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The book brings together leading scholars on languages of the Zagros mountains spanning the borderlands between Iraq and Iran. It contains contributions on the Gorani literary Koine, language documentation, contact between Neo-Aramaic Christian and Jewish communities and local Iranian languages, the diachrony of these languages, and the cultural milieu of their speakers.

In recent decades, Hispanic corpus linguistics has seen both an increase in corpus size (corpus linguistics as Big Data) and great improvement in document selection and data annotation (corpus linguistics as High Quality Data). The contributions gathered in this volume combine both methods in order to exploit their advantages and overcome their limitations. This methodology attempts to provide answers to various questions of Hispanic linguistics.

This collection brings together studies on vernacular manuscripts in regional Chinese dialects such as Cantonese and Hokkien, those of non-Han peoples in China and Southeast Asia, and one in Vietnamese. Coverage includes contributions from scholars from a variety of disciplines and intellectual traditions, and provides information about the physicality of the manuscripts investigated and the vernacular scripts in which they are written.

As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s life partner, Christiana von Goethe (née Vulpius) corresponded extensively, providing remarkable insights into her language and writing practice. This volume examines her letters linguistically as witnesses of everyday language around 1800 and in terms of relationship history, and places them in the broader context of social biography, gender, and cultural history.

The dispersal of the Indo-European language family dramatically altered the linguistic landscape in Europe, resulting in the loss of many of the preexisting languages. This volume brings together contributions focusing on the evidence for prehistoric language contact with non-Indo-European languages in multiple Indo-European groups.

How textual variations develop in different cultures what variants say about a culture’s understanding of text, and (collective) authorship what happens when variants generate their own strands of tradition how changes in the processes of transmission, or the migration of texts into different contexts can influence or be influenced by the development of variants – this book addresses these questions in a historical and comparative perspective.

This study examines discourses surrounding historical attitudes to language and language standardization from the 16th to the 18th century and shows what knowledge or accompanying beliefs scholars of the time associated with (High) German. It uses a frame-semantic approach to reconstruct the frame of knowledge.

This book corrals global scholarship on ancient writing systems from China, Mesopotamia, Central America, the Mediterranean, to more recent newly created scripts such as the Rongorongo from Easter Island, the Caroline Island scripts, as well as the alphabet. The aim is to dig into the foundations of writing and showcase the complexities and varieties of scripts, from their invention to the potential decipherment of poorly understood scripts. The volume offers state-of-the-art research on undeciphered scripts from the Aegean (as, for example, Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A) or not completely deciphered (as, for example, Maya) scripts. From a methodological perspective, these contributions lay out how and why writing was invented, who used it, and to what ends. Here writing is presented as a multi-modal cultural phenomenon, which intersects and transcends neat discipline boundaries, within an inclusive approach bridging archaeology, linguistics, epigraphy, and cognitive studies. After a general introduction, the book is organized into three parts. The first part is dedicated to chapters charting convergent, common trends and patterns in the origin and developments of writing in completely independent contexts, while never losing track of local differences and original solutions. The central part is devoted to exploring different approaches and methods to the study of undeciphered scripts. The final part showcases current approaches to early writing and reading.

The consecutive tenses are fundamental in all descriptions of Classical Hebrew grammar. They are even basic to the textbooks on Biblical Hebrew. Being fundamental in the verbal system, and part of any beginner’s grammar, they pose a serious problem to a linguistic understanding of the verbal system, since grammars describe an alternation of ‘forms’ or ‘tenses’ in double pairs: wayyiqṭol alternates with its ‘equivalent’ qaṭal, and wə-qaṭal alternates with its ‘equivalent’ yiqṭol. This ‘enigma’ in the verbal system is handled in the book by recognising that the alternation of the consecutive tenses with other tenses, in the reality of the text, represents a linking of clauses. The ‘consecutive tenses’ are clause-types with a natural language connective wa- directly followed by a finite verbal morpheme, a type of clause that expressed continuity in the earliest stage of Semitic. The commonly held assumption that there is a special ‘consecutive waw’ is unwarranted. The use of the ‘consecutive’ clause-types in order to express discourse continuity indicates that Classical Hebrew has retained the old unmarked declarative word order of Semitic syntax. Seen in the light of recent research on the Tiberian reading tradition, the ‘consecutive’ wayyiqṭol can be analysed as a retention of the old Semitic past perfective *wa-yaqtul, which was pronounced wa-yiqṭol in Classical Hebrew. The ‘consecutive’ wə-qāṭal (pronounced wa-qaṭal in the classical language) constitutes the result of an internal Hebrew development into a construction (in the sense of Joan Bybee) already foreshadowed in the earliest Northwest Semitic languages. The book understands the ‘consecutive tenses’ as discourse continuity clauses, which typically form chains of main line clauses. Such chains can be interrupted by other types of clauses. This interruption is a clause linking that receives special attention in the interpretation of the Classical Hebrew verbal system. Chapter six presents a regenerated text linguistics founded on the new terminology. A clause linking approach is the central methodological procedure in this book. To this must be added diachronic typology in a comparative Semitic setting. The linguistic examples of clause linking are gathered from a large Classical Hebrew corpus, the Pentateuch and the Book of Judges, and made searchable in a database of 6559 non-archaic text records.

