Syriac A

Teacher(s)

Schmidt Andrea Barbara;

Language

French
> English-friendly

Prerequisites

LGLOR1641 and LGLOR1642.

Main themes

Detailed notions of the Syriac grammar and literature. Alternately with LGLOR2646, this class deals with the following topics:
- translation and commentary of different historical, hagiographic and exegetic texts, especially hiostorical texts; exercises in manuscript reading (22h);
- personal préparation and translation of texts read during class (8h).

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	At the end of this course, the student will be capable of vocalising, translating (with a dictionary), and analysing non-vocalised Syriac texts of different literary genres and epochs.

Content

This course gives an in-depth practice of Syriac, a language of the family of Aramaic languages . The texts that are studied vary from one year to another. They are from different periods (3rd to 16th c.), historical contexts and literary genres (history, poetry, hagiography, popular literature, Islamo-Christian dialogue, etc.). The texts are written by Syro-Oriental ("Nestorian") and Syro-Occidental ("Jacobite") writers from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran and the Persian Gulf.
The course offers:

• grammatical and literary analysis of texts
  
• tagging of Syriac texts for preparing a digital concordance, see the website of the GREgORI project
  
• study of the critical apparatus in text editions.
  
• codicology of Syriac manuscripts
  
• decipherment and exercises in different types of writing in Syriac manuscripts (according to the knowledge of students)
  

Bibliography

Moodle

• J. Payne Smith , A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, Oxford 1903 (plusieurs éditions);
• M. Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon, Gorgias Press 2010;
• J.A. Crichton, Theodor Nöldeke. Compendious Syriac Grammar, Oxford 2001 (= Th. Nöldeke, Kurzgefaßte syrische Grammatik, Leipzig 19773);
• W.H. Hatch, An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts, Boston 1946.

Teaching materials

• Moodle

Faculty or entity

EHAC