Search

Language maps, which reflect linguistic pluralism, multilingualism and the spread of languages across countries and empires were part of an evolving human history. Historically, language came under the impact of geography, political conflicts and colonization. Due to these factors, languages penetrate borders or ended up in isolation or even in extinction. In this context, the paper investigates selected language maps of many African, Asian, European and South American countries in order to underline the connections between language, politics, immigration, war and other related elements. The paper argues that current language maps in some geographical regions are similar to the political maps of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries because colonial languages continued to exist in these countries even after the departure of the colonizers. Further, the paper explores the spread of a variety of languages and their penetration in some countries, which constituted a great part of the European Union, in order to examine the impact of geo-politics on the changing status of language maps in Europe.

This paper offers a contribution to the research of the initial stages in the evolution of the thematic system. It focuses on the role of Emperor Justinian II in the formation of the new imperial military and territorial organization. Byzantine scholars have determined a long time ago that it is Justinian II who should be credited with the founding of new military districts (themes) in Hellas and Sicily. This paper, however, suggests that the formation of the themes in Thrace and Kibyrrhaiotai could also be considered a part of Justinian’s policy. In addition, the paper aims to highlight Justinian’s role in the formation of the frontier military and administrative system (the kleisourai of Strymon and Cappadocia), as well as in the reform of military and territorial organization in the Aegean basin. By creating new army units which were not based on the Late Roman heritage, Justinian essentially abandoned the principles that the Byzantine army had previously functioned on. Finally, the paper highlights the fact that the establishment of new thematic units under Emperor Justinian II was coupled with his extensive colonization measures. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177032: Tradicija, inovacija i identitet u vizantijskom svetu]

Network data consisting of recorded historical events can be represented as hyper-graphs where the ties or events can connect any number of nodes or event related attributes. In this paper, we perform a centrality analysis of a directed hypergraph representing attacks by indigenous peoples from the Lesser Antilles on European colonial settlements, 1509–1700. The results of central attacks with respect to at- tacked colonial force, member of attack alliances, and year and location of attack are discussed and compared to a non-relational exploratory analysis of the data. This comparison points to the importance of a mixed methods approach to enhance the analysis and to obtain a complementary understanding of a network study.

A scrutinized reading of the early fiction of Naguib Mahfouz, particularly his masterpiece Midaq Alley, reveals that the author's outward tendency to offer what seems to be a neutral presentation of Egyptian-Arab women is thwarted by a hegemonic master narrative originated in local patriarchal traditions. It either marginalizes the female subaltern downsizing her role in the fictional canvas or conflates her with a status of gender inferiority by assigning her a role which conforms to her image in the patriarchal taxonomy of Oriental women. In other words, the authorial attempt to create an objective narrative of the male/ female controversy in Midaq Alley is totally undermined by a plethora of male voices dominating the fictional text and deploying patriarchal discourses about the depravity of the female race and the invalidity of women's struggle for independence. In this context, the paper argues that due to a hegemonic narrative mechanism, Mahfouz's representation of the female protagonist conforms to domestic patriarchal visions of femininity while on the surface it masks itself as a progressive image of womanhood.