Papua New Guinean, Chinese and Australian people have long been entangled in the creation of complex histories and political debates concerning the similarities and differences of each group. These debates are fundamental to understanding how a sense of national unity in Papua New Guinea is formed, as well as within analyses of the wider world of strategic power dynamics and influence. The Chinese in Papua New Guinea offers a comprehensive and nuanced examination of the Chinese in Papua New Guinea. Chinese, Papua New Guinean and Australian interactions are analysed in the context of ongoing shifts in colonial power, increased regional engagement with China, and current political instabilities across the Indo-Pacific region. The many ways the Chinese have been defined as actors in PNG's history and politics are analysed against the backdrop of a rapidly changing global order. The complexity of Chinese experiences within Papua New Guinea is given expression, here, with chapters that stress political and historical heterogeneity, the importance of language for understanding Chinese social relations, and that articulate rich personal experiences of race relations.

This volume aims to look into the spectrum of secondary predication, and provide solutions from formal theoretical perspectives for the issues surrounding its syntax and semantics that are raised by secondary predication constructions, both individually and as a package, aided by thorough investigation of the empirical facts of secondary predication in a variety of typologically unrelated languages.

This book analyses written artefacts integrating diverse languages and scripts. It investigates scribal practices, shedding light on multicultural communities and regions with intersecting writing traditions. The essays cover various domains, from everyday life to scholarship and political propaganda, challenging the perception of multilingualism and multiscriptism as exceptions in writing cultures.

English has become central to global knowledge production. But what does the reliance of English mean for the world? The monograph challenges the monopoly of English as metalanguage and proposes instead a "Postcolonial Semantics". Through original semantic work on urban Pacific words and meanings, this framework takes a critical cultural semantic look at key themes in the fields of language, communication, sociology, psychology and geopolitics.

Current scientific advances are reshaping our understanding of prehistory, offering unprecedented insights into the movements and kinship patterns of prehistoric populations. These new advances provide us with detailed information on several aspects of the early speakers of Indo-European and their lives. However, the prehistoric humans that we know through bones and potsherds were once real people speaking real languages and having specific beliefs, mythological tales and poetic expressions. With this book, we want to apply a multidisciplinary approach that combines historical linguistics, archaeology, and comparative religion in order to improve our understanding of the early speakers of Indo-European. The book is a collection of papers by specialists in historical linguistics, archaeology and comparative religion, each examining different facets of the early Indo-European speakers, including their language, culture, and religious practices.

This volume presents an edition of a corpus of Arabic documents datable to the 11th and 12th centuries AD that were discovered by the Egypt Exploration Society at the site of the Nubian fortress Qaṣr Ibrīm (situated in the south of modern Egypt). The edition of the documents is accompanied by English translations and a detailed analysis of their contents and historical background. The documents throw new light on relations between Egypt and Nubia in the High Middle Ages, especially in the Fatimid period. They are of particular importance since previous historical studies from the perspective of Arabic sources have been almost entirely based on historiographical sources, often written a long time after the events described and distorted by tendentious points of view.

This volume undertakes a linguistic exploration of the endangered Arabic dialect spoken by the Jews of Gabes, a coastal city situated in Southern Tunisia. Belonging to the category of sedentary North African dialects, this variety is now spoken by a dwindling number of native speakers, primarily in Israel and France. Given the imminent extinction faced by many modern varieties of Judaeo-Arabic, including Jewish Gabes, the study's primary goal is to document and describe its linguistic nuances while reliable speakers are still accessible. Data for this comprehensive study were collected during fieldwork in Israel and France between December 2018 and March 2022. The volume's primary objective is a meticulous comparative analysis of Jewish Gabes, with a special emphasis on syntax, aiming to discern unique linguistic features through comparison with other North African dialects. The results of the study suggest that the Jewish dialect of Gabes emerged in the first wave of the Arab conquest of the Maghreb, thus exhibiting features that set it apart from its Muslim counterpart. This old variety therefore has the potential to provide invaluable information on the formation of Maghrebi Arabic and the mechanisms of language contact in the pre-Islamic Maghreb. The volume is organised in three main sections: phonology, morphology, and syntax, with the syntax section adopting historical and typological perspectives to shed light on this linguistic terra incognita.

El presente volumen contiene una edición contrastada y anotada en letras latinas de las cuatro adaptaciones sefardíes de Robinson Crusoe. La edición de textos va precedida por un estudio preliminar que abarca una breve introducción a la narrativa sefardí moderna en la que se comentan los comienzos de la literatura secular en judeoespañol. A continuación, se presentan las ediciones judías de Robinson Crusoe, esto es, las adaptaciones asquenazíes en yídish y en hebreo, y las sefardíes en judeoespañol. La obra se completa con un estudio comparativo lingüístico-literario que se centra en la judaización de los textos y su adaptación para el público sefardí, haciendo hincapié también en los fenómenos lingüísticos derivados del hecho de tratarse de la traducción de un original hebreo.

This book is a detailed study of contact-induced change in the Neo-Aramaic dialect of the Jews of Sanandaj, a town in western Iran. Since its foundation in early 17th century, the city has been home to a significant Jewish community. The Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of the town displays different historical layers of contact with various Iranian languages over the course of many centuries. The Iranian languages in question are Gorani, Kurdish, and Persian. Among these, Gorani has had a particularly deep impact on Jewish Neo-Aramaic, whereas the impact of Kurdish, and especially Persian, remains superficial. Jewish Neo-Aramaic records a history of language shift from Gorani to Kurdish in the region. The book offers insights into contact-induced change in social contexts in which a language is maintained as a demarcation of communal identity in a multilingual setting. ; This book is a detailed study of contact-induced change in the Neo-Aramaic dialect of the Jews of Sanandaj, a town in western Iran. Since its foundation in early 17th century, the city has been home to a significant Jewish community. The Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of the town displays different historical layers of contact with various Iranian languages over the course of many centuries. The Iranian languages in question are Gorani, Kurdish, and Persian. Among these, Gorani has had a particularly deep impact on Jewish Neo-Aramaic, whereas the impact of Kurdish, and especially Persian, remains superficial. Jewish Neo-Aramaic records a history of language shift from Gorani to Kurdish in the region. The book offers insights into contact-induced change in social contexts in which a language is maintained as a demarcation of communal identity in a multilingual setting.

