Conference Presentations by Antonia Apostolakou
Multilingualism in Egypt: Comparative Perspectives on Language Choice in Documentary Papyri (Leiden, 18-19 November 2021), 2021
Writing practices within intensely multilingual environments such as the one of Late Antique Egyp... more Writing practices within intensely multilingual environments such as the one of Late Antique Egypt are far from simple and homogeneous. Notary signatures in papyri of contracts from this period perfectly illustrate this observation, by displaying linguistic and scriptural variation that cannot be easily left unnoticed. The complexity of these variations encourages the assumption that specific socio-semiotic connotations might be attached to these signatures, not only as linguistic, but also as visual products. This possibility is investigated in this paper, by first drawing a broad picture of linguistic variation in the so-called “di emu” type notary signatures. There is a further focus on the most interesting, in this respect, notaries from the Arsinoite nome, all of whom sign in both Greek and Latin characters. This paper uses theoretical concepts from modern language contact and multilingualism studies to approach language and script choices, in order to interpret the social meaning and motivations behind them.
Papers by Antonia Apostolakou
Symbolae Osloenses
This paper investigates the inclusion of “Coptic-only” letters in the spelling of Egyptian person... more This paper investigates the inclusion of “Coptic-only” letters in the spelling of Egyptian personal names and toponyms in otherwise Greek documents. A diachronic analysis of eighty documentary texts (4th–8th c. CE), primarily on papyrus, shows an increase of evidence in the sixth century, in line with recent literature on the evolution of documentary Coptic. As opposed to earlier papyri, which were mainly everyday texts with highly problematic Greek and interference from Egyptian, many later documents were of higher legal value, penned by bilingual scribes who were proficient in Greek, who could incorporate Coptic characters into their Greek writing, proving that script-mixing could be unrelated to poor linguistic competence. The phenomenon seems to have arisen from an unconscious cognitive process of ad hoc phoneme-to-grapheme conversion, which offered different spelling variants, and was triggered by the Egyptian origin of names, the special phonemes that certain Coptic graphemes represented, and the lack of inflection amidst the Greek text.
This paper investigates the inclusion of “Coptic-only” letters in the spelling of Egyptian person... more This paper investigates the inclusion of “Coptic-only” letters in the spelling of Egyptian personal names and toponyms in otherwise Greek documents. A diachronic analysis of eighty documentary texts (4th–8th c. CE), primarily on papyrus, shows an increase of evidence in the sixth century, in line with recent literature on the evolution of documentary Coptic. As opposed to earlier papyri, which were mainly everyday texts with highly problematic Greek and interference from Egyptian, many later documents were of higher legal value, penned by bilingual scribes who were proficient in Greek, who could incorporate Coptic characters into their Greek writing, proving that script-mixing could be unrelated to poor linguistic competence. The phenomenon seems to have arisen from an unconscious cognitive process of ad hoc phoneme-to-grapheme conversion, which offered different spelling variants, and was triggered by the Egyptian origin of names, the special phonemes that certain Coptic graphemes represented, and the lack of inflection amidst the Greek text.
This study investigates linguistic and scriptal variation in notary signatures found in late anti... more This study investigates linguistic and scriptal variation in notary signatures found in late antique contracts from Egypt, seeking to identify and interpret the potential relationship between choices in language and script. To answer this, theoretical concepts and methods from sociolinguistics, social semiotics, and multilingual studies are used, with the objective of adding a new, more linguistically-oriented perspective to existing research on notarial signatures. On the one hand, this research demonstrates how the Latin script seems to restrict notaries, resulting in transliterated Greek signatures with very homogeneous content. The familiarity of notaries with the Greek language and writing is, on the other hand, reflected in signatures written in the Greek alphabet, which are much more diverse and at times adjusted to the circumstances under which specific documents were composed. Even if notaries seem to lack confidence in freely producing text in the Latin script, they choose to do so due to its functional values, which are conveyed and perceived visually. Latin letters create an association between signatories and Roman law, adding to the trustworthiness and prestige of the signatures. Differentiating between script and language allows us to understand how the Latin script maintained the connotations that formerly accompanied the Latin language, gradually replacing it in the form of transliterated passages, at a time when the language was disappearing from papyrological documentation. In this sense, sociolinguistics, and especially social semiotics, prove useful when dealing with visual aspects of language in papyri, as they prevent their functions and meanings from being overlooked.
Conferences, lectures & workshops by Antonia Apostolakou
The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, Leiden University Library and the Greek dep... more The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, Leiden University Library and the Greek department of Ghent University offer a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations and Medieval studies with a good command of Greek. It offers a chronological introduction into Greek palaeography from the Hellenistic period until the end of the Middle Ages and is specifically aimed at acquiring practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and/or manuscripts. This course gives the unique opportunity to practice reading on original papyri and manuscripts from the collection of the Leiden Papyrological Institute and the special collections of the Leiden University Library.
The Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collabo... more The Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations and Medieval studies with a good command of Greek. It offers a chronological introduction into Greek palaeography from the Hellenistic period until the end of the Middle Ages and is specifically aimed at acquiring practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and/or manuscripts. We will also provide the unique opportunity to read from original papyri in the papyrus collection of the Ghent University Library and become familiar with the ongoing research projects at Ghent University.
! UPDATE ! Due to the current COVID-19 restrictions, the Crash Course has been postponed to 23-24... more ! UPDATE ! Due to the current COVID-19 restrictions, the Crash Course has been postponed to 23-24 May 2022.
On 23-24 May 2022, the Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations and Medieval studies with a good command of Greek. It offers an chronological introduction into Greek palaeography from the Hellenistic period until the end of the Middle Ages and is specifically aimed at acquiring practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and/or manuscripts. We will also provide the unique opportunity to read from original papyri in the papyrus collection of the Ghent University Library and become familiar with the ongoing research projects at Ghent University.
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Conference Presentations by Antonia Apostolakou
Papers by Antonia Apostolakou
Conferences, lectures & workshops by Antonia Apostolakou
On 23-24 May 2022, the Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations and Medieval studies with a good command of Greek. It offers an chronological introduction into Greek palaeography from the Hellenistic period until the end of the Middle Ages and is specifically aimed at acquiring practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and/or manuscripts. We will also provide the unique opportunity to read from original papyri in the papyrus collection of the Ghent University Library and become familiar with the ongoing research projects at Ghent University.
On 23-24 May 2022, the Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations and Medieval studies with a good command of Greek. It offers an chronological introduction into Greek palaeography from the Hellenistic period until the end of the Middle Ages and is specifically aimed at acquiring practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and/or manuscripts. We will also provide the unique opportunity to read from original papyri in the papyrus collection of the Ghent University Library and become familiar with the ongoing research projects at Ghent University.