The Hebrew Language

Author(s):  
Pablo-Isaac Halevi (Kirtchuk)

This article discusses the revival of Hebrew, linguistic characterization, typology, the study of Hebrew, the Muslim world in the first centuries of the Hegira, Hebrew among the Karaites, and the role of Hebrew in the modern era. The term ‘Hebrew’ designates a language which has been the Jewish people's linguistic vehicle of cult, culture, and communication. Hebrew ceased to be spoken in the third century ce and persisted only in a written form. From the third century onwards Hebrew continued to be used for juridical, intellectual, philosophical, poetic, and liturgical purposes but not for daily oral communication. In Muslim Spain, written Hebrew acquired some new characteristics: it is Medieval Hebrew (MdH). At the turn of the twentieth century it became anew the mother tongue of an ever-increasing population.

Author(s):  
Jean-Luc Fournet

Coptic emerged as the written form of the Egyptian language in the third century, when Greek was still the official language in Egypt. By the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641, Coptic had almost achieved official status, but only after an unusually prolonged period of stagnation. This book traces this complex history, showing how the rise of Coptic took place amid profound cultural, religious, and political changes in late antiquity. For some three hundred years after its introduction into the written culture of Egypt, Coptic was limited to biblical translation and private and monastic correspondence, while Greek retained its monopoly on administrative, legal, and literary writing. This changed during the sixth century, when Coptic began to penetrate domains that were once closed to it, such as literature, liturgy, regulated transactions between individuals, and communications between the state and its subjects. The book examines the reasons for Coptic's late development as a competing language—which was unlike what happened with other vernacular languages in Near Eastern Greek—speaking societies-and explains why Coptic eventually succeeded in being recognized with Greek as an official language. The book sheds new light on the role of monasticism in the growing use of Coptic before the Arab conquest.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-24
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Balbuza

Abstract Liberalitas was one of the most important forms of social activities of the Roman emperors. In quantitative terms, it is also one of the five most important imperial virtues. It appeared on coins as Liberalitas Augusti, which gave this virtue an additional, divine dimension. The first Empress to depict the idea of imperial generosity on the coins issued on her behalf was Julia Domna. In this respect, her liberalitas coins mark a breakthrough in the exposition of this imperial virtue. The well-known female liberalitas coin issues, or imperial issues with empresses’ portraits, date back to the third century and clearly articulate the liberalitas, both iconographically and literally, through the legend on the reverse of the coin. Other coins, issued on behalf of the emperors (mainly medallions), accentuate in some cases (Julia Mamaea, Salonina) the personal and active participation of women from the imperial house in congiarium-type activities. The issues discussed and analysed, which appeared on behalf of the emperors or the imperial women – with a clear emphasis on the role of women – undoubtedly demonstrate the feminine support for the emperor’s social policy towards the people of Rome, including the various social undertakings of incumbent emperors, to whom they were related. They prove their active involvement and support for the image of the princeps created by the emperors through the propaganda of virtues (such as liberalitas). The dynastic policy of the emperors, in which the empresses played a key role, was also of considerable importance.


GRUPPI ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 61-68
Author(s):  
Flavio Nosč ◽  
Silvia Anfilocchi