Polarity (positive, negative) is one of the most fundamental concepts in the system of language and there are many expressions that are sensitive to polarity. For example, any in English and wh-mo in Japanese appear in negative contexts, but not in positive contexts. While previous studies have shown that polarity-sensitive expressions are a general phenomenon in languages, it has also become clear that there are variations in polarity-sensitive expressions. This volume explores the variations in polarity-sensitive expressions through comparisons between Japanese and other languages, such as English, German, Spanish, and Old Japanese, and examines the environments and contexts in which polarity-sensitive expressions occur, as well as the types of (cross-linguistic) variation allowed. The value of the present volume lies in its inclusion of research papers inquiring into various types of polarity-sensitive expressions, such as negative-, positive-, and discourse-sensitive polarity items as well as their variations. The research indicates new directions for the study of polarity-sensitive expressions in the fields of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics. ; Polarity (positive, negative) is one of the most fundamental concepts in the system of language and there are many expressions that are sensitive to polarity. For example, any in English and wh-mo in Japanese appear in negative contexts, but not in positive contexts. While previous studies have shown that polarity-sensitive expressions are a general phenomenon in languages, it has also become clear that there are variations in polarity-sensitive expressions. This volume explores the variations in polarity-sensitive expressions through comparisons between Japanese and other languages, such as English, German, Spanish, and Old Japanese, and examines the environments and contexts in which polarity-sensitive expressions occur, as well as the types of (cross-linguistic) variation allowed. The value of the present volume lies in its inclusion of research papers inquiring into various types of polarity-sensitive expressions, such as negative-, positive-, and discourse-sensitive polarity items as well as their variations. The research indicates new directions for the study of polarity-sensitive expressions in the fields of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics.

Issues in Japanese Psycholinguistics from Comparative Perspectives compiles over 30 state-of-the-art articles on Japanese psycholinguistics. It emphasizes the importance of using comparative perspectives when conducting psycholinguistic research. Psycholinguistic studies of Japanese have contributed greatly to the field from a cross-linguistic perspective. However, the target languages for comparison have been limited. Most research focuses on English and a few other typologically similar languages. As a result, many current theories of psycholinguistics fail to acknowledge the nature of ergative-absolutive and/or object-before-subject languages. The cross-linguistic approach is not the only method of comparison in psycholinguistics. Other prominent comparative aspects include comprehension vs. production, native speakers vs. second language learners, typical vs. aphasic language development. Many of these approaches are underrepresented in Japanese psycholinguistics. The studies reported in the volumes attempt to bridge these gaps. Using various experimental and/or computational methods, they address issues of the universality/diversity of the human language and the nature of the relationship between human cognitive modules. Volume 2, Interaction Between Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Factors, provides studies on the interaction between linguistic and non-linguistic factors. ; Issues in Japanese Psycholinguistics from Comparative Perspectives compiles over 30 state-of-the-art articles on Japanese psycholinguistics. It emphasizes the importance of using comparative perspectives when conducting psycholinguistic research. Psycholinguistic studies of Japanese have contributed greatly to the field from a cross-linguistic perspective. However, the target languages for comparison have been limited. Most research focuses on English and a few other typologically similar languages. As a result, many current theories of psycholinguistics fail to acknowledge the nature of ergative-absolutive and/or object-before-subject languages. The cross-linguistic approach is not the only method of comparison in psycholinguistics. Other prominent comparative aspects include comprehension vs. production, native speakers vs. second language learners, typical vs. aphasic language development. Many of these approaches are underrepresented in Japanese psycholinguistics. The studies reported in the volumes attempt to bridge these gaps. Using various experimental and/or computational methods, they address issues of the universality/diversity of the human language and the nature of the relationship between human cognitive modules. Volume 2, Interaction Between Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Factors, provides studies on the interaction between linguistic and non-linguistic factors.

This book reconstructs aspects of linguistic prosody from the medieval records of two closely related Germanic languages, English and Norse. Evidence is drawn from a series of case studaqqqqqzies on vowel reductions and the metrics of alliterative verse in early Old English, early Middle English, and Old Norse. Taken together, these diverse sources of data indicate a notable continuity in the internal rhythmic structure of words in these languages. Specifically, an enduring role is played by the bimoraic trochee, a prosodic unit which serves as the basis for the poetic phenomenon of resolution in English and Norse verse. This continuity explains a wide range of phenomena – high-vowel deletion in Old English, Kaluza's law in Beowulf, reductions of certain unstressed vowels in the ‘AB’ dialect of early Middle English, poetic resolution in Laȝamon’s Brut, the ‘syncope periods’ in Norse runic inscriptions, Craigie's law in skaldic poetry, Sievers' law in Proto-Germanic, and more – as all having been shaped by this pertinacious prosodic building block. These developments are contextualised both within broader linguistic typological perspectives and against the philological details of medieval metrics and sources. Attention is also given to the role of language contact not only as a potential driver of prosodic change, but as a source of prosodic continuity.

