Documentary Arabic Private and Business Letters on Papyrus: Form and Function, Content and Context

by Eva Mira Grob

Overview

Arabic letters on papyrus challenge the modern reader. There are few to no diacritical dots to distinguish homographs, no systematic spacing between single words, and in the majority of cases a low degree of graphical structuring. However, contemporary readers usually read and understood these documents easily – probably because the recipient of a letter knew what to expect. The letters are formulaic, and their information packaging follows an algorithm typical for their time and content. Here formulaic letter writing means not only the reuse of the same formulae or topoi but expressing thoughts in a predictable linguistic way and order, both as a matter of readability and as one of adequacy and politeness. The main concern of this work is to discover these unwritten rules and norms behind Arabic letter writing on papyrus.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783110247046
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	10/15/2010
Series:	Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete - Beihefte , #29
Edition description:	Bilingual
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.45(h) x 0.03(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Eva Mira Grob, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich and Universität Zürich, Switzerland.

Editorial Reviews

"[...] Grob's dissertation will be for years to come a reference work for scholars of various fields, from papyrologists and specialists of Arabic codicology and palaeography to historians of Late Antiquity and Early Islam."
Emily Cottrell in: BMCR 2012.03.51

From the Publisher