Languages and Linguistics
Encyclopedia of Slavic Languages and Linguistics Online
The most comprehensive reference work on Slavic languages ever published. It provides authoritative treatment of all important aspects of the Slavic language family from its Indo-European origins to the present day, as well as consideration of the interaction of Slavic with other languages.
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Sign upInterview with Marc L. Greenberg on the Encyclopedia of Slavic Languages and Linguistics
In June 2020, Brill released the online Encyclopedia of Slavic Languages and Linguistics (ESLL). Read an interview with Editor-in-Chief, Marc L. Greenberg (University of Kansas).
New at Brill: Heritage Language Journal
The Heritage Language Journal (HLJ) was established in 2002 by the National Heritage Language Resource Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. Its aim is to provide a forum for scholars to disseminate research and knowledge about heritage and community languages.
Major Open Access Collaboration between Brill and ERC Project ‘Open Philology: The Composition of Buddhist Scriptures’
Brill is delighted to announce a new Open Access collaboration with ‘Open Philology: The Composition of Buddhist Scriptures’ (OpenPhilology), funded by the European Research Council. The resulting book series Buddhist Open Philology Project will publish translations of scriptures, text editions, and studies on the select corpus of Mahāyāna Buddhist scriptures (sūtra), the Mahāratnakūṭa collection of 49 sūtras. All volumes in the series will be published in Open Access with Brill.
Acquisitions Editors
Brill
Seçil Ümitvar
Uri Tadmor
Böhlau
Pascale Mannert
Sarah Stoffaneller
V&R unipress
Marie-Carolin Vondracek
Languages and Linguistics
Derived from the Greek word βάρβαρος bárbaros, the term ‘barbarism’ designates the incorrect use of forms and expressions in a given language. In sociolinguistic terms applied to Ancient Greek, it mainly refers to the change of the linguistic code through the introduction of non-Greek expressions and to the use of broken Greek by non-native speakers. Most of the ancient examples come from Aristophanic comedies where non-Greeks (Scythians, Persians and Thracians) were linguistically characterized as foreigners and appear differentiated from native speakers of standard Attic. In order to provoke mirth, these comic texts attempted to imitate foreigner talk, thus constituting a valuable source for the study of linguistic variation in Classical Athens.
Digraphia refers to two or more scripts or writing systems being used for a language or language variety, either simultaneously or in successive historical periods. The term has also been used for the description of individual authors or documents using two scripts. The terminology describing this phenomenon is rich and perplexing, with many alternative terms of identical or similar meaning proposed or adopted by different scholars. It has been identified as a phenomenon falling under sociolinguistics (sociolinguistics of writing, in particular). The concept of diglossia has been used to attempt to analyze digraphia sociolinguistically, though not without objections to its applicability and usefulness. The long history of the Greek language and alphabet offers many instances of digraphic situations, stemming from (language and) script contact, colonization and foreign rule, trade, and even technological developments.
The excavations at the sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona have unearthed a unique corpus of lead plates containing oracular lamellae from the mid-6th to the 2nd c. BCE. Some 4,500 of these have been published thus far. The inquiries, which are not always easy to read, interpret or date, are important for Greek linguistics in two main regards: first, they exhibit a wide array of alphabets and dialects that provide valuable data for the study of Ancient Greek; second, they are extempore texts written in an informal register that is rarely documented.
Inscriptions were produced at various places in the Byzantine Empire, most of all in urban centers during the early period, and also in the far east of the Empire, Caesarea Maritima being one good example. In the major cities of Constantinople and Thessaloniki, inscriptions were produced continuously throughout the entire Byzantine millennium, and the extant inscriptional evidence is only a small remnant of the mass of the original material. However, Byzantine Greek inscriptions were not only produced within the receding Imperial boundaries, but also in territories that had lost: Jordan and Syria after the sixth century, the Balkans after the dispersion of the Bulgarian and Serbian kingdoms, and the Northern coast of the Black Sea. Additionally, in Southern Italy and in Sicily after the Norman Conquest, Greek inscriptions emerged via a deliberate imitation of the Byzantine culture.
The letter-signs of the Greek alphabet were also used as numerals throughout antiquity, and in fact well into Medieval times, when the advent of the so-called ‘Arabic’ numerals (ca. 13c. CE) gradually brought about their replacement, though not their complete demise in special fields and/or for certain (quasi-formulaic) usages.
Sealing was used in antiquity to convey legal authority and security to a document, package, or product. The sealing media par excellence during the Byzantine period were clay and, especially, lead, imprinted from the 4th c. CE onwards with an iron, pliers-shaped implement (βουλλωτήριον boullōtḗrion). Byzantine lead seals record the personal data of their owner (name, title, office) in monograms or linear inscriptions, rendered mainly in Latin initially, but after the early 7th c. CE, almost exclusively in Greek. Due to the nature of the recorded data, seals form an indispensable source of information for the fields of prosopography and administrative, institutional and political history, as well as that of the social history and art of Byzantium.