Text patterns can be described in several interwoven dimensions. This volume looks at examples of empirical studies of historical text types to show how quantitative methods from corpus linguistics can be productively combined with qualitative approaches based on manual annotations in order to identify changes in text patterns on various levels by examining characteristic linguistic units.

Die Erscheinungsformen und linguistischen Effekte von Mehrsprachigkeit sind nicht nur regional oft äußerst unterschiedlich, sondern auch historisch divers und veränderlich. Die Beiträge dieses Sammelbandes haben Mehrsprachigkeitsszenarien in der Geschichte Europas im Fokus und vermitteln einen Eindruck davon, wie der Alltag von Europäerinnen und Europäern in unterschiedlichen Epochen, Gebieten oder auch Institutionen von Mehrsprachigkeit geprägt war. Der Band präsentiert verschiedene Perspektiven auf die Erforschung historischer Mehrsprachigkeit an der Schnittstelle von Sprachkontaktforschung und historischer Soziolinguistik. Er richtet sich damit an ein breites Publikum mit Interesse an historischer Sprachwissenschaft und Mehrsprachigkeitsforschung. ; Die Erscheinungsformen und linguistischen Effekte von Mehrsprachigkeit sind nicht nur regional oft äußerst unterschiedlich, sondern auch historisch divers und veränderlich. Die Beiträge dieses Sammelbandes haben Mehrsprachigkeitsszenarien in der Geschichte Europas im Fokus und vermitteln einen Eindruck davon, wie der Alltag von Europäerinnen und Europäern in unterschiedlichen Epochen, Gebieten oder auch Institutionen von Mehrsprachigkeit geprägt war. Der Band präsentiert verschiedene Perspektiven auf die Erforschung historischer Mehrsprachigkeit an der Schnittstelle von Sprachkontaktforschung und historischer Soziolinguistik. Er richtet sich damit an ein breites Publikum mit Interesse an historischer Sprachwissenschaft und Mehrsprachigkeitsforschung.

How did nobility try to live up to its exalted social position? With this volume, the Institut für niederrheinische Kulturgeschichte und Regionalentwicklung (InKuR) at the University of Duisburg-Essen, in cooperation with Gerd Dethlefs, has focused on the culture of nobility in the Lower Rhine-Westphalian region. The focus lies on the methods of conflict resolution within this social class in the Middle Ages and early modern period, from duels to court proceedings. Furthermore, an exhibition at the Ruhr Museum on the nobility in the Ruhr region, which was on display in the city of Essen in 2021/22, is presented. Other contributions are dealing with the Christian missionization of the Lower Rhine region and the siege of the city of Moers by Royal Spanish troops during the Eighty Years' War. A fundamental account of the relationship between the Dutch and German languages rounds off the volume.

This book constitutes the first typologically oriented monograph on morphomes, which is the term given to systematic morphological identities, usually within inflectional paradigms, that do not map onto syntactic or semantic natural classes like ‘plural’, ‘past’, ‘third-person singular’. Its first half addresses the theoretical and empirical challenges surrounding the identification and definition of morphomes, and surveys their links with related notions like syncretism, homophony, blocking, segmentation, economy, morphophonology, etc. It also presents the different ways in which morphomic structures have been observed to emerge, change, and disappear from a language. The second part of the book contains its core contribution: a database with 120 morphomes across 79 languages from all around the world. These structures are first presented in painstaking philological detail, and then deconstructed into logically independent axes of variation, identified in the spirit of Multivariate Typology. Statistical analysis is then undertaken to spot trends and correlations which are subsequently discussed. Various findings, relevant to both proponents and detractors of Autonomous Morphology, have emerged regarding, for example, the idiosyncratic (i.e. not representative) nature of Romance morphomes, the existence of cross-linguistically recurrent unnatural patterns, and the preference for more natural structures even among morphomes. The database is also expected to allow explorations of other issues, such as how learnability and communicative efficiency pressures impact morphological structure, and lexical and grammatical informativity across the word.

The authors comprehensively analyze all the available information regarding the ritual practices of Slavic pre-Christian religion that can be found in written medieval texts. After investigating every kind of reference to such practices, they offer a reconstruction of Slavic pre-Christian religion on the basis of these medieval testimonies. In doing so, they overcome the challenges presented by the fact that all of these sources are indirect, since the Slavs did not acquire literacy until they became Christians. Thus the writers of these texts mostly professed a monotheistic religion, being Christians and in some cases Muslims. The picture that they offer is biased and determined by their own faith. The present analysis innovatively combines testimonies from every Slavic area (Eastern, Western, and Southern), showing their mutual correspondences and emphasizing the relationship between the Slavic pre-Christian religion and its Indo-European roots.

Endangered Languages in the 21st Century provides research on endangered languages in the contemporary world, the challenges still to be faced, the work still to be done, and the methods and practices that have come to characterize efforts to revive and maintain disadvantaged indigenous languages around the world. With contributions from scholars across the field, the book brings fresh data and insights to this imperative, but still relatively young, field of linguistics. While the studies acknowledge the threat of losing languages in an unprecedented way, they focus on cases that show resilience and explore paths to sustainable progress. The articles are also intended as a celebration of the 25 years’ work of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, and as a parting gift to FEL’s founder and quarter-century chair, Nick Ostler. This book will be informative for researchers, instructors, and specialists in the field of endangered languages. The book can also be useful for university graduate or undergraduate students, and language activists.

