Search results

Filters

  • Journals
  • Authors
  • Keywords
  • Date
  • Type

Search results

Number of results: 6
items per page: 25 50 75
Sort by:
Download PDF Download RIS Download Bibtex

Abstract

According to the Bible, a disrespectful use of God’s name may be perceived as blasphemous or at least profane. In order to avoid the risk of violating that religious and linguistic taboo, sensitive language users representing the Judeo-Christian world have developed various euphemistic ways of referring to God. On the other hand, however, jokes that include God’s name and laugh at him are not uncommon in Western culture. Assuming a linguistic-semantic perspective, the present paper examines a group of “God jokes”, which are jokes that contain God’s name and were tagged with the word god in the collection entitled “The best god jokes”, published on the website unijokes.com. The aim of the study is to identify the place and role of God’s name in the semantic script of “God jokes”, or in other words, to check “how much” God there really is in the text of jokes that are supposed to laugh at God, potentially violating the religious taboo. Following the General Theory of Verbal Humor (Raskin and Attardo 1991; Attardo 2001), the use of God’s name is analyzed in the knowledge resources of the semantic script of a joke: the target, the script opposition, the situation, the narration, and the language.
Go to article

Authors and Affiliations

Marcin Kuczok
1

  1. University of Silesia
Download PDF Download RIS Download Bibtex

Abstract

The science of lexicography with its focus on etymology reaches back to ancient times; the history of Tibetan dictionaries is almost as old as the written language itself. About 1,200 years ago, the wish to translate the Buddhist scriptures in Sanskrit initiated the compilation of the first bilingual dictionary. lt provides Tibetan synonyms for Sanskrit terms and is written in Tibetan script. lt was compiled and used by monks who worked as scholars and translators. Throughout the following centuries, Tibetan dictionaries have been compiled, and, as will be shown, this happened for various reasons. As the Tibetan language is not yet fully explored, new dictionaries for Tibetan are still being worked on. One of these is under preparation in Munich; it will be the focus of the main part of this article. As the paper addresses a wider audience and not specifically scholars of Tibetan studies, l will situate Tibetan lexicography within a broader context, commencing with a brief introduction into the Tibetan script and language followed by a survey on the development of Tibetan lexicography and dictionaries. Then, the paper introduces the Wörterbuch der tibetischen Schriftsprache, an ongoing long-term project at the Bavarian Academy for Sciences and Humanities in Munich.

Go to article

Authors and Affiliations

Petra Maurer
Download PDF Download RIS Download Bibtex

Abstract

An attempt to create a written Mongolian language based on the Cyrillic script is linked to the missionary activities of Archbishop Nil (1799-1874) among the Buryat Mongols. On his initiative, several Christian liturgical books were translated into Mongolian and printed in St. Petersburg. However, Nil and his assistants did not take into account the discrepancy between written and spoken Mongolian language and transcribed every letter of the Mongolian written language with corresponding Cyrillic letters and thus did no in any way make the texts closer to the spoken language.

Go to article

Authors and Affiliations

Vladimir Uspensky
Download PDF Download RIS Download Bibtex

Abstract

The Kórnik Library holds many early printed books from the former church of the Unity of the Brethren in Leszno, including an adligat, i.e. a volume combining three works: one by John Calvin and two by Matthias Flacius. This artefact was bound in recycled parchment inscribed with text by an eminent philosopher/scholastic logician, Gilbert de la Porrée; it is a fragment of Commentarius ad Epistolas S. Pauli.
The author of the article compares the text of the Commentary from the parchment cover to other hand-written copies of this work. On the sidelines of reflections concerning the authorship of the treatises attributed to Gilbert, he points out that the research in this scope has not yet taken into account an analysis of the rhythmics. The text which survived on the cover has the form of rhythmic prose – a different one than that in one of Gilbert’s letters.
Go to article

Authors and Affiliations

Tomasz Jasiński
1 2
ORCID: ORCID

  1. Biblioteka Kórnicka
  2. Wydział Historii UAM, Poznań
Download PDF Download RIS Download Bibtex

Abstract

The holdings of the Kórnik Library include a book of abstracts of lawsuits concerning the boundaries of estates in Greater Poland in the 15th–17th century, written in Latin. Its presumed author, the otherwise unknown Piotr Biernacki, had the ability to write in both the Latin and the Cyrillic alphabet. This article focuses on the reading and the palaeographic and linguistic analysis of several Latin sentences, one heading and more than 20 margin notes written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The Cyrillic handwriting found in the book is a Russian skoropis used in Ukrainian areas of Poland in the 17th century. When writing the Latin text with the Cyrillic alphabet, the author utilised the Polish language of the time in the reading of Latin. The cryptograms found in the book have a technical/informative nature and do not contribute any significant information to the text. In combination with the fact that the Cyrillic alphabet was not at all used in Greater Poland, the above suggests that the author was playing with the reader, who was thus forced to look for the meaning of the incomprehensible text.
Go to article

Authors and Affiliations

Krzysztof Pietkiewicz
1
ORCID: ORCID

  1. Wydział Historii UAM, Poznań

This page uses 'cookies'. Learn more