The Language of the Papyri

The modern rediscovery of the Greek and Latin papyri from Egypt has transformed our knowledge of the ancient world. We cannot, however, make the same claim in the specific area of language study. Although important studies of the language of the papyri have appeared sporadically over the past century, we are still dealing today with a linguistic resource of extraordinary richness which has hardly begun to be explored. Every scrap of papyrus and every ostracon (potsherd) or tablet unearthed has the potential to change some aspect of the way we think about the Greek and Latin languages. This book demonstrate that potential, by gathering together essays from seventeen scholars who present a variety of perspectives and methodological approaches. The Language of the Papyri charts current directions of international research, and will also provide a stimulus for future work.

Table of Contents:
1: T. V. Evans: Introduction I. Linguistic Change and Diversity 2: J. A. L. Lee: Auxiliary thelo 3: W. Clarysse: Linguistic Diversity in the Archive of the Engineers Kleon and Theodoros 4: T. V. Evans: Identifying the Language of the Individual in the Zenon Archive 5: R. Luiselli: Authorial Revision of Linguistic Style in Greek Papyrus Letters and Petitions (AD I-IV) 6: M. Leiwo: Imperatives and Other Directives in the Greek Letters from Mons Claudianus 7: M. Depauw: Do Mothers Matter? The Emergence of Matronymics in Early Roman Egypt 8: P. James: Variations in Complementation to Impersonal verba declarandi in Greek Papyri from the Roman and Byzantine Periods 9: P. Kruschwitz: Romanes eunt domus! Linguistic Aspects of the Sub-Literary Latin in Pompeiian Wall Inscriptions 10: H. Halla-aho: Linguistic Varieties and Language Level in Latin Non-Literary Letters II. Language Content 11: B. Muhs: Language Change and Personal Names in Early Ptolemaic Egypt 12: I. Rutherford: Bilingualism in Roman Egypt: Exploring the Archive of Phatres of Narmuthis 13: E. Dickey: Latin Influence and Greek Request Formulae 14: P. Filos: Greek Papyri and the Coining of Greek-Latin Hybrid Compounds 15: A. Maravela-Solbakk: Vina fictitia from Latin into Greek: The Evidence of the Papyri 16: F. Schironi: Lexical Translations in the Papyri: Koine Greek, Greek Dialects, and Foreign Languages III. General 17: S.E. Porter & M. O'Donnell: Building and Examining Linguistic Phenomena in a Corpus of Representative Papyri

About the Author :
T. V. Evans is Lecturer in the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University, Sydney. D. D. Obbink is Tutor in Greek Literature, Christ Church, and University Lecturer in Papyrology and Greek Literature, Oxford.

Review :
the book is a valuable point of reference for classicists and papyrologists who want to be informed of the progress that has already taken place thanks to technology, and who, at the same time, search for new ways to approach the papyrological evidence. a treasure trove for the specialist and a nice piece of reading for everybody with some classical background who is interested in the - everyday - world of the papyri.