Studies in Semitic Linguistics and Manuscripts : A Liber Discipulorum in Honour of Professor Geoffrey Khan

This Festschrift is a collection of papers in honour of Geoffrey Khan, the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge, written by his former and current students and post-doctoral researchers. The work of Geoffrey Khan has had a tremendous impact on a vast array of domains of study, including Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Semitic grammar and linguistics, Bible vocalisation traditions, Cairo Genizah studies, palaeography, codicology and Arabic papyrology. This richness of investigated themes is reflected by the twenty-one papers in the present volume. The volume consists of two parts. Papers in Part 1, ‘Linguistics, Grammar and Exegesis’, propose new interpretations of biblical language phenomena, discuss medieval approaches to the grammar of Biblical Hebrew and the narrative structure of the Bible, describe early-modern developments in the Hebrew language, and document and analyse three dialects of North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic. Part 2, ‘Texts, Scribes and the Making of Books and Documents’, is dedicated to manuscripts and their production, and in particular to the work of scribes. All papers in this part centre around manuscripts discovered in the Cairo Genizah and other similar collections. While thematically diverse, all contributions are united by a common approach of focusing on a careful description of the ‘document’ – whether it is a manuscript or a recording of a speaker of a contemporary endangered language – prior to its interpretation in the light of the most recent ideas of the relevant disciplines.<p><strong>CONTENTS</strong></p><p>THE EDITORS Studies in Semitic Linguistics and Manuscripts: A Liber Discipulorum in Honour of Professor Geoffrey Khan <em>7</em></p><p><strong>Part 1: Linguistics, Grammar and Exegesis</strong></p><p>PETER J. WILLIAMS Semitic Long /i/ Vowels in the Greek of Codex Vaticanus of the New Testament <em>15</em></p><p>AARON D. HORNKOHL Biblical Hebrew Tense–Aspect–Mood, Word Order and Pragmatics: Some Observations on Recent Approaches <em>27</em></p><p>JOHAN M. V. LUNDBERG Long or Short? The Use of Long and Short Wayyiqṭols in Biblical, Parabiblical and Commentary Scrolls from Qumran <em>57</em></p><p>ELIZABETH ROBAR Unmarked Modality and Rhetorical Questions in Biblical Hebrew <em>75</em></p><p>SHAI HEIJMANS The Shewa in the First of Two Identical Letters and the Compound Babylonian Vocalisation <em>98</em></p><p>DANIEL BIRNSTIEL הֶחָכָם, but הַחָכְמָה: Some Notes on the Vocalisation of the Definite Article in Tiberian Hebrew <em>111</em></p><p>SAMUEL BLAPP The Use of Dageš in the Non-Standard Tiberian Manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible from the Cairo Genizah <em>132</em></p><p>LILY KAHN The Ashkenazic Hebrew of Nathan Nata Hannover’s Yeven Meṣula (1653) <em>151</em></p><p>FIONA BLUMFIELD Medieval Jewish Exegetical Insights into the Use of Infinitive Absolute as the Equivalent of a Preceding Finite Form <em>181</em></p><p>MEIRA POLLIACK Implementation as Innovation: The Arabic Terms Qiṣṣa and Ḵabar in Medieval Karaite Interpretation of Biblical Narrative and its Redaction History <em>200</em></p><p>LIDIA NAPIORKOWSKA Patterns of Diffusion of Phonological Change in the North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Azran <em>217</em></p><p>ELEANOR COGHILL The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Telkepe <em>234</em></p><p>OZ ALONI ‘The King and the Wazir’: A Folk-Tale in the Jewish North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Zakho <em>272</em></p><p> </p><p><strong>Part 2: Texts, Scribes and the Making of Books and Documents</strong></p><p>JUDITH OLSZOWY-SCHLANGER Crossing Palaeographical Borders: Bi Alphabetical Scribes and the Development of Hebrew Script – The Case of the Maghrebi Cursive <em>299</em></p><p>BENJAMIN M. OUTHWAITE Beyond the Leningrad Codex: Samuel b. Jacob in the Cairo Genizah <em>320</em></p><p>NADIA VIDRO Arabic Vocalisation in Judaeo-Arabic Grammars of Classical Arabic <em>341</em></p><p>ESTARA J ARRANT The Structural and Linguistic Features of Three Hebrew Begging Letters from the Cairo Genizah <em>352</em></p><p>ESTHER-MIRIAM WAGNER Birds of a Feather? Arabic Scribal Conventions in Christian and Jewish Arabic <em>376</em></p><p>MAGDALEN M. CONNOLLY A 19th Century CE Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic Folk Narrative: Text, Translation and Grammatical Notes <em>392</em></p><p>REBECCA J. W. JEFFERSON Popular Renditions of Hebrew Hymns in 19th Century Yemen: How a Crudely Formed, Vocalised Manuscript Codex Can Provide Insights into the Local Pronunciation and Practice of Prayer <em>421</em></p><p>RONNY VOLLANDT The Status Quaestionis of Research on the Arabic Bible <em>442</em>