̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Palaeolinguism

Easy as Alep, Bet, Gimel? Cambridge research explores social context of ancient writing

rcc40 — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 08:49:23 +0000

A new research project at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is set to shed light on the history of writing, revealing connections to our modern alphabet that cross cultures and go back thousands of years.

̽��ֱ��project, called Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS for short), is to focus on exploring how writing developed during the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, and will investigate how different writing systems and the cultures that used them were related to each other.

̽��ֱ��project is led by Dr Philippa Steele of the ̽��ֱ��’s Faculty of Classics. Described as an “innovative and interdisciplinary approach to the history of writing” the CREWS project aims to enrich our understanding of linguistic, cultural and social aspects of the use, borrowing and development of writing in the ancient world – which can uncover some often surprising links to our modern-day written culture.

For instance, today the notion of “alphabetical order” is used to arrange everything from dictionaries to telephone books, but why is the alphabet organised the way it is?

Alphabetical order as we would recognise it first appeared over three thousand years ago in Ugaritic, written in a cuneiform script made of wedge-shaped signs impressed on clay tablets. ̽��ֱ��Ugaritic alphabet was in use in the ancient city of Ugarit, uncovered at Ras Shamra in modern Syria. Some of the surviving tablets discovered by archaeologists are known as “abecedaria”, where the letters of the alphabet are written in order, possibly for teaching or as a training exercise for new scribes.

̽��ֱ��destruction of Ugarit in around 1200 BCE was not the end for alphabetical order. ̽��ֱ��Phoenicians, living in what is now modern Syria and Lebanon, used the same order for their own alphabet. While their language was related to Ugaritic, their writing system was not. Instead of cuneiform wedge-shapes, the Phoenicians used linear letters, which were much more similar to those we use in English today. ̽��ֱ��Phoenician alphabet began with the letters Alep, Bet, Gimel, Dalet, which are strikingly similar to our own A, B, C and D.

Dr Steele said: “ ̽��ֱ��links from the ancient past to our alphabet today are no coincidence. ̽��ֱ��Greeks borrowed the Phoenician writing system and they still kept the same order of signs: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta. They transported the alphabet to Italy, where it was passed on to the Etruscans, and also to the Romans, who still kept the same order: A, B, C, D, which is why our modern alphabet is the way it is today.”

That such an apparently simple idea remained so stable and powerful over thousands of years of cultural change and movement is an historic mystery. “ ̽��ֱ��answer cannot be purely linguistic”, Dr Steele said. “There must have been considerable social importance attached to the idea of the alphabet having a particular order. It matters who was doing the writing and what they were using writing for.”

̽��ֱ��origin of the alphabet is just one of the areas that the CREWS project will explore, along with the social and political context of writing, and drivers of language change, literacy and communication. Because of the high level of interconnectedness in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, ideas could be spread widely as people moved, traded and interacted with different cultures.

“Globalisation is not a purely modern phenomenon”, Dr Steele commented. “We might have better technology to pursue it now, but essentially we are engaging in the same activities as our ancestors.”

̽��ֱ��CREWS project is the result of a long-term innovative programme of combined and comparative research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. It will run for five years and will involve a four-person team working on a variety of ancient cultures and writing systems. ̽��ֱ��CREWS project has been made possible thanks to the European Research Council, who describe their mission as being “to encourage the highest-quality research in Europe.”

Dr Steele, the Principal Investigator on the project and a Senior Research Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge, has worked on ancient languages and writing systems for over ten years and previously specialised in the languages of ancient Cyprus. She said: “Cyprus lies right in the middle of an area where ancient people were moving about by land and sea and swapping technologies and ideas. That was one of the inspirations of the CREWS project. By studying how and what ancient people were writing, we will be able to gain more insight into their interactions with each other in ways that have never been fully understood before.”

̽��ֱ��Contexts of and Relations Between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) project will be based at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Faculty of Classics, a world-leading centre for the study of the ancient world with a track record for innovative and interdisciplinary research. Running from April 2016, it will continue until 2021.

Follow the project blog online at https://crewsproject.wordpress.com/.

A new ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge research project is set to shed light on the history of writing in the ancient world, and explore the longlasting relationship between society and writing that persists today.

