which for several years played a pivotal role in Ethiopian-European encounters. This volume offers in-depth studies of the remarkable life and work of these two scholars in a broader intellectual, political, and confessional context.
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Christianus Ravius (Christian Raue, 1613-1677) led a life of remarkable variety, which illustrates many aspects of the career of a scholar in seventeenth century Europe. This biography, the first full-length treatment of him since 1744, covers the first three decades of his eventful career, from the Gymnasium in his native Berlin through Germany, Scandiniavia, Holland, England and the Ottoman Empire. Drawing on much previously unexploited evidence, and on detailed analyses of his numerous published works, it presents a picture of a scholar trying to establish himself in the Republic of Letters, cultivating the acquaintance of many contemporary scholars, including such great names as Hugo Grotius, John Selden, James Ussher, Claudius Salmasius, Johannes Buxtorf II, G. J. Vossius and Jaobus Golius.
In the background of his precarious existence looms the Thirty Years’ War, which was a cause not only of his parents’ early death but also of the devastation of his family’s estate and his persistent poverty. Despite his failure to obtain a permanent position in any 0f the universities with which he was associated during this time, he persisted in promoting the study of oriental languages, especially Arabic. This led to his stay of two years in Constantinople and other parts of the Ottoman Empire, where he managed to acquire the remarkable collection of oriental manuscripts which was an important element in his attempts to attain employment and recognition. This study includes an account of the identity and present location of almost three hundred of those manuscripts, and also an edition of many unpublished letters from his extensive correspondence which are relevant to the narrative of his life. Ravius’s idiosyncratic theories on linguistic history receive due attention.
Nathaniel Barron offers the first book length account in English of Ernst Bloch’s contribution to a Marxist philosophy of language. It is ambitious both in situating Bloch’s ideas in the broader Marxist engagement with language as it currently exists, and in using Bloch’s utopian categories to challenge that engagement. In particular, Barron reads Voloshinov’s insights into language through Bloch’s categories, and argues that Bloch advances on Voloshinov by offering an understanding of the social materiality of language which is more useful for challenging fascist forms of utterance.
Authors: and
Merging insights from cognitive linguistic theories of language and learning theories originating within psychology, Divjak and Milin present a new paradigm that has computational modelling at its core. They showcase the power of this interdisciplinary approach for linguistic theory, methodology and description. Through a series of detailed case studies that model usage of the English article system, the Polish aspectual system, English tense/aspect contrasts and the Serbian case system they show how computational models anchored in learning can provide a simple and comprehensive account of how intricate phenomena that have long defied a unified treatment could be learned from exposure to usage alone. As such, their models form the basis for a first rigorous test of a core assumption of usage-based linguistics: that of the emergence of structure from use.
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This is the first book to explore the role of quotation in modern Jewish thought. Weaving back and forth from Benjamin to Rosenzweig, the book searches for the recovery of concealed and lost meaning in the community of letters, sacred scripture, the collecting of books, storytelling, and the life of liturgy. It also explores how the legacy of Goethe can be used to develop new strata of religious and Jewish thought. We learn how quotation is the binding tissue that links language and thought, modernity and tradition, religion and secularism as a way of being in the world.