Project description
The process of Aramaisation in the Middle East
The Sumerian and Akkadian written languages were dominant in the Middle East during the period 3000–500 BCE, but their prominence declined during the Assyrian Empire (935–612 BCE), when Aramaic began to replace them. This shift marks a critical point in the region’s linguistic history. The ERC-funded ARAMAIZATION project will collect and analyse all available evidence of this process of Aramaisation. Specifically, it will study how Aramaisation was shaped by the decisions made by individuals and institutions involved in commissioning and producing written works. By developing innovative sociolinguistic research methods, the project will shed light on the factors driving language change and the broader implications for our understanding of language dynamics in the ancient Middle East.
Objective
For more than two thousand years, the Sumerian and Akkadian languages and the cuneiform script dominated the written record of the Middle East (c.3000–500 BCE). Yet the hegemonic cultural position of these languages began to erode under the Assyrian Empire (935–612 BCE), when the region was subject to an imperial order closely aligned with the Sumero-Akkadian tradition. How did Aramaic writing, lacking a comparable pedigree or status, manage to establish itself alongside Sumero-Akkadian before displacing it altogether?
Answering this question has significance far beyond the first millennium BCE. The Aramaization of the Middle East is the story of the fall of the world’s oldest literate tradition and its replacement by an upstart language and script. Making sense of this transition will be instructive for our understanding of processes of language change in the long term. It will also contribute to our understanding of later sociolinguistic transformations in the Middle East and elsewhere, including in our own time of global linguistic and cultural flux.
The Aramaization of the Middle East has evaded adequate treatment because of the difficulty and dispersal of the data, enduring disciplinary divisions, and outdated interpretative paradigms. The publication in recent decades of much new evidence adds to the urgency of the problem. The ARAMAIZATION project will investigate the Aramaization of the Middle East across disciplinary boundaries, bringing together expertise in Assyriology, Aramaic studies, and historical sociolinguistics. We will approach Aramaization as a process rooted in the choices of the people and institutions who commissioned and produced writing. We will examine these choices by surveying all available evidence together as part of a single linguistic landscape. Our research will pioneer sociolinguistic research methods with broad applicability to the study of language choice and language change across the ancient world and beyond.
Keywords
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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28006 MADRID
Spain
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