From Tuscany to Alexandria: Arabic and Hebrew mercantile letters in the Prize Paper Collections.

从托斯卡纳到亚历山大：获奖论文集中的阿拉伯和希伯来商业信件。

• 批准号: 317765149
• 负责人: Dr. Mohamed Ali Hussein Ahmed
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Fellowships
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-31 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/317765149?language=en
• 关键词: Tuscany; Alexandria; Arabic; Hebrew; mercantile

The Prize Paper Collections in The National Archives in London contain a considerable quantity of business letters in Arabic and Hebrew script, which were seized in 1759 by British privateers as part of the loot on a Tuscan ship bound for Alexandria. Virtually untouched since that time - most of the letters were still unopened when we first viewed them - they remain in the pristine condition in which they were archived in the 18th century. They thus present a most exciting and probably unique opportunity to investigate the interaction between Jewish, Muslim and Christian merchants across borders in the 18th-century Mediterranean. The letters, numbering in the dozens, are particularly valuable as very little comparative material in Arabic script from that period is known and virtually nothing has been edited and published on the topic. Prize Paper materials published so far have mainly focused on those letters written in Dutch, but efforts are currently underway to establish a consortium of scholars from different disciplines working on the Collection. An edition and historical and linguistic analysis of the Arabic and Hebrew Prize Papers, composed by Christian, Jewish and Muslim traders dealing in a variety of commodities, will substantially contribute to this wider project and thus to research in a variety of fields. The immediate focus of our proposed work will be on linguistic issues, but through the envisaged editions this will also enhance understanding of the transnational economic and cultural history of the 18th century, in particular with regard to the research on inter-religious mercantile relations between Europe and the Middle East. The aim of this research project is to transcribe and translate all Arabic and Hebrew documents of the Prize Papers Collections. All sources will be subjected to linguistic analyses concerning their orthography/phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. One of the most important objectives of the present proposal is to investigate the differences and commonalities in the language used by merchants of different faith communities, both among themselves and in inter-communal correspondence. First results have indicated that inter-communal correspondence, for example between Jews and Muslims, Christians and Muslims, and Jews and Christians, is written in a higher linguistic register than for example those letters sent exclusively within a Christian or Jewish business network. Another important subject of the investigation will be the codeswitching between languages and dialectal forms versus standard Arabic. What prompts merchants to switch into the familiar colloquial register? When do they use formal, classical Arabic forms? Further foci of the proposed project will be the dichotomy between orality and written language, palaeographical and codicological concerns (did the merchants use scribes or did they write the letters with their own hand), and Arabic dialectology.

伦敦国家档案馆中的奖品纸集包含大量的阿拉伯语和希伯来语剧本，这是英国私人在1759年扣押的，这是一艘托斯卡纳船的一部分，载有亚历山大。自那时以来，几乎没有受到影响 - 当我们第一次查看它们时，大多数字母仍然没有打开 - 它们仍处于原始状态，在18世纪，它们在原始状态下存档。因此，他们提供了一个最令人兴奋的，可能是最独特的机会，可以调查18世纪地中海边界犹太人，穆斯林和基督教商人之间的相互作用。数十个数字中的字母特别有价值，因为从那时起，阿拉伯文字中几乎没有比较材料是已知的，几乎没有任何关于该主题的编辑和发表。迄今为止发布的奖品材料主要集中在荷兰语中写的那些信件，但目前正在努力建立来自不同学科的学者联盟，从事该系列的工作。由基督教，犹太人和穆斯林商人创作的阿拉伯语和希伯来奖论文的版本以及历史和语言分析将对这个更广泛的项目做出重大贡献，从而在各种领域中进行研究。我们拟议的工作的直接重点将放在语言问题上，但是通过设想的版本，这也将增强对18世纪跨国经济和文化历史的理解，尤其是关于欧洲之间宗教间默默地关系的研究和中东。该研究项目的目的是转录和翻译所有阿拉伯语和希伯来语的奖励收藏文件。所有来源将接受有关其拼字法/语音，形态，语法和词典的语言分析。本提案的最重要目标之一是调查不同信仰社区商人在本身和社区间信函中使用的差异和共同点。第一个结果表明，与在基督教或犹太商业网络中专门发送的信件相比，与犹太人，基督徒和穆斯林以及犹太人和基督徒之间的共同通信以及犹太人和基督徒的写作。调查的另一个重要主题是语言与方言形式之间的代码交换与标准阿拉伯语。是什么促使商人切入熟悉的口语寄存器？他们什么时候使用正式的古典阿拉伯语形式？拟议项目的进一步焦点将是口头和书面语言之间的二分法，古人和编辑问题（商人使用抄写员还是用自己的手写信）和阿拉伯方言学。

项目成果

A Handbook and Reader of Ottoman Arabic

奥斯曼阿拉伯语手册和读本

• DOI: 10.11647/obp.0208
• 期刊: Semitic Languages and Cultures
• 作者: Wagner;Esther-Miriam;Mohamed Ahmed
• 通讯作者: Mohamed Ahmed

From Tuscany to Egypt: Eighteenth Century Arabic Letters in the Prize Paper Collections

从托斯卡纳到埃及：获奖论文集中的十八世纪阿拉伯字母

• DOI: 10.1093/jss/fgx030
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: Journal of Semitic Studies
• 影响因子: 0.2
• 作者: Mohamed Ahmed;Esther-Miriam Wagner
• 通讯作者: Esther-Miriam Wagner