The Languages of the Invaders of 711, Invasion and Language Contact in Eighth–Century Northwestern Iberia*

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 527-535
Author(s):  
David Peterson

SummaryA number of disparate onomastic phenomena occurring in northwestern Iberia have long puzzled scholars: the abundance of Arabic personal names in early medieval Christian communities, often fossilised as place–names; the extraordinarily profuse Romance toponym Quintana; and a surprisingly high number of hypothetical Amazigh (i.e. Berber) demonyms. In this paper we argue that these seemingly disparate onomastic phenomena can all be explained if it is accepted that following the Islamic invasion of Iberia in 711, the Amazigh settlers of the Northwest were at least partially latinophone. The internal history of the Maghreb suggests this would have been the case at least in the sense of Latin as a lingua franca, a situation which the speed and superficiality of the Islamic conquest of said region would have been unlikely to have altered significantly. In this context, all of the puzzling onomastic elements encountered in the Northwest fall into place as the result of the conquest and settlement of a Romance– speaking region by Romance–speaking incomers bearing Arabic personal names but retaining their indigenous tribal affiliations and logically choosing to interact with the autochthonous population in the lan-guage they all shared.

Author(s):  
J. de Hoz

In antiquity present-day Andalusia was occupied by several different peoples, among whom the main cultural role was taken by the Tartessians, subsequently the Turdetani. The first part of this chapter aims to define the limits and variety of the different ethnic groups. Thereafter, the material available to study the languages of the region is analysed: inscriptions, place names, and personal names. This material is limited and poses numerous problems, but it enables us to define linguistic zones, to emphasize the plurilingual nature of the area, to detect the probable role of Phoenician as a lingua franca, and to draw attention to certain features of Turdetanian, the most widely spoken of the vernacular languages of the region.


2010 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 455-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristján Ahronson ◽  
T M Charles-Edwards

AbstractTo deepen our understanding of early medieval exile, the present study characterizes ways in which scholars have studied cave use in Britain and Ireland. As key figures in the history of archaeology, Sir Daniel Wilson and Sir James Young Simpson were crucial for establishing Scotland’s cave sites as subjects for study. Triggered by these two, a century and a half of research has related these places to the flowering of Gaelic monasticism. Nonetheless, fundamental similarities between early Christian communities in Britain and Ireland are at odds with this northern distribution, and bring the question of cave use beyond Scotland sharply into focus. Our paper therefore targets two questions: (1) to what extent were cave sites used by early Christian communities elsewhere in the Insular world; and (2) is our perception of cave use as a particularly north British phenomenon skewed by the long history of Scottish interest in the topic?


1933 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Margaret Ellen Bell

Counties: Webster, Wright, Christian, Douglas, Ozark, Taney, Stone, Barry, and McDonald||"If, by chance, all the written evidence of the history of a region, the character of its people, its economic structure, and its physical qualities were swept away, the story of that region could be reconstructed with an astounding degree of accuracy, from the place-names of the section alone. The place-names of these counties of the Ozarks remarkably mirror its early history, its people, and their interests and tastes. To enable the reader to grasp the subject more easily and trace its course more methodically, a table of classification has been presented and discussed in the first chapter. All the names have been grouped under five heads: 1) Borrowed Names, 2) Historical Names, 3) Personal Names, 4) Environmental Names, and 5) Subjective Names. These five heads will cover practically all the place-names found in any locality, except for the unsolved and doubtful ones. These unsolved names have been listed at the end of Chapter One for the benefit of future investigators and students. Besides these five groups of classification there remain five additional ways in which almost all the names will repay study. They are: 1) The Composition of Names, 2) The Linguistic Features, such as spelling, pronunciation, and dialect words, 3) Non-English Names, 4) and 6) Folkways and Folklore. Chapter Two comprises a brief survey and discussion of the names with regard to these five special features. Chapter Three, embracing by far the greater part of the thesis in bulk, consists of a dictionary of all the place-names studied. In an Appendix I have discussed separately the school names of the section. Last of all I have placed my Bibliography."--Pages 18-19.||"This thesis is the record of careful research into the origin of the place-names of the lower southwest counties of Missouri. Nine counties, Webster, Wright, Christian, Douglas, Ozark, Taney, Stone, Barry, and McDonald have been studied, and the origin of place-names of counties, towns, post offices, streams, "hollows", hills, springs, "knobs", rivers, prairies, townships, mountains, valleys, ridges, gaps, and "balds" have been recorded, in so far as it was possible. These nine counties constitute a large part of what is known as the Ozark Region. It is only in the last few decades that the possibilities and the resources of this region have been fully realized. However, it is in the early history of this section that the romance of pioneer settlement and the character and qualities of these people are most clearly seen."--Page 1.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyril Brosch

