Charting the Hellenization of a Literary Culture: The Case of Syriac

Charting the Hellenization of a Literary Culture: The Case of SyriacIntellectual History of the Islamicate WorldSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/9IAWTSWH/tei

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2024-08-15-04:00

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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.Sebastian P.BrockCharting the Hellenization of a Literary Culture: The Case of Syriachttp://syriaca.org/cbss/9IAWTSWHhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/9IAWTSWHhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/9IAWTSWHIntellectual History of the Islamicate World3:1-2201598-124Syriac literary culture became increasingly hellenized over the course of the fourth to seventh century AD. The paper sets out to indicate some of the ways by which the advance of this process can be charted. Special attention is given to two specific areas which prove to be particularly illuminating:1. The changing attitudes to translation practice, clearly observable in successive translations of the Gospel and of certain patristic and philosophical texts, with a movement from reader-oriented to text-oriented translations, culminating in the seventh century, and a return to reader-oriented ones in the new context of the ʿAbbāsid translation movement. 2. The growing number of Greek loanwords taken over into Syriac and the dramatic increase in new adjectival forms. The marked growth in both of these can be charted diachronically, thanks to the existence of sufficient dated or datable texts. Brock, Sebastian P. “Charting the Hellenization of a Literary Culture: The Case of Syriac.” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 3:1-2 (2015): 98–124. Sebastian P. Brock, Charting the Hellenization of a Literary Culture: The Case of Syriac, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 3:1-2 (2015): 98–124.Greek FathersGreek literatureGreek philosophyHellenismIV-VII CEVII-XVIII CEbilingualismsociolinguisticstranslationtranslations from Greektranslations into Syriac