Description
Book SynopsisThe Lord confused the language of all the earth, so the Tower of Babel story in the Hebrew Bible''s book of Genesis tells us to explain why the world''s people communicate in countless languages while previously they all spoke only one. This book argues that the biblical confusion really happened in the ancient Near East, not in speech, however, but in writing. It examines the millennia-long history of writing in the region and shows a radical change from the third and second millennia to the first millennium BC. Before Babel any intellectual who wrote did so as a participant in a cosmopolitan tradition with its roots in Babylonia, its language, and its cuneiform script. After Babel scribes from all over the eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, used a profusion of vernacular languages and scripts to express themselves. Yet they did so in dialogue with the Babylonian cuneiform tradition still maintained by the successive Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires that controlled thei
Trade ReviewWith his latest book, Before and After Babel, Van De Mieroop homes in on the history of writing, and the result is arguably his most impressive book to date...Van De Mieroop's prose is crisp and easy to follow; his argument is clearly stated and always grounded in concrete case studies. Whether as an intervention in the history of writing-both cuneiform and alphabetic-or as a mine of fascinating case studies, Before and After Babel is sure to reach a wide audience. * Sophus Helle, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction Part I: The Babylonian Cosmopolis The cuneiform sign Chapter 1: Reading Gilgamesh in the Zagros Mountains: the eighteenth century BC Chapter 2: In the spell of Babylonian writing Chapter 3: Mystery Guardians of an ancient tradition Chapter 4: The height of cosmopolitanism: Reading Gilgamesh in Hattusas Coda Part II: The Vernacular Millennium The Tower of Babel Chapter 5: Scrupulous continuity Chapter 6: Luwian: The Ephemeral Success of a Non-Cosmopolitan Tradition Chapter 7: Vernaculars that changed the world: Phoenician and Aramaic Chapter 8: From minority languages to world literatures: the Hebrew case Chapter 9: From minority languages to world literatures: the Greek case Chapter 10: The vernacular and its consequences Epilogue: Clash of cosmopoleis? Bibliography Index
