Immune system response to the Covid 19 virus and 3rd boosters

A recent finding that the two-dose vaccination for the Covid-19 virus leads to a rapid loss of protection in many patients within 6 months. Thus the need for a 3rd injection has been found to be mandatory for continuing protection, as well as to highlight the need to monitor immune compromised patients and those with comorbidities particularly in indigenous populations where co-morbidities may be present preventing an adequate response to the initial vaccination. This has also highlighted the problem of lack of vaccines in the less developed parts of the world that requires urgent attention, as this is where new variants arise. The virus must be contained in these countries before we run out of letters in the Greek alphabet. Key words: Covid 19, virus, vaccines, 3rd injection, immunity, mutations, WHO

The Stylization in the Translations of the New Testament in Vernacular Macedonian from the 19th Century

The Konikovo Gospel (KG), The Kulakia Gospel (KuG) and The Boboščica Gospel (BG) are among the first known translations of the New Testament in Macedonian vernacular dating from the 19th century. They are all written in Greek alphabet. In this article we present the most specific examples demonstrating a stylization tendency towards a wider dialectal base and/or towards a more elevated style. The most important conclusion is that of all the analysed gospels the most stylized text is the oldest among them, the KG (1852), especially its second hand. The stylization steps are less common for the KuG (1860) and even less for the BG (1880). It is possible to say that the texts analyzed in this paper, together with the other translations of the New Testament in Macedonian vernacular from the 18th and the 19th centuries, open, more or less, a clear path towards the formation of one Biblical language, leading to the translations of the Bible in contemporary Macedonian standard language in 1976, 2003 and 2007. L’Évangéliaire de Konikovo (EK), l’Évangéliaire de Kulakia (EKu) et l’Évangéliaire de Boboščica (EB) sont les premières traductions sérieuses duNouveau Testament en langue vernaculaire macédonienne du XIXe siècle. Ils sont tous écrits en alphabet grec. Cet article présente les exemples les plus spécifiques des textes montrant une tendance à la stylisation par élargissement de la base dialectale et/ou par élévation du style. De toutes les traductions des évangiles en langue vernaculaire macédonienne de Macédoine du sud du XIXe siècle ayant été analysées, on peut conclure que le texte le plus stylisé et en même temps le plus ancien est celui de l’EK (1852), et surtout sa deuxième main. Les démarches de stylisation sont moins perceptibles dans le texte de l’EKu (1860) et encore moins perceptibles dans celui de l’EB (1880). On peut dire que les traductions analysées, mais aussi les autres traductions du Nouveau Testament en langue vernaculaire macédonienne de Macédoine du sud des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles ouvrent, plus ou moins, une voie vers la formation d’une langue biblique, voie aboutissant aux traductions de la Bible en macédonien standard contemporain en 1976, 2003 et 2007.

The Greek Alphabet in South-East Italy

The Greek alphabet in Sicily and southern Italy was widely used as a medium for writing in a variety of non-Greek languages. The non-Greek populations of the western Mediterranean do not simply receive and adopt the Greek alphabet uncritically. This chapter examines the development of writing in the Greek alphabet in south-east Italy, a region of considerable cultural diversity, and one which had many contacts with the Greek communities of Italy. Despite early contact with the Greeks of Tarentum and elsewhere, writing is not adopted in significant quantity until the fourth to third centuries BC. The smaller group of earlier inscriptions show a markedly different character. The chapter discusses the development of writing in this region in the context of the wider cultural developments of the fifth to third centuries BC. In particular, it explores the role of writing in the development of different types of identity (local, personal, and ethnic).

Contextualizing the Origin of the Greek Alphabet

The Greek alphabet likely appeared as a functional writing system in the late ninth century BC in a particular eastern Mediterranean locale, but the process by which it took shape is one that stretched chronologically from that moment back into the Bronze Age, and geographically from Anatolia and Syria-Palestine, through Cyprus, to Pylos, Knossos, and other Mycenaean palace sites. This chapter examines that formative process as one characterized by various episodes of the transfer of knowledge between structured systems-transfers that left traces of operational elements of earlier, pre-alphabetic systems within the emerging alphabet. It further explores a scenario in which this alphabetic system could have plausibly found motivation and achieved functionality among non-literate Greeks operating within the multi-lingual and multi-graphic context of the complex armies of the Neo-Assyrian empire.

The interrelationship between scriptal and linguistic variation in notary signatures of Greek contracts from late antique Egypt

This study investigates linguistic and scriptal variation in notary signatures found in late antique contracts from Egypt, seeking to identify and interpret the potential relationship between choices in language and script. To answer this, theoretical concepts and methods from sociolinguistics, social semiotics, and multilingual studies are used, with the objective of adding a new, more linguistically-oriented perspective to existing research on notarial signatures. On the one hand, this research demonstrates how the Latin script seems to restrict notaries, resulting in transliterated Greek signatures with very homogeneous content. The familiarity of notaries with the Greek language and writing is, on the other hand, reflected in signatures written in the Greek alphabet, which are much more diverse and at times adjusted to the circumstances under which specific documents were composed. Even if notaries seem to lack confidence in freely producing text in the Latin script, they choose to do so due to its functional values, which are conveyed and perceived visually. Latin letters create an association between signatories and Roman law, adding to the trustworthiness and prestige of the signatures. Differentiating between script and language allows us to understand how the Latin script maintained the connotations that formerly accompanied the Latin language, gradually replacing it in the form of transliterated passages, at a time when the language was disappearing from papyrological documentation. In this sense, sociolinguistics, and especially social semiotics, prove useful when dealing with visual aspects of language in papyri, as they prevent their functions and meanings from being overlooked.

Longhand Lines of Flight: Cataloging Displacement in a Karamanli Refugee's Commonplace Book

This essay examines a handwritten refugee ballad in a handmade codex, using both to illuminate some of the lingering blind spots in national philology and world literature. The ballad, printed in full after the essay, belongs to the Karamanli Christians of Anatolia, who spoke Turkish but wrote it in the Greek alphabet. Uprooted from Turkey by the Greco-Turkish Population Exchange of 1923, Karamanli refugees were scattered across Greece and North America, where they were often excluded from publishing. Poets like the author of the present ballad, Agathangelos, turned instead to more accessible manuscript formats. I interpret Agathangelos's ballad and codex as a catalog, documenting and preserving his lost homeland, where multiple scriptworlds, languages, and confessions coexisted. I conclude by calling for a people’s history of the book to decentralize and democratize world literature’s political economy (tacitly accepted as print capitalism), foregrounding textual networks that have remained illegible to our discipline.