Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material / Glenn W. Most, Dagmar Schäfer, and Mårten Söderblom Saarela -- Copyright Page / Glenn W. Most, Dagmar Schäfer, and Mårten Söderblom Saarela -- Notes on Contributors / Glenn W. Most, Dagmar Schäfer, and Mårten Söderblom Saarela -- Introduction / Glenn W. Most, Dagmar Schäfer, and Michele Loporcaro -- Chapter 1.1 Introduction / Glenn W. Most -- Chapter 1.2 The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9) / Joel S. Baden -- Chapter 1.3 A 5th-Century BCE Greek Historian Discusses the Pelasgians and the Origins of the Greek Language / Filippomaria Pontani -- Chapter 1.4 Language Arose from Spontaneous Feelings and Reactions to Nature / Filippomaria Pontani -- Chapter 1.5 Language Diversity as a Result of Social Interaction / Dagmar Schäfer -- Chapter 1.6 Language Is a Collective Product of Mankind / Filippomaria Pontani -- Chapter 1.7 A 1st-Century BCE / CE Greek Geographer Discusses What a “Barbarian” Language Is in Terms of Homer and the Carians / Filippomaria Pontani -- Chapter 1.8 Plurilingualism in China and Inner Asia in the 12th Century CE / Mårten Söderblom Saarela -- Chapter 2.1 Introduction / Glenn W. Most, Dagmar Schäfer, and Michele Loporcaro -- Chapter 2.2 An Early Post-Vedic Treatise on the Etymological Explanation of Words / Johannes Bronkhorst -- Chapter 2.3 A 4th-Century BCE Greek Philosophical Analysis of the Methods and Limits of Etymology / Glenn W. Most -- Chapter 2.4 A 1st-Century BCE Roman Polymath’s Explanation of the Mysteries of Latin / Glenn W. Most and Michele Loporcaro -- Chapter 2.5 A 1st-Century CE Stoic Etymological and Allegorical Explanation of Greek Gods / Glenn W. Most -- Chapter 2.6 Zheng Xuan and Commentarial Etymology (2nd Century CE ) / Dagmar Schäfer -- Chapter 2.7 Etymology in the Most Important Reference Encyclopedia of Late Antiquity (ca. 600  CE ) / Michele Loporcaro and Glenn W. Most -- Chapter 2.8 Buddhist Etymologies from First-Millennium India and China / Roy Tzohar -- Chapter 2.9 An Influential Latin Dictionary and Its Etymologies (12th Century CE ) in the Linguistic Landscape of Medieval Europe / Michele Loporcaro -- Chapter 3.1 Introduction / Mårten Söderblom Saarela -- Chapter 3.2 Lexicality and Lexicons from Mesopotamia / Markham J. Geller -- Chapter 3.3 Translating Oriental Words into Greek / Filippomaria Pontani -- Chapter 3.4 The Making of Monolingual Dictionaries / Filippomaria Pontani -- Chapter 3.5 A 10th-Century CE Byzantine Encyclopedia and Lexicon / Glenn W. Most -- Chapter 3.6 A Dictionary of the Imperial Capital / Mårten Söderblom Saarela -- Chapter 4.1 Introduction / Dagmar Schäfer and Markham J. Geller -- Chapter 4.2 Translators of Sumerian / Markham J. Geller -- Chapter 4.3 The Earliest and Most Complete Story of the Translation of the Pentateuch into Greek (2nd Century BCE ) / Benjamin G. Wright III -- Chapter 4.4 “Faithful” and “Unfaithful” Translations / Filippomaria Pontani -- Chapter 4.5 A 4th-Century CE Buddhist Note on Sanskrit-Chinese Translation / Bill M. Mak -- Chapter 4.6 An 8th-Century CE Indian Astronomical Treatise in Chinese / Bill M. Mak -- Chapter 4.7 Two 8th-Century CE Recensions of Amoghavajra’s Buddhist Astral Compendium / Bill M. Mak -- Chapter 4.8 Arabic and Arabo-Latin Translations of Euclid’s Elements / Sonja Brentjes -- Chapter 5.1 Introduction / Dagmar Schäfer, Markham J. Geller, and Glenn W. Most -- Chapter 5.2 A 4th-Century BCE Greek Philosophical Myth about the Egyptian Origins of Writing / Glenn W. Most -- Chapter 5.3 A Buddhist Mahāyāna Account of the Origin of Language / Roy Tzohar -- Chapter 5.4 Stories of Origin / Sonja Brentjes -- Chapter 5.5 Inventing or Adapting Scripts in Inner Asia / Mårten Söderblom Saarela -- Chapter 5.6 An Essay on the Use of Chinese and Korean Language in Late 18th-Century CE Chosŏn / Mårten Söderblom Saarela -- Indexes / Glenn W. Most, Dagmar Schäfer, and Mårten Söderblom Saarela.

Was plurilingualism the exception or the norm in traditional Eurasian scholarship? This volume presents a selection of primary sources—in many cases translated into English for the first time—with introductions that provide fascinating historical materials for challenging notions of the ways in which traditional Eurasian scholars dealt with plurilingualism and monolingualism. Comparative in approach, global in scope, and historical in orientation, it engages with the growing discussion of plurilingualism and focuses on fundamental scholarly practices in various premodern and early modern societies—Chinese, Indian, Mesopotamian, Jewish, Islamic, Ancient Greek, and Roman—asking how these were conceived by the agents themselves. The volume will be an indispensable resource for courses on these subjects and on the history of scholarship and reflection on language throughout the world.

English

Description based on print version record.