Multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman Worlds [Hardcover]

This book employs new interdisciplinary approaches to understand multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman worlds, East and West, Classical and medieval.Explores the multilingual complexity of the Graeco-Roman worlds in antiquity and the medieval period. Employs the latest interdisciplinary approaches and contemporary multilingualism theory in order to examine the linguistic and visual clues left by those expressing multilingual identity, and how these compare across cultures and time.Explores the multilingual complexity of the Graeco-Roman worlds in antiquity and the medieval period. Employs the latest interdisciplinary approaches and contemporary multilingualism theory in order to examine the linguistic and visual clues left by those expressing multilingual identity, and how these compare across cultures and time.Through words and images employed both by individuals and by a range of communities across the Graeco-Roman worlds, this book explores the complexity of multilingual representations of identity. Starting with the advent of literacy in the Mediterranean, it encompasses not just the Greek and Roman empires but also the transformation of the Graeco-Roman world under Islam and within the medieval mind. By treating a range of materials, contexts, languages, and temporal and political boundaries, the contributors consider points of cross-cultural similarity and difference and the changing linguistic landscape of East and West from antiquity into the medieval period. Insights from contemporary multilingualism theory and interdisciplinary perspectives are employed throughout to exploit the material fully.1. Introduction: multiple languages, multiple identities Alex Mullen; 2. Language maintenance and language shift in the Mediterranean world during the Roman Empire James Clackson; 3. Why did Coptic fail where Aramaic succeeded? Linguistic development in Egypt and the Near East after the Arab conquest Arietta Papaconstantinou; 4. Language contact in the pre-Roman and RolÔ