This volume explores an underappreciated feature of the standard Tiberian Masoretic tradition of Biblical Hebrew, namely its composite nature. Focusing on cases of dissonance between the tradition’s written (consonantal) and reading (vocalic) components, the study shows that the Tiberian spelling and pronunciation traditions, though related, interdependent, and largely in harmony, at numerous points reflect distinct oral realisations of the biblical text. Where the extant vocalisation differs from the apparently pre-exilic pronunciation presupposed by the written tradition, the former often exhibits conspicuous affinity with post-exilic linguistic conventions as seen in representative Second Temple material, such as the core Late Biblical Hebrew books, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira, rabbinic literature, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and contemporary Aramaic and Syriac material. On the one hand, such instances of written-reading disharmony clearly entail a degree of anachronism in the vocalisation of Classical Biblical Hebrew compositions. On the other, since many of the innovative and secondary features in the Tiberian vocalisation tradition are typical of sources from the Second Temple Period and, in some cases, are documented as minority alternatives in even earlier material, the Masoretic reading tradition is justifiably characterised as a linguistic artefact of profound historical depth.

Narrative has been the subject of theoretical reflection and empirical investigation since Aristotle’s Poetics. However, with the turn of the millennium, we are witnessing a real narrative turn in the humanities and social sciences. This volume aims to provide an overview of recent developments in the theoretical analysis of narrative, offering the reader a series of contributions that are organized along the following three theoretical-disciplinary axes: theories of narrative at the intersection of cognitive, evolutionary, and computational approaches; narrative theory and cognitive neuroscience; and narrative and storytelling as socio-communicative phenomena.

Comment constituer et comparer des corpus lorsqu’ils sont issus de langues différentes ? Cette question émerge en amont de tous les travaux en analyse du discours qui font se rencontrer, comme dans cet ouvrage, le français avec l’allemand, l’anglais, le japonais, le portugais ou encore le portugais avec le russe. De telles recherches ont donné naissance à l’analyse du discours contrastive. Les contributions posent et/ou explorent ce cadre théorique récent en retravaillant des catégories issues de l’analyse du discours française, pour certain.e.s auteur.e.s, et dans la lignée de Bakhtine, pour d’autres. Ainsi, les analyses ciblant la comparaison des discours entre plusieurs langues invitent à sélectionner un invariant, par exemple, un genre de discours. Elles consacrent aussi une place importante à la culture, inscrite dans l’anthropologie culturelle, suite aux travaux de Humboldt, permettant de présenter aujourd’hui la notion de culture discursive. Cet ouvrage invite enfin à s’interroger sur la comparaison à la fois d’un point de vue théorique et méthodologique, notamment dans le domaine des sciences du langage.

The volume offers in-depth analyses of contact situations between Spanish and other languages, showing how language variation and change are part of the complex linguistic dynamics that characterize contact areas. Aimed at contact linguistics experts, it gathers theoretical frameworks as well as case studies about these processes, both in diachronic and synchronic perspectives.

In Western cultural history, 'tradition' is one of the central concepts to describe processes of reception and their impact. Especially in literary studies, traditions are often claimed by stating, for example, that a particular text stands 'in the tradition' of another text. Nevertheless, coherent theoretical reflection is often lacking. This volume approaches the general question "What is tradition?" and the more specific question "How can one adequately speak about literary traditions?" by theorizing the premises of the concept and by discussing its theoretical capacity on the basis of case studies from various constellations throughout literary and cultural history., ‚Tradition‘ zählt zu den zentralen Reflexionskategorien der abendländischen Kulturgeschichte, wenn es darum geht, Rezeptionsprozesse und deren Wirkmächtigkeit zu beschreiben. Gerade auch in der Literaturwissenschaft wird häufig von Traditionen gesprochen, etwa davon, dass ein Text ‚in der Tradition‘ eines anderen Texts stehe. Dennoch bleibt dabei das Konzept theoretisch oft unterbestimmt. Der vorliegende Band nähert sich mit theoretischen Grundlagenreflexionen und exemplarischen literatur- und kulturhistorischen Fallstudien aus verschiedenen literarischen Konstellationen und Epochen der generellen Frage „Was ist Tradition?“ und der spezifischeren Frage „Wie kann man adäquat über literarische Traditionen sprechen?“ an.

Historical and comparative linguistics; Historical and comparative linguistics

The East Baltic languages are well known for their conservative phonology as compared to other Indo-European languages, which has led to a stereotype that the Balts developed in isolation without much contact with other speech communities. This book challenges that view, taking a deep dive into the East Baltic lexicon and peeling away the layers of prehistoric borrowings in the process. As well as significant contact events with known languages, the lexicon also reveals evidence of contact with unattested languages from which previous populations must have shifted.

Was plurilingualism the exception or the norm in traditional Eurasian scholarship? This volume presents a selection of primary sources—in many cases translated into English for the first time—with introductions that provide fascinating historical materials for challenging notions of the ways in which traditional Eurasian scholars dealt with plurilingualism and monolingualism. Comparative in approach, global in scope, and historical in orientation, it engages with the growing discussion of plurilingualism and focuses on fundamental scholarly practices in various premodern and early modern societies—Chinese, Indian, Mesopotamian, Jewish, Islamic, Ancient Greek, and Roman—asking how these were conceived by the agents themselves. The volume will be an indispensable resource for courses on these subjects and on the history of scholarship and reflection on language throughout the world.

What can the languages spoken today tell us about the history of their speakers? This question is crucial in insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea, where thousands of languages are spoken, but written historical records and archaeological evidence is yet lacking in most regions. While the region has a long history of contact through trade, marriage exchanges, and cultural-political dominance, detailed linguistic studies of the effects of such contacts remain limited. This volume investigates how loanwords can prove past contact events, taking into consideration ten different regions located in the Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and New Guinea. Each chapter studies borrowing across the borders of language families, and discusses implications for the social history of the speech communities.

