Nick Posegay, Points of Contact: The Shared
Intellectual History of Vocalisation in Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew
(Cambridge: Open Book Publishers / University of Cambridge, 2021)
Yuliya
Minets
University of Alabama
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James E. Walters
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2022
Volume 25.2
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv25n2prminets
Yuliya Minets
Nick Posegay, Points of Contact: The Shared
Intellectual History of Vocalisation in Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew
(Cambridge: Open Book Publishers / University of Cambridge, 2021)
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol25/HV25N2PRMinets.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2022
vol 25
issue 2
pp 493-496
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal
dedicated to the study of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in
January and July) by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998,
Hugoye seeks to offer the best scholarship available in the field of Syriac
studies.
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Nick Posegay, Points of Contact: The Shared
Intellectual History of Vocalisation in Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew
(Cambridge: Open Book Publishers / University of Cambridge, Faculty of Asian and
Middle Eastern Studies, 2021). Pp. xii + 376; £20.95 (paperback), £30.95
(hardback).
Nick Posegay’s book investigates the development of ideas
about vocalization in three Semitic languages—Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic—from the
seventh to the eleventh century, with a special emphasis on the ways vowels were
conceptualized, defined, and distinguished in writing. Even if not “a complete
history of the vocalization systems” (p. 4) of Semitic languages in the Middle Ages,
the book offers a much more comprehensive account of intellectual and philological
exchanges during the formative stages of this history than anything else previously
available in the field. Its clear achievements are threefold: first, meticulous
attention to the historiography of the problem and the previous studies that have
explored vocalization in medieval Semitic traditions; second, careful work with the
body of primary sources, including the early vocalized manuscripts that have been
discovered in recent decades and that have greatly enriched the available source
base; third, a comparative approach that considers the three traditions in their
mutual dialogue, since, as Posegay observes, many vocalization discoveries crossed
the boundaries between religious and language communities.
The author argues that the phonological ideas developed by
Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic scholars to explain their new techniques of vowel
pointing present a centuries-long history of shared innovations, adaptations, and
intellectual exchanges, beginning with the first Syriac relative diacritic dots in
the fifth century and reaching its zenith with the absolute vocalization systems in
the eleventh century. According to Posegay, the term ‘vocalization’ refers “both to
the process of physically adding vowel signs to a text and to the intellectual
domain that explains the creation, function, and application of those signs” (p.
12). In addition to vocalized manuscripts, the primary sources include multiple
specialized treatises as well as less systematic comments appearing in the works of
medieval linguists and grammarians (overview on pp. 15–24). Methodologically, the
focus of the analysis is on technical terms that describe and differentiate vowels
in oral speech and writing. The Glossary of Selected Vocalisation Terminology at the
end of the book (pp. 323–341) is a useful tool to keep track of intricate linguistic
terms and their cross-references and adaptations in different traditions.
The structure of the book reflects the shared trajectory of the
history of Semitic vocalization. After the introductory Chapter 1 providing the
basics of the organization and the scope of the study, a summary of sections,
definitions of the key terms, and an overview of the primary sources (pp. 1–24), the
book contains three parts. Chapter 2 (pp. 25–133) is a survey of the ways in which
medieval linguists described vowels as a phonological category distinct from
consonants, first, via the idea of ‘sounding’ letters most likely borrowed from
Dionysius Thrax’s Art of Grammar and the Aristotelian
tradition; second, via the perception of vowels as ‘movements’ between consonants,
which may also have Greek precedents; and third, via investigation of matres lectionis, letters of Semitic alphabets that can
indicate vowels as well as consonants. Chapter 3 (pp. 135–195) focuses on the
chronologically earlier ‘relative’ stage of vocalization, which means that
phonological properties of vowels were described and explained in their relationship
to other vowels in the same language. In Syriac and Masoretic Hebrew, the
rudimentary systems of vocalization points developed to distinguish between biblical
homographs whose vowels were variously conceptualized in binary oppositions as
‘thick’ and ‘thin,’ ‘wide’ and ‘narrow,’ ‘above’ and ‘below.’ Similar concepts based
on the perceived ‘height’ (i.e., ‘backness’) of sounds appeared at this time in
Arabic to describe allophones of the letter ʾalif, rather
than to indicate cardinal vowels. The articulation of vowels was related to the
placement of vocalization points in writing. Chapter 4 (pp. 197–307) traces the
transition to the so-called ‘absolute’ vowel naming systems, i.e., the appearance of
discrete names for vowels, in the three languages. The development of vowel names in
Arabic took the lead in the eighth and ninth centuries, setting the context for
several innovative systems in Syriac and Hebrew by the eleventh century. Posegay
notices that while ‘relative’ and ‘absolute’ phases overlap, and their duration
differs between languages, Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic follow the same trajectory.
Overall, the discussion detects and explores points of contact between different
linguistic traditions, as well as the unique adaptations each one of them
demonstrated, as they move through the same phases. The concluding Chapter 5
(pp. 309–322) is a helpful summary that pulls together the book’s content and
argument.
The book belongs to the hybrid field of philology and
intellectual history; social history provides the basic background sufficient for
the discussion, but intellectual shifts are not immediately linked to the ongoing
socio-linguistic processes in the Semitic-speaking milieux of the time. Some
necessary points, nevertheless, are clearly stated. It is well known, for example,
that Semitic scripts lacked the letters that would enable a writer to record the
vowels precisely and unambiguously. Posegay mentions the dynamic linguistic
processes in the Middle East, including the increasing contacts of Arabic-speaking
Muslims with speakers of other languages, the conversion of speakers of other
languages to Islam and their attempts to learn Arabic, and the gradual adoption of
Arabic as a lingua franca by Aramaic-speaking Jews and Syriac Christians. This led
to an increasing anxiety among representatives of all three traditions about the
preservation of the correct recitation of their holy scriptures, which was acerbated
by the greater importance of the written word. According to Posegay, the shared
history of vocalization among Syriac Christians, Muslims, and Masoretic Jews was, in
a way, a response to this general challenge. Yet when it comes to the actual
socio-linguistic history, the three traditions demonstrate very different
trajectories of development and indeed quite different contexts, demographics, and
discourse domains in which the languages were used. Regional diversification of late
Aramaic and Arabic adds more complexity. Taking this into account, it does not seem
so obvious that the history of vocalization in the three languages must have gone
through the same stages, i.e., the conceptualization of vowels, relative vowel
phonology, and absolute vowel naming. The fact that it does—here we should agree
with Posegay—is not because of similarities, but despite the differences in
socio-linguistic processes which the three languages experienced. This calls for a
more nuanced narrative connecting intellectual and socio-linguistic history.
The book is an amazing example of a cross-cultural and
cross-linguistic study. It is a rich resource not only for philologists and those
interested in the history of linguistics, but for all Judaic, Syriac, and Islamic
scholars who approach the cultures and religions of the early medieval Middle East
with a view to their intrinsic interconnectedness and complexity. The book is
available for free on the publisher’s website
https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0271.pdf.