- After reflection upon the role of narcissism - of the pupil as well as of the teacher - as an obstacle to knowledge, we are now reflecting upon the function of writing and its relationship with the oral transmission of psychotherapeutic "knowledge", in that oral learning has always played an important role. It is observed that oral transmission is nurtured by a dialogic context made of emotional confirmation and disconfirmation and takes advantage of the richness of the context, while writing needs to build a sort of dialog with that which is absent. Furthermore, we are now living in a historical moment in which web communica- tion also exists, and although it is in written form, it may be that it has such peculiarities of simultaneity and such a broad dimension that it is closer to oral tradition, and online journals themselves undoubtedly play an important role. The group feels it needs to keep identity and possibility of change together, so as to create a strong theoretical basis, with elements of stability which can be passed on. This theoretical basis can be split up but should remain in contact with the transmission of experience. The group also feels that behind the apparent dichotomy between online writing and traditional writing there is the idea of a culture that is changing over time, and that through this change it is building a tradition in which the group can recognize itself. It is necessary to keep the space devoted to the COIRAG Journal, a space in which a more pondered and processed exchange can be fostered, where the understanding of-and not only the description of-events has its own room. What we need is a space that can collect the consolidated aspects and the strong theoretical core of our reality, and that can build the identity with which we present ourselves to the exterior. .Parole chiave: conoscenza, apprendimento, formazione, comunicazione orale, comunicazione scritta, rivista. .Key words: knowledge, learning, training, oral communication, written communication, magazine.


Britannia ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 427-430
Author(s):  
François Baratte

Over recent years the question of ancient hoards, in particular of precious metal, coins, plate or jewellery, has been the subject of numerous considerations (notably S. Gelichi and C. La Rocca (eds), Tesori. Forme di accumulazione della richezza nell'alto medioevo (secoli V–XI) (Rome, 2004)) in order to try to grasp the characteristics of a complex phenomenon that relates to multiple aspects of society in whatever period is under consideration: the economy, social organisation, the possible role of the images … The difficulties encountered by researchers when addressing these problems are illustrated by the ambivalence, indeed the ambiguity in many languages of the term ‘trésor/hoard’. Richard Hobbs has thus chosen, very judiciously, to take as his subject here ‘deposits of precious metal’, which defines the topic perfectly. On the other hand, one could question the descriptor ‘late Roman’ when applied to the period covered here, five centuries, from a.d. 200 to 700. There could be discussion over whether the third century should be included in Late Antiquity; others will challenge whether the sixth century still belongs to that same world. But from the first page H. effectively corrects his title by stating that it also covers the early Byzantine period, something I would feel is a better definition. It may certainly be felt that these are just questions of nomenclature, but they do have their importance for the topic of this study. All the same, the important thing is that H. wanted to study an extended period, as stated by the book's sub-title. One cannot but approve of his choice.


1986 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice J. Gabbert

Pirates were frequently employed by the Diadochoi and the Epigonoi of Alexander as an auxiliary military or naval force, and some examples are given below. Unfortunately, the surviving evidence does not allow us to do more than make the general statement. The evidence for piratical activity is largely in the form of personal anecdotes, and the evidence for the nature of Hellenistic military and naval establishments is nothing more than a record of a few persons and/or positions. The authors of our scant literary sources, especially those who wrote many generations after the events which they describe, were not attempting to analyse the role of pirates for posterity, thus they often use the word ‘pirate’ with a notable lack of precision, if they use it at all. Nevertheless, a review of the existing evidence suggests a rather remarkable degree of social and occupational mobility in the third century B.C.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 254
Author(s):  
Hamed Purrostami

The British Qurʾānic researcher, John Burton, believes that the extant Qurʾān was organised and approved by the Prophet of Islam himself. The role of the Prophet of Islam in collection and promulgation of the Qurʾān was negated in favour of the concept of abrogation. Abrogation of both wording and ruling and abrogation of wording, but not of ruling are ideas fabricated by Muslim jurists attempting to base their juristic decrees on the Qurʾān even though the Qurʾānic text lacked any reference to such decrees. If the Prophet of Islam had, in fact, edited, checked, and promulgated the Qurʾānic document, jurists could no longer speak of such omissions or abrogations of texts in the extant Qurʾān. Their solution was to falsify traditions in order to exclude the Prophet of Islam from the history of collection of the Qurʾānic text, suspending such collection until after his death. John Burton’s treatment of the relationship between abrogation and collection of the Qurʾān demonstrates the rigour of his research in Qurʾānic and Islamic sources. On the basis of his book, traditions dealing with collection of the Qurʾān developed in the third century AH. One thing he did not consider was whether historical evidence confirms his depiction of the development of these traditions.