The present study is a contrastive and empirical investigation of the negative markers nicht in contemporary German (CG) and laysa, lam, lan, lammā, lāta, lā and mā in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Four aspects are analyzed from a comparative point of view: (i) the morphological fusion of the negative markers with indefinites in CG and with clitic particles/suffixes in MSA, which creates a paradigm of negative markers similar to an auxiliary verb paradigm, (ii) the position of those markers in sentence structures, (iii) the interaction between negative markers and verbal or nominal categories, and (iv) the interactions between negation and information structure. Two novels were chosen as the main sources of sample data: “Sommerstück” (1989) (“Piece of Summer”) by Christa Wolf for CG and “Bayna al-Qasrayn” (1956) (“Palace Walk”) by Naǧib Maḥfūẓ for MSA. The goal of the study is to describe and compare the grammatical organization of negation in both languages., Die vorliegende Arbeit ist eine kontrastive, empirisch fundierte Untersuchung der Negationsausdrücke nicht im Gegenwartsdeutschen (GWD) und laysa, lam, lan, lammā, lāta, lā und mā im Modernen Hocharabisch (MHA). Vier Aspekte werden vergleichend analysiert: (i) die morphologische Verschmelzung der Negationsausdrücke mit Indefinita im GWD und mit klitischen Partikeln/Suffixen im MHA; im MHA entsteht ein Paradigma von Negationsausdrücken ähnlich einem Hilfsverb-Paradigma; (ii) die Stellung der genannten Ausdrücke in Satzstrukturen; (iii) die Interaktion zwischen Negationsausdrücken und verbalen oder nominalen Kategorien und (iv) die Interaktion zwischen Negation und Informationsstruktur. Zwei Romane wurden als Datengrundlage gewählt: „Sommerstück“ (1989) von Christa Wolf für das GWD und „Bayna al-Qasrayn“ (dt. „Zwischen den Palästen“) (1956) von Naǧib Maḥfūẓ für das MHA. Ziel der Studie ist es, die grammatische Organisation der Negation in beiden Sprachen zu beschreiben und zu vergleichen.

"These volumes represent the highest level of scholarship on what is arguably the most important tradition of Biblical Hebrew. Written by the leading scholar of the Tiberian Masoretic tradition, they offer a wealth of new data and revised analysis, and constitute a considerable advance on existing published scholarship. It should stand alongside Israel Yeivin’s ‘The Tiberian Masorah’ as an essential handbook for scholars of Biblical Hebrew, and will remain an indispensable reference work for decades to come. —Dr. Benjamin Outhwaite, Director of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library The form of Biblical Hebrew that is presented in printed editions, with vocalization and accent signs, has its origin in medieval manuscripts of the Bible. The vocalization and accent signs are notation systems that were created in Tiberias in the early Islamic period by scholars known as the Tiberian Masoretes, but the oral tradition they represent has roots in antiquity. The grammatical textbooks and reference grammars of Biblical Hebrew in use today are heirs to centuries of tradition of grammatical works on Biblical Hebrew in Europe. The paradox is that this European tradition of Biblical Hebrew grammar did not have direct access to the way the Tiberian Masoretes were pronouncing Biblical Hebrew. In the last few decades, research of manuscript sources from the medieval Middle East has made it possible to reconstruct with considerable accuracy the pronunciation of the Tiberian Masoretes, which has come to be known as the ‘Tiberian pronunciation tradition’. This book presents the current state of knowledge of the Tiberian pronunciation tradition of Biblical Hebrew and a full edition of one of the key medieval sources, Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ ‘The Guide for the Reader’, by ʾAbū al-Faraj Hārūn. It is hoped that the book will help to break the mould of current grammatical descriptions of Biblical Hebrew and form a bridge between modern traditions of grammar and the school of the Masoretes of Tiberias. Links and QR codes in the book allow readers to listen to an oral performance of samples of the reconstructed Tiberian pronunciation by Alex Foreman. This is the first time Biblical Hebrew has been recited with the Tiberian pronunciation for a millennium. "

The preservation of South Africa’s indigenous languages – the extinct Bushman and Khoikhoi languages in particular – is a pressing concern. Voices Past and Present serves as a comprehensive, scholarly and practical source for documenting and preserving some of them. The subcontinent of Africa has been inhabited by Bushman, Khoikhoi and Bantu-speaking peoples for thousands of years, and, for the past few centuries, also by European-speaking peoples. Contact between these peoples brought about changes in the different languages. As a result, modern languages are no longer identical to the original ones, many of which, especially in the case of the Bushman and Khoikhoi languages, have become extinct. Words used in ancient times and recorded long ago often bear no resemblance to their modern counterparts. In this book, Peter E. Raper provides a detailed investigation of the earliest recordings of words available. Words from Old Cape dialects are compared for correspondences in sound and meaning to words from 29 Bushman languages and dialects, as well as to words from Nama, Koranna, Griqua, !Xuhn, !Xoon, Khwe and N/uu. Voices Past and Present provides an extensive corpus of words that can be further utilised for the purpose of shedding light on the specific languages from which the recorded words (and names) were derived, on historical distribution of the various groups, on the classification of the different languages and peoples, for determining relationships or otherwise between the different languages, potentially identifying components of place-names and ethnonyms from ancient and extinct languages, and elucidating other matters that have long vexed scholars who have complained about a lack of recorded data.

