Author: Federica Ciccolella
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 673
ISBN-13: 9004163522
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The starting point generally acknowledged for the revival of Greek studies in the West is 1397, when the Byzantine Manuel Chrysoloras began to teach Greek in Florence. With his Erotemata, Chrysoloras gave Westerners a tool to learn Greek; the search for the ideal Greek textbook, however, continued even after the publication of the best Byzantine-humanist grammars. The four Greek Donati edited in this book - 'Latinate' Greek grammars, based on the Latin schoolbook entitled Ianua or Donatus - belong to the many pedagogical experiments documented in manuscripts. They attest to a tradition of Greek studies that probably originated in Venice and/or Crete: a tradition certainly inferior to the Florentine scholarship in quality and circulation, but still important in the cultural history of the Renaissance.
Author: Lodi Nauta
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
Published: 2006
Total Pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9789042917576
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →It is common wisdom that language is culturally embedded. Cultural change is often accompanied by a change in idiom, in language or in ideas about language. No period serves as a better example of the formative influence of language on culture than the Renaissance. With the advent of humanism new modes of speaking and writing arose. But not only did classical Latin become the paradigm of clear and elegant writing, it also gave rise to new ideas about language and the teaching of it. Some scholars have argued that the cultural paradigm shift from scholasticism to humanism was causally determined by the rediscovery, study and emulation of the classical language, for learning a new language opens up new possibilities for exploring and describing one's perceptions, thoughts and beliefs. However, the vernacular traditions too rose to prominence and vied with Latin for cultural prestige. This volume, number XXIV in the series Groningen Studies in Cultural Change, offers the papers presented at a workshop on language and cultural change held in Groningen in February 2004. Ten specialists explore the multifarious ways in which language contributed to the shaping of Renaissance culture. They discuss themes such as the relationship between medieval and classical Latin, between Latin and the vernacular, between humanist and scholastic conceptions of language and grammar, translation from Latin into the vernacular, Jewish ideas about different kinds of Hebrew, and shifting ideas on the power and limits of language in the articulation of truth and divine wisdom. There are essays on major thinkers such as Nicholas of Cusa and Leonardo Bruni, but also on less well-known figures and texts. The volume as a whole hopes to contribute to a deeper understanding of the highly complex interplay between language and culture in the transition period between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Author: James Hankins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2007-10-25
Total Pages: 521
ISBN-13: 1139827480
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, published in 2007, provides an introduction to a complex period of change in the subject matter and practice of philosophy. The philosophy of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries is often seen as transitional between the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages and modern philosophy, but the essays collected here, by a distinguished international team of contributors, call these assumptions into question, emphasizing both the continuity with scholastic philosophy and the role of Renaissance philosophy in the emergence of modernity. They explore the ways in which the science, religion and politics of the period reflect and are reflected in its philosophical life, and they emphasize the dynamism and pluralism of a period which saw both new perspectives and enduring contributions to the history of philosophy. This will be an invaluable guide for students of philosophy, intellectual historians, and all who are interested in Renaissance thought.
Author: Gabriele Stein
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2014-01-30
Total Pages: 448
ISBN-13: 0191506184
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Sir Thomas Elyot's Latin-English dictionary, published in 1538, became the leading work of its kind in England. Gabriele Stein describes this pioneering work, exploring its inner structure and workings, its impact on contemporary scholarship, and its later influence. The author opens with an account of Elyots life and publications. Sir Thomas Elyot (c. 1490-1546) was a humanist scholar and intellectual friend of Sir Thomas More. He was employed by Thomas Cromwell in diplomatic and official capacities that did more to impoverish than enrich him, and he sought to increase his income with writing. His treatise on moral philosophy, The Boke named the Governour, was published in 1531, and dedicated to Henry VIII. His popular treatise on medicine, The Castell of Helth, published some years later, went through seventeen editions. Professor Stein then considers how and why Elyot decided to compile a Latin-English dictionary. She looks at the guiding principles, the organization he devised, and the authors and texts he used as sources. She examines the books importance for the historical study of English, noting the lexical regionalisms and items of vulgar usage in the Promptuorum parvulorum and the dictionaries of Palsgrave and Elyot before discussing Elyots linking of lemma and gloss, and use of generic reference points. She explains how Elyot translated and defined the Latin headwords and compares his practice with his predecessors. The author ends with a detailed assessment of Elyots impact on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century dictionaries and his place in Renaissance lexicography. Her exploration of the work of an outstanding sixteenth-century scholar will interest historians of the English language, lexicography, and the intellectual climate of Tudor England.
Author: Otto Zwartjes
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Published: 2011-11-23
Total Pages: 375
ISBN-13: 9027283257
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →From the 16th century onwards, Europeans encountered languages in the Americas, Africa, and Asia which were radically different from any of the languages of the Old World. Missionaries were in the forefront of this encounter: in order to speak to potential converts, they needed to learn local languages. A great wealth of missionary grammars survives from the 16th century onwards. Some of these are precious records of the languages they document, and all of them witness their authors’ attempts to develop the methods of grammatical description with which they were familiar, to accommodate dramatically new linguistic features.This book is the first monograph covering the whole Portuguese grammatical tradition outside Portugal. Its aim is to provide an integrated description, analysis and evaluation of the missionary grammars which were written in Portuguese. Between them, these grammars covered a huge range of languages: in Asia, Tamil, four Indo-Aryan languages and Japanese; in Brazil, Kipeá and Tupinambá; in Africa and the African diaspora, Kimbundu and Sena (from the modern Angola and Mozambique respectively).Each text is placed in its historical context, and its linguistic context is analyzed, with particular attention to orthography, the parts of speech system, morphology and syntax. Whenever possible, pedagogical features of the grammars are discussed, together with their treatment of language variation and pragmatics, and the evidence they provide for the missionaries’ attitude towards the languages they studied.
Author: Euan Cameron
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2016-09-01
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 1316351742
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This volume charts the Bible's progress from the end of the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. During this period, for the first time since antiquity, the Latin Church focused on recovering and re-establishing the text of Scripture in its original languages. It considered the theological challenges of treating Scripture as another ancient text edited with the tools of philology. This crucial period also saw the creation of many definitive translations of the Bible into modern European vernaculars. Although previous translations exist, these early modern translators, often under the influence of the Protestant Reformation, distinguished themselves in their efforts to communicate the nuances of the original texts and to address contemporary doctrinal controversies. In the Renaissance's rich explosion of ideas, Scripture played a ubiquitous role, influencing culture through its presence in philosophy, literature, and the arts. This history examines the Bible's impact in Europe and its increasing prominence around the globe.
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2012-04-19
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13: 9004228047
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In recent scholarship, the connection between Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic is studied in a more systematic way. The idea of studying these two varieties in one theoretical frame is quite new, and was initiated at the conferences of the International Association for the Study of Middle and Mixed Arabic (AIMA). At these conferences, the members of AIMA discuss the latest insights into the definition, terminology, and research methods of Middle and Mixed Arabic. Results of various discussions in this field are to be found in the present book, which contains articles describing and analysing the linguistic features of Muslim, Jewish and Christian Arabic texts (folklore, religious and linguistic literature) as well as the matters of mixed language and diglossia. Contributors include: Berend Jan Dikken, Lutz Edzard, Jacques Grand’Henry, Bruno Halflants, Benjamin Hary, Rachel Hasson Kenat, Johannes den Heijer, Amr Helmy Ibrahim, Paolo La Spisa, Jérôme Lentin, Gunvor Mejdell, Arie Schippers, Yosef Tobi, Kees de Vreugd, Manfred Woidich, and Otto Zwartjes.