This paper aims to give an outline of the development of the term “Lingua Franca”. Initially the proper name of an extinct pidgin, to “Lingua Franca”, the term has become a common noun, used with regard to language contact phenomena in general – at first specifically for pidgins and trade languages, but now for all vehicular languages. This broader usage is especially prominent in the field of research known as “English as a lingua franca” (ELF). Using ELF as an example, it is shown that the modern usage is partly inconsistent and can be misleading, as it connects a positive feature of the original Lingua Franca, viz linguistic equality, with a language with native speakers like English, which implies a totally different distribution of power in communicative situations and economic resources in language learning. Against the background of the etymological meaning of “lingua franca” and the competing, less ambiguous term “vehicular language”, a new classification system for interlingual contact is proposed. Within it it is argued that “lingua franca communication” should be confined to contexts where no native speakers of the vehicular language being used are involved – whenever the presence or absence can be stated.


1985 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildred Budny ◽  
Dominic Tweddle

This article offers an account of the components, the structure and the history of the so-calledcasulaandvelaminaof Sts Harlindis and Relindis preserved at the Church of St Catherine at Maaseik in Belgium as relics of the two sisters who founded the nearby abbey of Aldeneik (where the textiles were kept throughout the Middle Ages). The compositecasulaof Sts Harlindis and Relindis includes the earliest surviving group of Anglo-Saxon embroideries, dating to the late eighth century or the early ninth. Probably similarly Anglo-Saxon, a set of silk tablet-woven braids brocaded with gold associated with the embroideries offers a missing link in the surviving corpus of Anglo-Saxon braids. The ‘David silk’ with its Latin inscription and distinctly western European design dating from the eighth century or the early ninth offers a rare witness to the art of silk-weaving in the West at so early a date. Thevelamenof St Harlindis, more or less intact, represents a remarkable early medieval vestment, garment or cloth made up of two types of woven silk cloths, tablet-woven braids brocaded with gold, gilded copper bosses, pearls and beads. Thevelamenof St Relindis, in contrast, represents the stripped remains—reduced to the lining and the fringed ends—of another composite textile. Originally it was probably luxurious, so as to match the two other composite early medieval textile relics from Aldeneik. As a whole, the group contributes greatly to knowledge of early medieval textiles of various kinds.


2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 7-35
Author(s):  
Rosamond McKitterick

Two case studies from eighth-century Rome, recorded in the early medieval history of the popes known as the Liber pontificalis, serve to introduce both the problems of the relations between secular or public and ecclesiastical or canon law in early medieval Rome and the development of early medieval canon law more generally. The Synod of Rome in 769 was convened by Pope Stephen III some months after his election in order to justify the deposition of his immediate predecessor, Pope Constantine II (767–8). Stephen's successor, Pope Hadrian, subsequently presided over a murder investigation involving Stephen's supporters. The murders and the legal process they precipitated form the bulk of the discussion. The article explores the immediate implications of both the murders and the convening of the Synod of Rome, together with the references to law-making and decree-giving by the pope embedded in the historical narrative of the Liber pontificalis, as well as the possible role of the Liber pontificalis itself in bolstering the imaginative and historical understanding of papal and synodal authority. The wider legal or procedural knowledge invoked and the development of both canon law and papal authority in the early Middle Ages are addressed. The general categories within which most scholars have been working hitherto mask the questions about the complicated and still insufficiently understood status and function of early medieval manuscript compilations of secular and canon law, and about the authority and applicability of the texts they contain.