̽��ֱ��links from the ancient past to our alphabet today are no coincidence...It matters who was doing the writing and what they were using writing for.

Philippa Steele

ouhos OU History of Science

Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Adventures of a palaeolinguist

sjr81 — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:24:42 +0000

It has an alphabet similar to Latin but actually reads from right to left, like mirror-writing. ̽��ֱ��second line is easily decipherable; it reads Frentiaís, meaning that the bronze was cast in Frentani territory. This object is one of the last remaining documents written in this ancient language.

However, scholars disagree about the interpretation of the first line. Dr James Clackson - from the Faculty of Classics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - is a palaeolinguist, who works on reconstructing these ancient languages which have long been lost to the dustbin of history.

He will be giving a talk on his research combining classics, ancient history and linguistics on Monday, 24 October as part of the Festival of Ideas, the UK’s only festival devoted to the arts, humanities and social sciences. https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/

It is thought that human language evolved 100,000 years ago with writing appearing only much later, just over 5,000 years ago.

Dr Clackson said “Palaeontologists are able to reconstruct the forms and lives of extinct fauna and flora, such as the brontosauros and the leptocycas, often basing their results on fragmentary and scattered remains - a skull here, an ankle bone there, or the imprint of a treetrunk on clay. Palaeolinguists attempt to do the same thing with languages which are no longer spoken.”

Dr Clackson argues that the second line scratched into the weight reads kerLITtum, LIT an abbreviation for the synonymous Greek word litra meaning ‘pound’, and on either side of it, the two halves of the word kertum, which like the Latin certum, means ‘fixed’ or ‘certain’. He guesses that the creator did not want others adding any further inscriptions which would falsify the weight’s value, similar to the way we draw lines next to the numbers when writing cheques.

Much of Dr Clackson’s work involves working from obscure texts inscribed on tablets of stone or metal. Often written in obsolete scripts which are only partially understood by academics today, he says that ‘working out the linguistic message of these texts is partly a matter of solving a puzzle, or cracking a code’. Yet with very limited written records of these ancient languages, Dr Clackson meticulously works backwards from other sources that are available to him as a scholar in the 21^st century – modern languages.

He added: “For example, English and German share similarities not just in the most common everyday words but also in basic grammatical structures. By comparing the two languages we can build a picture of what the language they came from looked like, much as the biologist can reconstruct the common ancestor of the dog and the wolf, or the lion and the household cat.”

̽��ֱ��common ancestor of English and German, or its ‘parent language’, is called proto-Germanic. It is one branch of a much bigger family called Indo-European, which encompasses Latin and Greek as well as Sanskrit, the language of Ancient India.

Dr Clackson emphasises that deciphering one word of Frentinian may not seem like a monumental leap in research. He said: “In palaeotological terms, it is the equivalent of fitting a fossilised tooth into the jaw of a tyrannosaurus Rex.”

Yet the importance of Dr Clackson’s works lies in the cultural, social and ethnic information which is hidden within these ancient texts. Studying the use, style and content of ancient languages helps us to re-create the stories, mythology, knowledge and world-view of people alive thousands of years ago.

He added: “It is only through such small steps that we can gradually build up a real picture of lost languages, and get a better understanding of the whole of linguistic evolution. ̽��ֱ��ability to use and understand language is one of the only things that all human societies have in common.

“Every language is unique, and uncovering, decoding and interpreting lost languages gives back a voice to speakers and communities who have been silenced sometimes for thousands of years. Recording and understanding little known languages, whether ancient or modern, adds to our knowledge of the totality of human language - and hence to our understanding of what it is to be human.”

Adventures of a Palaeolinguist will take place on Monday 24 October at the Mill Lane Lecture Rooms, 8 Mill lane, 5.30-6.30pm as part of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Festival of Ideas. Pre-booking not required. Suitable for ages 12+

̽��ֱ��curious bronze, knuckle-shaped object pictured is an ancient weight excavated from the east coast of Italy. ̽��ֱ��inscription scrawled along its side is written in the language of ancient people, known to the Romans as the Frentani.

Every language is unique, and uncovering, decoding and interpreting lost languages gives back a voice to speakers and communities who have been silenced sometimes for thousands of years.

James Clackson

Dr James Clackson

Ancient weight excavated from the east coast of Italy

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