"These volumes represent the highest level of scholarship on what is arguably the most important tradition of Biblical Hebrew. Written by the leading scholar of the Tiberian Masoretic tradition, they offer a wealth of new data and revised analysis, and constitute a considerable advance on existing published scholarship. It should stand alongside Israel Yeivin’s ‘The Tiberian Masorah’ as an essential handbook for scholars of Biblical Hebrew, and will remain an indispensable reference work for decades to come. —Dr. Benjamin Outhwaite, Director of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library The form of Biblical Hebrew that is presented in printed editions, with vocalization and accent signs, has its origin in medieval manuscripts of the Bible. The vocalization and accent signs are notation systems that were created in Tiberias in the early Islamic period by scholars known as the Tiberian Masoretes, but the oral tradition they represent has roots in antiquity. The grammatical textbooks and reference grammars of Biblical Hebrew in use today are heirs to centuries of tradition of grammatical works on Biblical Hebrew in Europe. The paradox is that this European tradition of Biblical Hebrew grammar did not have direct access to the way the Tiberian Masoretes were pronouncing Biblical Hebrew. In the last few decades, research of manuscript sources from the medieval Middle East has made it possible to reconstruct with considerable accuracy the pronunciation of the Tiberian Masoretes, which has come to be known as the ‘Tiberian pronunciation tradition’. This book presents the current state of knowledge of the Tiberian pronunciation tradition of Biblical Hebrew and a full edition of one of the key medieval sources, Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ ‘The Guide for the Reader’, by ʾAbū al-Faraj Hārūn. It is hoped that the book will help to break the mould of current grammatical descriptions of Biblical Hebrew and form a bridge between modern traditions of grammar and the school of the Masoretes of Tiberias. Links and QR codes in the book allow readers to listen to an oral performance of samples of the reconstructed Tiberian pronunciation by Alex Foreman. This is the first time Biblical Hebrew has been recited with the Tiberian pronunciation for a millennium. "

This book offers a critical perspective to the proliferation of official multilingualism in the contemporary world. Through diachronic and synchronic comparisons, it shows that official multilingualism has become a norm in the political management of linguistic diversity, but actual practices vary according to sociohistorical contexts and current power dynamics. It explains such convergences and divergences using a theory of symbolic jurisprudence, which posits that official language law has served chiefly as a discursive resource for a range of political and economic functions, such as ensuring stability, establishing legitimacy, balancing rival powers, and harnessing trade opportunities. The book goes on to examine the practical impact of official multilingualism on public institutions and legal processes and the application of linguistic equality—frequently asserted in multilingual polities—on the ground. The study shows that serious pursuit of linguistic equality calls for elaborate administrative effort in public institutions and carries a potential to clash with existing legal practices (from legal drafting and interpretation, to language rights in trial proceedings). However, such changes—however extensive—hardly ever disrupt the status quo. The book further argues that linguistic equality as proclaimed and practiced in many polities today is shallow in character, and must not be confused with popular conceptions of equality. The book concludes that both symbolic jurisprudence and shallow equality are components of a policy of strategic pluralism that underlies official multilingualism. Although official multilingualism can legitimately be used to pursue collective goals, it runs the underlying risks of disguising substantive inequalities and displacing more progressive efforts in social change.

The German Linguistic Studies Series is a comprehensive and outstanding forum in its field. It has borne the name of its subject in its title since the foundation of the series in the eighth decade of the last century.The series is comprehensive in the broad spectrum of topics covered (language levels, varieties, communication forms, epochs) in the range of research perspectives (theoretical and empirical studies, fundamental research and applications, interdisciplinarity with psychology, the social sciences etc.) and methodologies (the sole criterion is quality), in the rhythm of research (trends are perceived and also set, achievements are secured) and in the forms of presentation (monographs, textbooks, collected volumes, dictionaries).Professorial theses, outstanding doctoral theses, pioneering research findings from wider contexts, but also the surprising ‛stroke of genius’ set the standards for inclusion in the series.

Der früheisenzeitliche Fundplatz am Mont Lassois bei Vix (Dép. Côte d’Or, Frankreich) ist insbesondere durch das ausserordentlich reich ausgestattetes Frauengrab bekannt, sowie durch die komplex befestigte Plateausiedlung mit Monumentalbauten und Importen aus dem Mittelmeerraum. Damit reiht er sich in das sogenannte «Fürstensitz»-Phänomen der westlichen Hallstattkultur ein. Während der Fokus lange Zeit auf offensichtlich spektakulären Befunden und Funden lag, war über das Geschehen an den Abhängen der Höhensiedlung kaum etwas bekannt. Aus diesem Desiderat heraus hat die Universität Zürich 2009–14 auf der Flur «Champ Fossé» am Westabhang der Anlage umfangreiche Ausgrabungen durchgeführt. Dabei wurden ein Abschnitt der Befestigung Nr. 5 sowie der unmittelbar dahinter anschliessende Bereich archäologisch untersucht. Zum einen konnten bedeutende Informationen zur Architektur und zum Bauvorgehen der Befestigungsmauer gewonnen, und zum anderen erstmals auch Reste einer «Unterstadt» ausserhalb der Zitadelle auf dem Plateau nachgewiesen werden. Die Entdeckungen am Champ Fossé bereichern die bisherigen Kenntnisse zum späthallstattlichen «Fürstensitz» am Mont Lassois insofern, als dass sie den Blick für das Alltägliche im Kontext des Extravaganten öffnen: Bauarbeiten, Handwerk, Wohnen – dies zur kurzen Blütezeit der «Protourbs» um 500 v. Chr. Die Ausgrabungen haben zudem gezeigt, dass das Champ Fossé in der Mittellatènezeit platzartig umgestaltet und den deformierten Waffenteilen nach zu beurteilen kurzfristig für Kulthandlungen genutzt wurde. Damit ist die am Mont Lassois bisher einzige archäologische Kulturschicht aus der Latènezeit belegt. In dieser Monografie werden die Befunde und Kleinfunde aus den Zürcher Ausgrabungen am Champ Fossé vorgelegt und in ihrem Zusammenhang besprochen.

