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IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 1703: Changing Winds and Great Storms: The Dynamics of Speech Communities and Forms of Their Linguistic Self-Expression in the Eastern Mediterranean, 324-1204, I - Linguistic Engineering in Late Antiquity: The Case of Coptic

Thursday 8 July 2021, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:National Science Centre, Poland, Warszawa / Uniwersytet Warszawski / Jacksonville State University, Florida
Organisers:Yuliya Minets, National University, Kyiv / Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA), Kyiv
Paweł Nowakowski, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
Moderator/Chair:Yuliya Minets, National University, Kyiv / Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA), Kyiv
Paper 1703-aThe Use of Coptic in Cultural Mediation in Early Islamic Egypt
(Language: English)
Jennifer Cromwell, Department of History, Politics & Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Language and Literature - Other, Social History
Paper 1703-bLanguages in the Epigraphic Culture of Late Antique Egypt
(Language: English)
Joanna Wilimowska, Wydział Archeologii, Uniwersytet Warszawski
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Epigraphy, Language and Literature - Comparative, Social History
Paper 1703-cTexts of Ritual Power as Voices of Non-Ecclesiastical and Non-Monastic Coptic Litterati
(Language: English)
Przemysław Piwowarczyk, Wydział Humanistyczny Uniwersytet Śląski Katowice
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Other, Literacy and Orality, Social History
Abstract

The session focuses on the forms of linguistic and ideological interaction in the multilingual milieu of late antique and early medieval Egypt. The papers seek to undermine the traditional interpretation of Coptic as the last stage of Ancient Egyptian, a vernacular heavily influenced by Greek; to inquire into the roles Greek and Coptic played as written prestige languages in the diffusion of ideas and representations in the ever-changing religious and cultural situation in Egypt; to challenge the pan-monastic perspective on Coptic literature by including into the scholarly discussion the previously understudied semi-literary 'magical texts' or 'texts of ritual power'.