Series | Medieval and Modern Philologies
Edited book | Contacts of Languages - Contacts of Writings
Chapter | Interferenza grafemica ed interferenza linguistica nella Sicilia antica
Abstract
A crossroads between several cultures for its whole history, ancient Sicily offers a unique field of study for those interested in language contact. In spite of the great graphic homogeneity characterizing the island in antiquity, with the Greek alphabet emerging as the most widespread writing system, it is possible to detect traces of graphemic interference from other writing habits, which often serve as an indicator of linguistic interference too. Case-studies pertaining to the contact between Greeks and Sicels, Greeks and Elymians, and Greeks and Romans are examined in light of the wider sociolinguistic questions concerning the motivations behind the borrowing of a writing system on the part of peoples such as the Sicels and the Elymians, and the meaning of the spread of certain linguistic structures (e.g. the ownership formula) from one culture to another.
Language: it
Copyright © 2015 Olga Tribulato. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/6969-061-7/FMM-9-2