The Slow Fall of Babel: Conceptualization of Languages, Linguistic Diversity and History in Late Ancient ChristianitySyriaca.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/UNST2X8K/tei
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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.YuliyaMinetsThe Slow Fall of Babel: Conceptualization of Languages, Linguistic Diversity and History in Late Ancient Christianityhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/UNST2X8Khttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/UNST2X8Khttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/UNST2X8K2017This dissertation explores ideas attested in late ancient Christianity on language as such, on the history of language, and on linguistic diversity. It traces how the role of language as a factor of group identity changed in the late ancient Mediterranean under the growing influence of Christianity, examines to what extent the Christian elite groups objectified the language as a part of their distinctly Christian identity, and how different those processes were in the Greek, Latin, and Syriac milieus. The dissertation examines the changes in linguistic awareness among Christian intellectuals through an analysis of metalinguistic comments in their narratives. The Christian ideas on languages developed in interaction with those attested in the Classical and Hellenistic philosophical traditions and in early Judaism. The biblical passages that mention linguistic phenomena (the Tower of Babel and the Pentecostal gift of tongues) and their interpretations by patristic authors had an important impact on how real and imagined situations in which people communicated in different languages were constructed in Christian narratives. Christianity in Late Antiquity faced the need to initiate and maintain the dialogue with the alloglottic Other in a way and to a degree unprecedented in European history. The Christian projects started with the universalist claims and the attempts to embrace speakers of all the languages, but had to accommodate and rationalize the growing fragmentation of Christianity in the time of Trinitarian and Christological controversies. The language differences played a crucial and long-lasting role in this fragmentation. Yet, the links between languages and religious affiliations were not deemed to be absolute. Writers mentioned language differences when the polemical purposes of their narratives required it, but usually did not imply that language was a formative factor of one’s confessional identity. Overall, Christians became increasingly aware of the linguistic diversity of the world. They went through a gradual process of discovering and internalizing the fact of other languages and their speakers. The interaction with speakers of other tongues from the distinctly Christian standpoint expanded the previous monolingual or bilingual worldviews typical of the representatives of the traditional Greek and Roman cultures.
Minets, Yuliya. “The Slow Fall of Babel: Conceptualization of Languages, Linguistic Diversity and History in Late Ancient Christianity.” Ph.D. dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 2017.
Yuliya Minets, The Slow Fall of Babel: Conceptualization of Languages, Linguistic Diversity and History in Late Ancient Christianity (Ph.D. dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 2017).GenesisIV-VII CEPentecostSyriac languageexegesissociolinguisticstower of Babel