̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Philippa Steele

Can ancient dead languages save today's endangered languages? A tale of identity and visibility

zs332 — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 09:05:24 +0000

̽��ֱ��world is facing a language crisis. Of its c.7,000 languages, Glottolog estimates that only 35% are safe - the rest are at varying stages of being threatened, moribund or nearly extinct. In some cases, it is already too late.

Cambridge researchers awarded European Research Council funding

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 13:14:45 +0000

Cambridge received the most awards of any UK institution, alongside ̽��ֱ�� College London, which also received five awards.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge winners are among 313 winners of the latest round of Consolidator Grants, backed with some €632 million. Part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, this new round of grants will create an estimated 1,900 jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and other staff at 189 host institutions.

Dr Ana Cvejic from the Department of Haematology was awarded a grant for her CONTEXT project (Aneuploidy and Its Impact on Blood Development: Context Matters). ̽��ֱ��focus of her research is to understand how blood cells develop and how their development and their ultimate function is influenced by their environment and environmental cues. ̽��ֱ��aim is to use this knowledge to develop new ways to treat disease and improve human health.

Professor Nikku Madhusudhan from the Institute of Astronomy was awarded a grant for his SUBNEPTUNES project (Probing Exoplanetary Atmospheres in the Sub-Neptune Regime). His research is focused on the atmospheres, interiors and formation mechanisms of exoplanets. In 2021, he identified a new class of exoplanet, dubbed Hycean planets, which could greatly accelerate the search for life outside our Solar System.

Professor Ulrich Schneider from the Cavendish Laboratory was awarded a grant for his KAGOME project (A quantum gas microscope for the Kagome lattice). Schenider studies ‘many-body’ phenomena at the interface between quantum optics and solid state physics.

Dr Philippa Steele from the Faculty of Classics was awarded a grant for her VIEWS project (Visual Interactions in Early Writing Systems). Her research focuses on the relationships between Aegean writing systesm and the development of the early Greek alphabet.

Dr Laura Torrente Murciano from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology was awarded funding for her RESTARTNH3 project (Energy functional processes and materials for storage of renewable energy in ammonia). Her research focuses on the integration of processes and development of novel catalytic routes for sustainable technologies.

President of the ERC Professor Maria Leptin said: ”Even in times of crisis and conflict and suffering, it is our duty to keep science on track and give our brightest minds free reign to explore their ideas. We do not know today how their work might revolutionise tomorrow - we do know that they will open up new horizons, satisfy our curiosity and most likely help us prepare for unpredictable future challenges. So, I am thrilled to see a new group of ERC grant winners funded for their scientific journey. I wish them the best of luck on their way to push the frontiers of our knowledge!”

Five ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers have been awarded Consolidator Grants from the European Research Council, the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research.

Westend61

European Commission, Brussels

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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

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