SMC 16
Creating Standards:
Interactions with Arabic Script in 12 Manuscript Cultures
Edited by Dmitry Bondarev, Alessandro Gori and Lameen Souag
Manuscript cultures based on Arabic script feature various tendencies in standardisation of orthography, script types and layout. Unlike previous studies, this book steps outside disciplinary and regional boundaries and provides a typological cross-cultural comparison of standardisation processes in twelve Arabic-influenced writing traditions where different cultures, languages and scripts interact. A wide range of case studies give insights into the factors behind uniformity and variation in Judeo-Arabic in Hebrew script, South Palestinian Christian Arabic, New Persian, Aljamiado of the Spanish Moriscos, Ottoman Turkish, a single multilingual Ottoman manuscript, Sino-Arabic in northwest China, Malay Jawi in the Moluccas, Kanuri and Hausa in Nigeria, Kabyle in Algeria, and Ethiopian Fidäl script as used to transliterate Arabic. One of the findings of this volume is that different domains of manuscript cultures have distinct paths of standardisation, so that orthography tends to develop its own standardisation principles irrespective of norms applied to layout and script types. This book will appeal to readers interested in manuscript studies, sociolinguistics, literacy studies, and history of writing.
FrontmatterI
ContentsV
PrefaceVII
Transliteration of Arabic and some Arabic-based Script Graphemes used in this Volume
(including Persian and Malay) IX
Introduction: Orthographic Polyphony in Arabic Script1
by Dmitry Bondarev
Persian Language in Arabic Script:
The Formation of the Orthographic Standard and the Different Graphic Traditions of Iran
in the First Centuries of the Islamic Era39
by Paola Orsatti
Writing Judaeo-Arabic73
by Esther-Miriam Wagner
Cross Palaeographic Traditions. Some Examples from Old Christian Arabic Sources93
by Paolo La Spisa
Uses and Written Practices in Aljamiado Manuscripts111
by Nuria de Castilla
How to write Turkish? The Vagaries of the Arabo-Persian Script in Ottoman-Turkish Texts131
by Jan Schmidt
Developing Consistency in the Absence of Standards –
A Manuscript as a Melting- Pot of Languages, Religions and Writing Systems147
by Branka Ivušić
Standardisation in Manuscripts written in Sino-Arabic Scripts and xiaojing177
by Florian Sobieroj
A Collection of Unstandardised Consistencies?
The Use of Jawi Script in a Few Early Malay Manuscripts from the Moluccas217
by Jan van der Putten
Standardisation Tendencies in Kanuri and Hausa Ajami Writings237
by Dmitry Bondarev and Nikolay Dobranravin
Kabyle in Arabic Script: A History without Standardisation273
by Lameen Souag
Beyond ‘aǧamī in Ethiopia:
a short Note on an Arabic-Islamic Collection of Texts written in Ethiopian Script (fidäl)297
by Alessandro Gori
List of Contributors313
Index of Persons315