From Tuscany to Alexandria: Arabic and Hebrew mercantile letters in the Prize Paper Collections.

伦敦国家档案馆的获奖文件藏品中有相当数量的阿拉伯语和希伯来语商业信件，这些信件是1759年英国私人船队在一艘开往亚历山大港的托斯卡纳船上作为战利品查获的。自那时以来，这些信件几乎没有被碰过--当我们第一次看到它们时，大多数信件仍然没有打开--它们仍然保持着18世纪存档时的原始状态。因此，他们提供了一个最令人兴奋的、可能也是独一无二的机会，来研究18世纪地中海地区跨境的犹太、穆斯林和基督教商人之间的互动。这些字母有几十个之多，特别有价值，因为人们所知的那个时期的阿拉伯文字比较材料很少，而且几乎没有关于这个主题的编辑和出版。到目前为止，出版的纸质材料主要集中在用荷兰语写的信件上，但目前正在努力建立一个由不同学科的学者组成的联盟，致力于收藏。由经营各种商品的基督教、犹太教和穆斯林商人编写的阿拉伯语和希伯来语奖论文的版本以及历史和语言分析，将大大促进这一更广泛的项目，从而促进各种领域的研究。我们拟议工作的直接重点将是语言问题，但通过设想的版本，这也将加强对18世纪跨国经济和文化史的了解，特别是关于欧洲和中东之间宗教间商业关系的研究。这一研究项目的目的是抄写和翻译所有阿拉伯和希伯来语的获奖论文集文件。所有来源都将接受有关其正字法/音位、词法、句法和词汇的语言学分析。本提案的最重要目标之一是调查不同信仰群体的商人之间以及在社区间通信中使用的语言的差异和共同点。初步结果表明，社区之间的通信，例如犹太人和穆斯林、基督徒和穆斯林以及犹太人和基督徒之间的通信，使用的语言语域比仅在基督教或犹太商业网络内发送的那些信件的语域更高。调查的另一个重要主题将是语言和方言形式与标准阿拉伯语之间的代码切换。是什么促使商家改用熟悉的口语化登记？他们什么时候使用正式的、古典的阿拉伯语形式？拟议项目的另一个重点将是口头和书面语言之间的二分法、古文字学和编纂问题(商人是使用抄写员还是他们自己写的字母)，以及阿拉伯方言。

The Prize Paper Collections in The National Archives in London contain a considerable quantity of business letters in Arabic and Hebrew script, which were seized in 1759 by British privateers as part of the loot on a Tuscan ship bound for Alexandria. Virtually untouched since that time - most of the letters were still unopened when we first viewed them - they remain in the pristine condition in which they were archived in the 18th century. They thus present a most exciting and probably unique opportunity to investigate the interaction between Jewish, Muslim and Christian merchants across borders in the 18th-century Mediterranean. The letters, numbering in the dozens, are particularly valuable as very little comparative material in Arabic script from that period is known and virtually nothing has been edited and published on the topic. Prize Paper materials published so far have mainly focused on those letters written in Dutch, but efforts are currently underway to establish a consortium of scholars from different disciplines working on the Collection. An edition and historical and linguistic analysis of the Arabic and Hebrew Prize Papers, composed by Christian, Jewish and Muslim traders dealing in a variety of commodities, will substantially contribute to this wider project and thus to research in a variety of fields. The immediate focus of our proposed work will be on linguistic issues, but through the envisaged editions this will also enhance understanding of the transnational economic and cultural history of the 18th century, in particular with regard to the research on inter-religious mercantile relations between Europe and the Middle East. The aim of this research project is to transcribe and translate all Arabic and Hebrew documents of the Prize Papers Collections. All sources will be subjected to linguistic analyses concerning their orthography/phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. One of the most important objectives of the present proposal is to investigate the differences and commonalities in the language used by merchants of different faith communities, both among themselves and in inter-communal correspondence. First results have indicated that inter-communal correspondence, for example between Jews and Muslims, Christians and Muslims, and Jews and Christians, is written in a higher linguistic register than for example those letters sent exclusively within a Christian or Jewish business network. Another important subject of the investigation will be the codeswitching between languages and dialectal forms versus standard Arabic. What prompts merchants to switch into the familiar colloquial register? When do they use formal, classical Arabic forms? Further foci of the proposed project will be the dichotomy between orality and written language, palaeographical and codicological concerns (did the merchants use scribes or did they write the letters with their own hand), and Arabic dialectology.