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Dear Colleagues,<br>
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<div>Please excuse the cross posting. The next International Linguistic Association free monthly linguistics lecture is THIS SATURDAY! Please distribute widely and encourage colleagues and students to attend. We look forward to seeing you there!<br>
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<div>Best Wishes,<br>
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<div>Maureen Matarese<br>
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<div>Assistant Professor<br>
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<div>BMCC, CUNY<br>
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<div>International Linguistic Association Vice President<br>
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<font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="6" color="#003366"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 28pt;"><strong>International Linguistic Association</strong></span></font></div>
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<font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="5" color="#002060"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 20pt;"><strong><em>Monthly Lecture Series</em></strong></span></font></div>
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<font size="4" color="red"><span lang="de" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></font></div>
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<font size="6" color="red"><span lang="de" style="font-size: 24pt;">Peter T. Daniels</span></font><font size="6" color="red"><span lang="de" style="font-size: 24pt;"></span></font></div>
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<font size="5" color="red"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 20pt;">Independent Scholar</span></font></div>
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<span lang="en-US"><strong> </strong></span></div>
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<span lang="en-US"><strong>Aramaic Documents from Ancient Bactria:</strong></span></div>
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<span lang="en-US"><strong>Connections to the West--and the East--and the Future</strong></span></div>
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<font size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></font></div>
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<font size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">In 2012, </span></font><font size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"><em>Aramaic Documents from Ancient Bactria</em></span></font><font size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"> in
the Khalili Collection were published by the late Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked. These comprise 30 items on leather – many excellently preserved – and 18 wooden tally sticks, all inscribed with ink. They date to the middle of the 4th century </span></font><font size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant: small-caps;">bce</span></font><font size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">,
spanning the end of the Achaemenid empire and the rule of Alexander. Their provenance is unknown; the editors believe they came from Balkh, Afghanistan = ancient Bactra, the capital of the satrapy of Bactria – near the farthest eastern extremity of the Empire.
What is most striking about the assemblage is their uncanny resemblance to the documents known since the 1950s as the “Driver letters,” a sheaf of correspondence, also on leather, also in Aramaic, discovered presumably somewhere in Egypt, from Arsames, the
satrap of Babylonia, of the late 5th century </span></font><font size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant: small-caps;">bce</span></font><font size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"> (just under a century earlier than
the Bactrian material). The grammar is almost identical, and the script is so similar that the eminent epigrapher Naveh has nothing to say about it.</span></font></div>
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<font size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">It is this very identicalness that is of especial interest in the context of the papyrology of the ancient world. These documents show for the first time that there was a uniformity in the diplomatics
of chancery practice throughout the empire – not just in the west where Aramaic was in general use – that presages the striking uniformity in orthographic practice among the scribes of the variety of Iranian languages that gradually succeeded Aramaic in writings
and inscriptions in Sassanian and Parthian times: there was precedent for what must have been a very close-knit intellectual community across West and Central Asia.</span></font></div>
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<font size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">But even more interesting, these documents take us nearly to the exact time and place of the invention of the Kharoṣṭhi script of northwest India – of Gandhara – so that the dearth of epigraphic Aramaic
script that might have modeled for the pandits who first wrote an Indic language is made up for by proof that paleographic Aramaic was available. At present we have no Kharoṣṭhi manuscripts dating as early as the Bactria documents, but the demonstrated unity
makes it licit to accept that the contemporary epigraphic forms of Aramaic script known from the west can be taken as the models for the earliest known Kharoṣṭhi inscriptions. This was posited by Georg Bühler at the end of the 19th century, but has hitherto
always had to be considered no more than a plausible suggestion.</span></font></div>
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<font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="4" color="red"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong> </strong></span></font></div>
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<font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="4" color="red"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Saturday, February 7, 2015</strong></span></font></div>
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<font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="4" color="red"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>11 AM - 12 PM</strong></span></font></div>
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<font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="4" color="red"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Borough of Manhattan Community College</strong></span></font></div>
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<font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="4" color="red"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Room: </strong></span></font><font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="4" color="red"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Richard Harris Terrace
(next to the bookstore)</strong></span></font></div>
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<font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="4" color="red"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>199 Chambers Street, New York, NY 10007</strong></span></font></div>
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<font face="Book Antiqua,serif" color="red"><span lang="en-US"><strong> </strong></span></font></div>
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<font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="2" color="black"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Contact:</span></strong></span></font><font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="2" color="black"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong> Maureen
Matarese, </strong></span></font><a href="mailto:mmatarese@bmcc.cuny.edu" target="_blank"><font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong>mmatarese@bmcc.cuny.edu</strong></span></font></a><font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong> </strong></span></font><font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong> </strong></span></font><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.ilaword.org&d=AwMFaQ&c=nI61yajbN8Wpmagq-MfhuPVQx6fheJzyqdJgIHizQCg&r=bMXNaw186Jc63xYVgZZ3MlfhsUWluktnRZQxLytu_WY&m=0NN7dxuDuWAOFoGD2WIjozRIgRMthVKaTBoffT2Ncrs&s=nXjCXFmoubL9YhTXhz4TBEo4w-kVjFCsJLkqVfKwJrw&e=" target="_blank"><font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong>www.<span class="highlight" id="0.5247377876657993" name="searchHitInReadingPane" style="background-color: rgb(255, 238, 148);">ila</span>word.org</strong></span></font></a><font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="2"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong> </strong></span></font><font face="Book Antiqua,serif" size="2" color="black"><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></font></div>
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