Shaping Letters, Shaping Communities: Multilingualism and Linguistic Practice in the Late Antique Near East and Egypt / / edited by Yuliya Minets; Paweł Nowakowski.

• Superior document: Biblical Studies, Ancient Near East and Early Christianity E-Books Online, Collection 2024
• TeilnehmendeR: Minets, Yuliya,; Nowakowski, Paweł,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, 2024.; ©2024
• Year of Publication: 2024
• Edition: First edition.
• Language: English
• Series: Biblical Studies, Ancient Near East and Early Christianity E-Books Online, Collection 2024.; Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity ; 33.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (327 pages) :; illustrations.
• Notes: Includes index.

The volume explores linguistic practices and choices in the late antique Eastern Mediterranean. It investigates how linguistic diversity and change influenced the social dimension of human interaction, affected group dynamics, the expression and negotiation of various communal identities, such as professional groups of mosaic-makers, stonecutters, or their supervisors in North Syria, bilingual monastic communities in Palestine, elusive producers of Coptic ritual texts in Egypt, or Jewish communities in Dura Europos and Palmyra. The key question is: what do we learn about social groups and human individuals by studying their multilingualism and language practices reflected in epigraphic and other written sources?

Table of Contents

Intro -- ‎Contents -- ‎Figures -- ‎Tables, Maps, and Graphs -- ‎Abbreviations -- ‎Notes on Contributors -- ‎Introduction. Shaping Letters, Shaping Communities: Multilingualism and Linguistic Practice in the Late Antique Near East and Egypt -- ‎Part 1. Communities behind Inscriptions: Multilingual Self-Expression in Late Antique Syria -- ‎Chapter 1. To Write in Greek or to Write in Syriac (Briquel Chatonnet) -- ‎Chapter 2. Of Presbyters and Stonemasons, or Switching Codes in a Syrian Village (Nowakowski) -- ‎Chapter 3. Signing in Syriac: Artists' Signatures and Identities in Late Antique Syria (Leatherbury) -- ‎Chapter 4. Writing Conventions and Epigraphic Findings from Three Jewish Communities: (Cussini) -- ‎Part 2. Epigraphic Practices and Trends in the Levant and Egypt -- ‎Chapter 5. Cursive and Monumental Writing in Syriac Epigraphy (Brelaud, Daccache and Ruani) -- ‎Chapter 6. The Linguistic Aspect of Epigraphic Culture of the Southern Levant in Late Antiquity (Głogowski) -- ‎Chapter 7. Language Changes in the Epigraphic Culture of Late Antique Egypt (Wilimowska) -- ‎Part 3. The Role of Language in Different Social Settings in Late Antiquity -- ‎Chapter 8. Language Matters, Language Does Not Matter (Minets) -- ‎Chapter 9. Coptic Texts of Ritual Power as Voices of Laypeople (Piwowarczyk) -- ‎Chapter 10. Cultural Mediation in Early Islamic Egypt (Cromwell) -- ‎Epilogue. Habits of Christian Language in the Roman Near East and Beyond (Johnson) -- ‎General Index.