Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PALaC (Pre-Classical Anatolian Languages in Contact)
Période du rapport: 2022-08-01 au 2023-07-31
The tabular database is available for download on the free and open-access repository Zenodo. It also includes the geo-historical and thematic maps of the area that PALaC produced. The current version of the online metalinguistic lexicon of language contact in the ancient world is available at https://wiki.ercpalac.info/index.php?title=Main_Page.
Dissemination and publication of results included:
(1) Conferences. PALaC organized 4 editions of the event “Languages and Cultures in Contact in the Ancient Mediterranean”, along with other smaller events. As regards the conferences in which we participated, the team member presented papers at a large number of national and international conferences. A list of all events that were attended by members of the PALaC team is available to https://www.ercpalac.info/news-event
(2) Publications. The publications produced by PALaC are more numerous than originally planned, and the quality of the journals and volumes in which they appeared is very high. To date, PALaC produced: 36 papers and 2 monographic volumes that already appeared; ca. 10 papers that are in press ; 3 papers, 1 volume of proceedings and 1 monographic volume that are about to be submitted or currently in preparation. A full list is available at http://ercpalac.info/resources.
3. Website. The project website is available at http://ercpalac.info. It will be maintained and enriched even after the end of the final reporting period of PALaC.
4. Media and Press. Press releases included: two video interviews by the PI ("Linguaggi e culture in contatto nell'area del Mediterraneo antico", Univrmagazine; "Federico Giusfredi vincitore di un ERC Starting Grant", Scienza in Rete); three articles ("Il contatto linguistico per indagare civiltà perdute", Scienza in rete; "Mediterraneo, culla di civiltà, intreccio di linguaggi e culture", L’Arena; "Linguaggi e culture in contatto nel Mediterraneo antico", Univrmagazine). Other media, apart the aforementioned video interviews, also included papers at online or hybrid international conferences that are now available online. All media are linked at http://ercpalac.info/resources.
Regarding Bronze Age research, PALaC performed a general study of language contact in the Hittite archives, with reference to the previous Old Assyrian stage. Among other innovative results, we emphasize a better description of the sociolinguistic scenario of Middle Bronze Age Cappadocia, a thorough analysis of the problem of gender assignment in borrowings in Hittite, a new investigation of the sociolinguistic role of Akkadian in the Hittite world. More detail-oriented contributions are dedicated to specific loanwords, which shed new light on debated etymologies.
Regarding Iron Age, PALaC produced very innovative results on grammatical interference in the Syro-Anatolian world (Sam’al, Cilicia, Hama), as well as on the study of specific loanwords. Particularly important was the fine-grained study of adaptation of personal and place names in situations of contact.
The research on Iron Age and on the Greek interface converged when dealing with the contacts between Greek and the Anatolian languages of the first millennium. Research on the Greek interface also involved the study of loanwords in Greek and of Pre-Greek, of the problem of the alleged grammatical contacts between Greek and Anatolian, as well as an improved study of the significance of the ancient collections of glosses.
Finally, one of the most innovative aspects of PALaC was the presence of a historical work package. This line of research has produced an improved description of the intercultural contacts in and around Anatolia, with contributions that clarified cultural and geopolitical concepts separating them from linguistic ones, both at a general level and, in a detailed fashion, for a few specific regions in which linguistic and cultural contacts were intense (such as Central Anatolia for the Bronze Age; Cilicia, the Konya plain, and northern Syria for the Iron Age; the Aegean interface for both ages).