2000 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 151-158
Author(s):  
G. Davies

The only significant occasion that Cremna emerges from the shadows of historical obscurity is during its siege by Roman forces in the third century AD. Our sole surviving source for this incident is the account related by Zosimus which, despite covering two generous paragraphs of text, remains a collage of anecdotal observations of limited application to the student of siege operations. Notwithstanding the weaknesses of the literary evidence, an archaeological survey conducted with the assistance of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara in the mid 1980s, revealed that substantial elements of the Roman siege system still survived in situ. The recently published account of this survey (Mitchell et al 1995) presents a number of interesting arguments concerning the tactical role of these siege works and their relationship to the local topography. In the course of more general research into Roman siege works, the author undertook a field inspection of the site in September 1997 and would suggest that certain aspects of the published analysis require further refinement. This paper is intended to address these outstanding issues. The helpful comments made by Professors S Mitchell and J J Wilkes and Dr J J Coulton in respect of an earlier draft, are gratefully acknowledged.


1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold F. Schiffman

ABSTRACTThe Tamil language has had its current standard written form since the 13th century; but because of increasing diglossia, spoken Tamil dialects have now diverged so radically from earlier norms, including the written standard (LT, or Literary Tamil) that no spoken dialect, regional or social, can function as the koiné or lingua franca. Because LT is never used for authentic informal oral communication between live speakers, there has always been a need for some sort of spoken “standard” koiné for inter-dialect communication. Aside from interpersonal communication, one hears this inter-dialect koiné most clearly in the so-called “social”film, which arose out of its antecedent, the popular or “social” drama. Conversational portions of novels and short stories also exhibit spoken forms, though not always as clearly “phonetic” as a phonetician might expect. The goal of this paper is to examine the concept of “language standardization” as it has been applied to other languages, focusing on the role of literacy and writing in this process; then to present evidence for, as well as the sources of, koinæization of "Standard Spoken Tamil"; and then to determine whether SST is in fact an emergent standard, given the challenges of literacy and writing. (Standardization, Tamil, diglossia, linguae francae, koinés)


Communicating effectively in English does not come naturally to undergraduate engineering students in India and presumably everywhere where English is not the first language or the mother tongue. In India, English is used as official language in most of the states. It is also the medium of instruction in most educational institutes. Teaching methods and objectives to be achieved while imparting knowledge of English language mainly focus on ability of students to reproduce the learned facts in written form in the examination. Focus on the oral communication and development of English as a medium to share and express original ideas is not really observed at school or university level. Employers worldwide have acknowledged that the conventional engineering curriculum that is focused on imparting technical knowledge has proved to be inadequate in equipping engineers with the adequate employability skills. The objective of this paper is to present a framework for design, teaching and evaluation of a course on communication skills/professional communication for engineering students. A proposed pedagogical framework has been discussed and illustrated as appendices. Guidelines regarding improving communication skills have been made keeping in mind that rather than emphasizing upon incorporating a course on communication skills in the engineering education, communication should be made an integral part of the curriculum


2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-173
Author(s):  
Matthias Becker
Keyword(s):  

Abstract Making use of Beatrice Wyss’ “pattern of the disparagement of sophists” for heuristic purposes, this paper argues that the depictions of Christian exegetes and scholars in a fragment of Porphyry’s lost work Contra Christianos (fr. 39 Harnack/fr. 6F. Becker) contain literary elements of ad hominem attacks which were used in Greek anti-sophistic polemic. Porphyry’s allusive language allows for the conclusion that he aimed specifically at casting Origen in the role of a sophist. This hitherto unnoticed component of Porphyry’s polemic against the Christians sheds light on how Platonists in the third century viewed Christian intellectuals through a Platonic lens in order to secure their identity against a stereotypical opponent which had ultimately been created by Plato himself. Thus, in Porphyry’s view, Christians are, as it were, new foes with old familiar faces.


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