Dieses Buch versammelt Artikel, die in ihrer Ursprungsversion auf einer internationalen wissenschaftlichen Konferenz vorgestellt wurden, die vom Institut für Polnische Philologie der Adam-Mickiewicz-Universität Posen sowie vom Institut für Slavistik der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel in Posen organisiert wurde. Der Konferenzband trägt der Vielfältigkeit des deutsch-polnischen Beziehungsgeflechts Rechnung und vereint literaturwissenschaftliche, sprachwissenschaftliche und historische Beiträge. Unter den Autorinnen und Autoren sind Polonisten, Germanisten, Slawisten, Historiker sowie ein Vertreter aus der Philosophie.

Understanding Linguistic Fieldwork offers a diverse and practical introduction to research methods used in field linguistics. Designed to teach students how to collect quality linguistic data in an ethical and responsible manner, the key features include: A focus on fieldwork in countries and continents that have undergone colonial expansion, including Australia, the United States of America, Canada, South America and Africa; A description of specialist methods used to conduct research on phonological, grammatical and lexical description, but also including methods for research on gesture and sign, language acquisition, language contact and the verbal arts; Examples of resources that have resulted from collaborations with language communities and which both advance linguistic understanding and support language revitalisation work; Annotated guidance on sources for further reading. This book is essential reading for students studying modules relating to linguistic fieldwork or those looking to embark upon field research.

This volume illustrates how language revival movements in Russia and elsewhere have often followed a specific pattern of literacy bias in the promotion of a minority’s heritage language, partly neglecting the social and relational aspects of orality. Using the Vepsian Renaissance as an example, this volume brings to the surface a literacy-orality dualism new to the discussion around revival movements. In addition to the more-theoretically oriented scopes, this book addresses all the actors involved in revival movements including activists, scholars and policy-makers, and opens a discussion on literacy and orality, and power and agency in the multiple relational aspects of written and oral practices. This study addresses issues common to language revival movements worldwide and will appeal to researchers of linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, education and language policy, and culture studies.

Die Schweiz wird seit der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts gerne als Willensnation bezeichnet. Dabei schwingt die Vorstellung mit, dass ein Wille zu Einigkeit und Brüderlichkeit letztlich schon in der DNA der Alten Eidgenossen angelegt gewesen sei und bis heute fortexistiere. Doch davon kann für die Jahrzehnte, die für die Entstehung des modernen Bundesstaats entscheidend waren, keine Rede sein: Der Autor zeigt anhand von Zeitungen, die als wichtigste Plattformen der vorbundesstaatlichen Konflikte gelten können, dass unterschiedliche Geschichtsbilder bestanden, die ihrerseits mit abweichenden nationalen Visionen verknüpft waren. Er bezieht den Faktor Konfession sowie die unterschiedlichen Vorstellungen von tugendhafter Männlichkeit mit ein und eröffnet so neue Einblicke in die komplexe Vorgeschichte des Schweizer Bundesstaats.

This is the first volume of the complete publication of the research carried out in the two undecorated shaft tombs KV 40 and KV 64 in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt. This volume presents all the inscribed material from the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 1400–1350) together with the pottery and the jar stoppers. Inscribed wooden tags, hieratic inscriptions preserved on pottery jars, canopic vessels, and different types of sealings yield precious information on the large group of people buried in KV 40. The material attests the names, titles and sometimes institutional affiliations of over 30 individuals, a majority of women, all belonging to the family and entourage of pharaoh Amenhotep III. Only one unidentified woman was buried in the much smaller tomb KV 64. These findings represent the first substantial information on the use of undecorated tombs in the royal necropolis. They give insight into little know categories of objects and almost unknown techniques of jar inscription. They also reveal very specific practices performed for the funerals and burials of members of the royal family and entourage.

Founded in 1921, Hockey Club Davos (HCD) is the last high level Swiss ice hockey club located in the Swiss alps. When ice hockey was invented in Switzerland by tourists and international students back in the early 20th century, all significant clubs were based in the mountains. HCD managed to stay a premium club owing to a symbiotic relationship with the Spengler Cup, a highly reputed international tournament, taking place every year between boxing day and new year’s eve since 1923. Thanks to the support of the local tourist industry and the local government, HCD evolved into a professional ice hockey team.

Biolinguistics is a highly interdisciplinary field that seeks the rapprochement between linguistics and biology. Linking theoretical linguistics, theoretical biology, genetics, neuroscience and cognitive psychology, this book offers a collection of chapters situating the enterprise conceptually, highlighting both the promises and challenges of the field, and chapters focusing on the challenges and prospects of taking interdisciplinarity seriously. It provides concrete illustrations of some of the cutting-edge research in biolinguistics and piques the interest of undergraduate students looking for a field to major in and inspires graduate students on possible research directions. It is also meant to show to specialists in adjacent fields how a particular strand of theoretical linguistics relates to their concerns, and in so doing, the book intends to foster collaboration across disciplines.