The Writing Culture of Ancient Dadān

A Description and Quantitative Analysis of Linguistic Variation
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-90-04-51262-7
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 110, 324 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 696 g

Reihe: Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics

This work focuses the social context of writing in ancient Western Arabia in the oasis of ancient Dadan, modern-day al-'Ula in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula between the sixth to first centuries BC. It offers a description and analysis of the language of the inscriptions and the variation attested within them. It is the first work to perform a systematic study of the linguistic variation of the Dadanitic inscriptions. It combines a thorough description of the language of the inscriptions with a statistical analysis of the distribution of variation across different textual genres and manners of inscribing. By considering correlations between language-internal and extralinguistic features this analysis aims to take a more holistic approach to the epigraphic object. Through this approach an image of a rich writing culture emerges, in which we can see innovation as well as the deliberate use of archaic linguistic features in more formal text types.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kootstra, Fokelien

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Schrift, Paläographie, Orthographie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Archäologie spezieller Regionen und Zeitalter

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures, Maps and Tables

Sigla and Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Outline of the Present Work

2 The Corpus

3 A Holistic Approach to the Epigraphic Object

4 Scribal School and Variation

1 The Oasis of Dadan in Space and Time

1 The Dadanite and Li?yanite Kingdoms

2 Philological Arguments

3 Minaean Presence at Dadan

4 Paleography

5 Dadan in Other Corpora

6 Archaeological Evidence

7 Summary of the Dating Evidence

2 Script and Manners of Inscribing

1 Glyphs and Their Variant Forms

2 Script Styles

3 Dadanitic Alphabetic Text

4 Summary: Varying Styles, Varying Forms

3 Genres and Compositional Formulae

1 Superscriptio

2 Narratio

3 Invocatio

4 Graffiti

5 Summary

4 Orthography and Phonology

1 Word Dividers

2 Matres lectionis

3 Triphthongs

4 Final Short Vowels

5 Diphthongs

6 Sound Changes

5 Verbal Morphology

1 Suffix Conjugation

2 Prefix Conjugation

3 Derived Stems

4 Participles

6 Nominal and Pronominal Morphology

1 Gender

2 Number

3 Noun Formation

4 Demonstrative Pronoun

5 Relative Pronoun

6 hm?

7 mh

8 mn

9 Personal Pronouns

10 Prepositions

11 Numerals

12 Adverbs

13 Particles

14 Conjunctions

7 A Quantitative Approach to Variation

1 Methodology: Statistics

2 The Data and Methodology

8 Analysis

1 Text Internal Variants

2 Register Indicators

3 Important Non-significant Co-occurrences

4 Discussion

5 Summary

Conclusions

1 Descriptive and Grammar Chapters

2 Chapters Analyzing Variation

3 Variation and Literacy

4 Future Directions

5 Summary

Glossary

Bibliography

Index of Inscriptions

Über Autor(innen)

Fokelien Kootstra obtained her Ph.D. from Leiden University, the Netherlands, in 2019 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Ghent University, Belgium. She has published on the epigraphic traditions of pre-Islamic North Arabia (Tayma' and al-'Ula). Her most recent work focuses on the language and writing culture of the early Arabic papyri.