Author(s):  
Stefan R. Hauser

For a long time, the development of Christian communities within the Sasanian and early Islamic Empires was either neglected or described in terms of a history of persecution and antagonism within a Zoroastrian or Islamic state. Only recently has the perception of the extent of Christianization, the interaction of religious communities, and the importance of Christians within these societies and their upper echelons changed dramatically. The narrative of permanent conflict and oppression of Christian faith has given way to the acknowledgment of a predominant Christian population in the territory of modern Iraq and western Iran in the fifth through seventh centuries. One argument in this context is the growing body of material evidence for Christian churches and images as well as burials, which are expressions of respected and self-assured Christian communities.


Author(s):  
Ashraf Alexandre Sadek

After traveling through the Sinai, the Holy Family, according to tradition, walked from east to west through the Nile Delta. The various written and oral traditions mention eight place names associated with this journey in the Delta: Tell Basta, Musturud/Mahamma, Bilbeis, Daqadus, Samannud, Burullus (St. Damiana), Sakha (Bikha Issous), and Wadi al-Natrun. This chapter examines whether the memory of the coming of the Holy Family has had an impact on the development of Christian life in the Nile Delta. To this end, it draws for each site a parallel between the traditions of the Holy Family and the history of Christian communities on this site; this should enable us to measure, to some extent, the impact of the Holy Family traditions on the history of the Christian Church in the Nile Delta.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Frevel

The paper addresses two crucial questions of the history of Israelite religion. Did YHWH emerge in the southern steppe and when did YHWH become the God of Judah? After discussing the available evidence for YHWH’s origin in the South, the paper tests the extra-biblical evidence for the worship of YHWH in Israel and Judah and questions his widespread importance in the tenth and early ninth centuries BCE in the mentioned territories. By presenting the theophoric personal names, the hypothesis is corroborated that YHWH was significantly introduced at the earliest by the Omrides. Moving then to the epigraphic evidence, the additional evince for YHWH’s origin in the South is reviewed negatively. YHWH of Teman from Kuntillet ʽAjrud cannot prove the origin of this deity in the South. It is rather a piece of evidence that the worship of this deity in the South was not natural even in the mid-eighth century BCE. That YHWH’s true origin is in Midian, Paran, Seir, etc. remains a speculative hypothesis that is built on the tradition-history of some biblical passages and the biblical Sinai tradition. This particular feature is indeed related to the South and its struggle to claim independence for the Southern YHWH from the North. YHWH was only introduced to Judah as a patron deity of the dynasty, and that is the state of the Omrides ruling in Jerusalem.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Ralli

This paper deals with [V V] dvandva compounds, which are frequently used in East and Southeast Asian languages but also in Greek and its dialects: Greek is in this respect uncommon among Indo-European languages. It examines the appearance of this type of compounding in Greek by tracing its development in the late Medieval period, and detects a high rate of productivity in most Modern Greek dialects. It argues that the emergence of the [V V] dvandva pattern is not due to areal pressure or to a language-contact situation, but it is induced by a language internal change. It associates this change with the rise of productivity of compounding in general, and the expansion of verbal compounds in particular. It also suggests that the change contributes to making the compound-formation patterns of the language more uniform and systematic. Claims and proposals are illustrated with data from Standard Modern Greek and its dialects. It is shown that dialectal evidence is crucial for the study of the rise and productivity of [V V] dvandva compounds, since changes are not usually portrayed in the standard language.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document