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Document Details : Title: Greek Words in Ephrem and Narsai: a Comparative Sampling Author(s): BROCK, Sebastian Journal: ARAM Periodical Volume: 12 Date: 1999-2000 Pages: 439-449 DOI: 10.2143/ARAM.12.0.504480 Abstract : The article shows how the study of the attestation of Greek loanwords can serve, as it were, as a thermometer in order to gain some idea of the degree of hellenization that Syriac literary culture has undergone at different times in the course of its history. On the basis of this criterion this preliminary enquiry nicely confirms two general impressions: firstly, the fact that Ephrem was evidently heir to a Syriac lexical stock that had already been considerably enriched by borrowings from Greek gives support to the view that he was living in a milieu that was already considerably hellenized; and secondly, the marked increase in the number of Greek loanwords employed by Narsai is clear evidence of the rapid progress of this process of hellenization in the course of the century after Ephrem's death. |
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