Was plurilingualism the exception or the norm in traditional Eurasian scholarship? This volume presents a selection of primary sources-in many cases translated into English for the first time-with introductions that provide fascinating historical materials for challenging notions of the ways in which traditional Eurasian scholars dealt with plurilingualism and monolingualism. Comparative in approach, global in scope, and historical in orientation, it engages with the growing discussion of plurilingualism and focuses on fundamental scholarly practices in various premodern and early modern societies-Chinese, Indian, Mesopotamian, Jewish, Islamic, Ancient Greek, and Roman-asking how these were conceived by the agents themselves. The volume will be an indispensable resource for courses on these subjects and on the history of scholarship and reflection on language throughout the world.
Reihe
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Produkt-Hinweis
Fadenheftung
Gewebe-Einband
Maße
Höhe: 235 mm
Breite: 155 mm
Dicke: 27 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-90-04-46466-7 (9789004464667)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Glenn W. Most, PhD (Yale/Tuebingen, 1980) is a classicist and comparatist. He retired in November 2020 as Professor of Greek Philology at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and remains a regular Visiting Professor on the Committee on Social Thought (University of Chicago) and External Scientific Member of the MPIGW, Berlin. He has published numerous articles and books on Classics, philosophy, the history of religion, and comparative literature, among other fields.
Dagmar Schaefer, PhD (University of Wuerzburg, 1996) is a sinologist and historian of science. She is Director of Department 3 (Artifacts, Action, Knowledge) at the MPIWG, Berlin, and Honorary Professor at Freie Universitaet Berlin. Author of The Crafting of the 10,000 Things (University of Chicago Press, 2011), she has published widely on the premodern history of China (Song-Ming) and the changing role of artifacts in the creation, diffusion, and use of scientific and technological knowledge.
Marten Soederblom Saarela, PhD (Princeton University, 2015) is a historian of the Qing empire and Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taipei. He is the author of The Early Modern Travels of Manchu: A Script and Its Study in East Asia and Europe (Penn, 2020), and co-editor of Saksaha: A Journal of Manchu Studies.
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
?Glenn W. Most, Dagmar Schaefer and Michele Loporcaro
Part 1 Language Diversity
1.1 Introduction
?Glenn W. Most
1.2 The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9)
?Joel S. Baden
1.3 A 5th-Century BCE Greek Historian Discusses the Pelasgians and the Origins of the Greek Language
Herodotus, Histories
?Filippomaria Pontani
1.4 Language Arose from Spontaneous Feelings and Reactions to Nature
The Doctrine of Epicurus (4th Century BCE) and Lucretius (1st Century BCE)
?Filippomaria Pontani
1.5 Language Diversity Is a Result of Social Interaction
Xunzi's View on Plurilingualism in 3rd-Century BCE China
?Dagmar Schaefer
1.6 Language Is a Collective Product of Mankind
Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History (1st Century BCE)
?Filippomaria Pontani
1.7 A 1st-Century BCE/CE Greek Geographer Discusses What a "Barbarian" Language Is in Terms of Homer and the Carians
Strabo, Geography
?Filippomaria Pontani
1.8 Plurilingualism in China and Inner Asia in the 12th Century CE
"Khitan Reciting Poetry"
?Marten Soederblom Saarela
Part 2 Etymology
2.1 Introduction
?Glenn W. Most, Dagmar Schaefer and Michele Loporcaro
2.2 An Early Post-Vedic Treatise on the Etymological Explanation of Words
Yaska, Etymology
?Johannes Bronkhorst
2.3 A 4th-Century BCE Greek Philosophical Analysis of the Methods and Limits of Etymology
Plato, Cratylus
?Glenn W. Most
2.4 A 1st-Century BCE Roman Polymath's Explanation of the Mysteries of Latin
Varro, On the Latin Language
?Glenn W. Most and Michele Loporcaro
2.5 A 1st-Century CE Stoic Etymological and Allegorical Explanation of Greek Gods
Cornutus, Compendium of Greek Theology
?Glenn W. Most
2.6 Zheng Xuan and Commentarial Etymology (2nd Century CE)
?Dagmar Schaefer
2.7 Etymology in the Most Important Reference Encyclopedia of Late Antiquity (ca. 600?CE)
Isidore of Seville, Etymologies
?Michele Loporcaro and Glenn W. Most
2.8 Buddhist Etymologies from First-Millennium India and China
Works by Vasubandhu, Sthiramati and Paramartha
?Roy Tzohar
2.9 An Influential Latin Dictionary and Its Etymologies (12th Century CE) in the Linguistic Landscape of Medieval Europe
Hugutio of Pisa's Derivationes
?Michele Loporcaro
Part 3 Lexicography
3.1 Introduction
?Marten Soederblom Saarela
3.2 Lexicality and Lexicons from Mesopotamia
?Markham J. Geller
3.3 Translating Oriental Words into Greek
A Papyrus Glossary from the 1st Century CE
?Filippomaria Pontani
3.4 The Making of Monolingual Dictionaries
The Prefaces to the Lexica of Hesychius (6th Century CE) and Photius (9th Century CE)
?Filippomaria Pontani
3.5 A 10th-Century CE Byzantine Encyclopedia and Lexicon
Suda, Letter Sigma
?Glenn W. Most
3.6 A Dictionary of the Imperial Capital
Shen Qiliang's Da Qing quanshu (1683)
?Marten Soederblom Saarela
Part 4 Translation
4.1 Introduction
?Dagmar Schaefer and Markham J. Geller
4.2 Translators of Sumerian
The Unsung Heroes of Babylonian Scholarship
?Markham J. Geller
4.3 The Earliest and Most Complete Story of the Translation of the Pentateuch into Greek (2nd Century BCE)
The Letter of Aristeas
?Benjamin G. Wright III
4.4 "Faithful" and "Unfaithful" Translations
The Greco-Latin Tradition in Jerome's Letter to Pammachius (395/396?CE)
?Filippomaria Pontani
4.5 A 4th-Century CE Buddhist Note on Sanskrit-Chinese Translation
Dao'an's Preface to the Abridgement of the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra
?Bill M. Mak
4.6 An 8th-Century CE Indian Astronomical Treatise in Chinese
The Nine Seizers Canon by Qutan Xida
?Bill M. Mak
4.7 Two 8th-Century CE Recensions of Amoghavajra's Buddhist Astral Compendium, Treatise on Lunar Mansions and Planets
?Bill M. Mak
4.8 Arabic and Arabo-Latin Translations of Euclid's Elements
?Sonja Brentjes
Part 5 Writing Systems
5.1 Introduction
?Dagmar Schaefer, Markham J. Geller and Glenn W. Most
5.2 A 4th-Century BCE Greek Philosophical Myth about the Egyptian Origins of Writing
Plato, Phaedrus
?Glenn W. Most
5.3 A Buddhist Mahayana Account of the Coming into Being of Language
The Descent into La?ka Scripture (La?kavatarasutra)
?Roy Tzohar
5.4 Stories of Origin
Ibn al-Nadim, Kitab al-Fihrist
?Sonja Brentjes
5.5 Inventing or Adapting Scripts in Inner Asia
The Jin and Yuan Histories and the Early Manchu Veritable Records Juxtaposed (1340s-1630s)
?Marten Soederblom Saarela
5.6 An Essay on the Use of Chinese and Korean Language in Late 18th-Century CE Choson
Yu Tukkong, "Hyang'o pan, Hwao pan"
?Marten Soederblom Saarela
Index
