CONFERENCE ALERT:

Margins of writing, origins of cultures:
Unofficial writing in the ancient Near East and beyond

Oriental Institute Conference, February 25-26, 2005
1155 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL

Organizer: Seth L. Sanders

This is a conference on the politics of writing in the ancient Near East: what happens when people write their own languages, in environments dominated by imperial standard languages like Egyptian, Babylonian or Aramaic? This conference will be the first of its type, bringing together linguists, anthropologists, and scholars of the ancient Near East to discuss new directions for research. Among the senior scholars participating will be Harvard's Peter Machinist (Hebrew Bible), Chicago's Michael Silverstein (Linguistic Anthropology), Michigan's Piotr Michalowski (Assyriology), and Theo van den Hout, executive editor of the Chicago Hittite Dictionary. Younger scholars include William Schniedewind, (UCLA) whose recent How the Bible Became a Book is arguably the first study of the Bible to see the question of writing as decisive for both literature and history, and John Kelly (Chicago), author of the forthcoming Technography, a study in the anthropology of knowledge focusing on the grammarians of ancient India and the engineering of Sanskrit.

The papers look fascinating. The web page has detailed information, including notes on the conference format, context, and objectives; paper abstracts; and brief presenter bios. This paper is of particular interest for ancient Judaism:

William Schniedewind, UCLA
"Aramaic, the Death of (Written) Hebrew, and Jewish Nationalism in the Persian Period"
By 581 BCE (the Babylonian exile), the linguistic landscape in Palestine had changed dramatically and the written Hebrew language was almost lost in the mist of the displacement of the Jewish people. There was no social infrastructure for scribal training in Hebrew during the Persian period; instead, Jewishscribes were trained in Aramaic, which was the language of the Achaemenid empire. The paleo-Hebrew script ceased to be used, and Aramaic script replaced Hebrew script even in the copying and writing of Hebrew manuscripts. While Aramaic undergoes transformations typical of a living language and script, the Hebrew script is essentially frozen and revived as part of nationalistic movements in the Persian and Hellenistic period. Vernacular Hebrew continued to be used throughout this period and would have been critical for the revival of Hebrew later in Hellenistic period.

Michael Silverstein, University of Chicago, Respondant