I Want to Learn How to Think Beyond Academic Disciplines
2013.03.19 TAKAHASHI, Hidemi
TAKAHASHI, Hidemi
Translation and Intercultural Relationships
– Observations on Translations into and from Syriac
- Outline
In March, 2013, our Project will start off with research lectures at the University of Melbourne by two Faculty members from the University of Tokyo. For more information, please look at the web page on the University of Melbourne Research Lectures.
Syriac, a branch of Middle Aramaic, is a language that was used, mainly by Christians, in large areas of the Middle East from around the third century onwards. It is still used today as their literary and liturgical language by the descendants of those Christians both in their Middle Eastern homeland and in their European, American and Australasian diaspora, while in earlier times it also served as the principal vehicle for the spread of Christianity in all those parts of the Eurasian continent to the east of the birthplace of that religion. A large number of texts, both religious and secular, were translated into Syriac mainly from Greek, but also from other languages such as Hebrew, Middle Persian and Arabic, and translations were made, in turn, from Syriac into a variety of languages including Greek, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Middle and New Persian, Sogdian, Chinese and Malayalam. A number of such translations will be taken up in this presentation, and observations will be made on how the manner in which the texts were translated was affected by the social and cultural relationships between the communities using the languages involved.
- Schedule
March 19, 2013 (Tue) an approximately one hour session from around 15:00
The University of Melbourne
- Instructor
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- TAKAHASHI, Hidemi
- Professor Takahashi was born in 1965. He has a doctorate degree from the University of Frankfurt (Dr. phil., Orientalistik). His area of specialty is Syriac Studies, or Syrologie. His publications include: Aristotelian Meteorology in Syriac, “The Mathematical Sciences in Syriac,” “Transcribed Proper Names in Chinese Syriac Christian Documents,” and "The Thomaskirche" in the State of Kerala, India" (in Japanese). He researches on the tradition of ancient Greek Philosophy and Natural Sciences, Christian-Islam relations and the spread of Syriac Christianity in Asia, mainly studying texts in Syriac and Arabian languages.
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