| Analysing Literary Sumerian: Corpus-Based Approaches Contributor(s): Cunningham, Graham (Editor), Ebeling, Jarle (Editor) |
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ISBN: 1845532295 ISBN-13: 9781845532291 Publisher: Equinox Publishing OUR PRICE: $128.25 Product Type: Hardcover Published: September 2006 Annotation: This volume brings together pioneering studies of the world's oldest literature, which was composed before and after 2000 BCE in the extinct Sumerian language. All the contributions are based on the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), a project of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University that has edited and published nearly 400 compositions and acts as a repository for research in Sumerian grammar, lexis, and style. The ETCSL, which is accessible through the internet and can be read for pleasure as well as study, is the only linguistically annotated and translated corpus of an ancient Near Eastern language. Each chapter of this book uses the ETCSL to approach a specific question relating to one or more compositions in the corpus, exploiting the new possibilities it offers to use quantitative methods and verify results. In addition to the themed studies, the book includes introductions to Sumerian literary language and corpus-linguistic approaches to research, as well as a catalogue of compositions. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Australian & Oceanian - Foreign Language Study | Ancient Languages (see Also Latin) |
| Dewey: 899.950 |
| LCCN: 2006028703 |
| Physical Information: 1.2" H x 6.46" W x 9.27" (1.88 lbs) 426 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This book brings together pioneering studies on the world's oldest literature, composed in the extinct language Sumerian and written on clay in the cuneiform (wedge-shaped) script. All the contributions are based on the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), a project of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University whose focus is on the best documented period of Sumerian literature, compositions recorded some 4,000 years ago in southern Iraq. The ETCSL consists of transliterations and translations of nearly 400 compositions and is accessible via the Internet. It is the only linguistically annotated and translated corpus of an ancient Near Eastern language. Each of the main chapters in the book uses the ETCSL to approach a specific question relating to one or more compositions in the corpus, exploiting the possibilities the corpus offers for quantitative research and statistical analysis. In addition to these case studies, the book includes introductions to Sumerian literary language and corpus-linguistic approaches to research, as well as a catalogue of compositions. The material, methods, and results will appeal to those interested in Sumerian, ancient literature, and the analysis of languages using a corpus. |