Documentary Arabic Private and Business Letters on Papyrus

Form and Function, Content and Context

Bibliographic Data

ID19903017
AuthorsEva Mira Grob (corresponding author)
Year2010
Publication date2010-10-15
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueDocumentary Arabic Private and Business Letters on Papyrus (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherDe Gruyter (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/9783110247053
OpenAlexW590022474
Open LibraryOL24479019M
ISBN9783110247053
LanguageEN
Citations received22

Arabic letters on papyrus challenge the modern reader. There are few to no diacritical dots to distinguish homographs, no systematic spacing between single words, and in the majority of cases a low degree of graphical structuring. However, contemporary readers usually read and understood these documents easily - probably because the recipient of a letter knew what to expect. The letters are formulaic, and their information packaging follows an algorithm typical for their time and content. Here formulaic letter writing means not only the reuse of the same formulae or topoi but expressing thoughts in a predictable linguistic way and order, both as a matter of readability and as one of adequacy and politeness. The main concern of this work is to discover these unwritten rules and norms behind Arabic letter writing on papyrus

Arabic · Art · Linguistics · Literature · Papyrus · Politeness · Political science · Readability · Structuring · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Computer Science · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Arabic Letter writing · Arabic letters · Arabic literature · Arabic literature, history and criticism · History and criticism · Letter writing · Manuscripts (papyri) · Manuscripts, Arabic (Papyri)

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