Winter

Selected monumental inscriptions from the Old Aramaic period (c. 1000-600 BCE) are read with special attention to the dialectal differences among various subgroups of texts.

The purpose of this three-quarter sequence is to enable the student to acquire a knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar of Classical Hebrew sufficient to read prose texts with the occasional assistance of a dictionary. The second quarter focuses on verb inflection and verbal sequences and includes written translation to and from Hebrew, oral exercises, and grammatical analysis of forms.

The main objective is to teach students a broad range of skills necessary to read scholarly articles and primary materials in students’ fields of study, written in Modern Hebrew.

Due to the fact that the background of each student is different as far as his or hers past experience with Hebrew, a grammar survey is going to be the first step.

The goal of this course is for the students to achieve high comprehension level. (Please note: This course does not intend to teach official rules and forms of translation). By the end of the course, students should feel confident in their ability to read any given Hebrew text, fiction and non-fiction.

The course aims to consolidate and broadens all four skills in order to help with the transition from easy Hebrew to regular Hebrew.

This sequence deepens and expands the students' knowledge of modern Persian at all levels of reading, writing and speaking. Grammar will be taught at a higher level and a wider vocabulary will enable the students to read stories, articles and poetry and be introduced to examples of classical literature towards the end of the sequence. Introducing the Iranian culture will be continued. Class meets three hours a week with the instructor and (with enough students) two hours with a native informant who conducts grammatical drills and Persian conversation.

This sequence deepens and expands the students' knowledge of modern Persian at all levels of reading, writing and speaking. Grammar will be taught at a higher level and a wider vocabulary will enable the students to read stories, articles and poetry and be introduced to examples of classical literature towards the end of the sequence. Introducing the Iranian culture will be continued. Class meets three hours a week with the instructor and (with enough students) two hours with a native informant who conducts grammatical drills and Persian conversation.

In this course, we will read Akkadian letters from the correspondence found at Tell el-Amarna, Egypt, that date to the 14th century BCE. We will read letters from various locations, including Babyonia, Assyria, Mitanni and Hatti, although the main focus of the class will be on the letters sent from Canaan. In all these corpora we will look at features that mark the language as different from core Babylonian and that reveal substrate influence from the native languages of the scribes.

This course is an advanced seminar in comparative Semitics that critically discusses important secondary literature and linguistic methodologies concerning topics in the field, including topics in phonology, morphology, syntax, etc.

This course focuses on the Hieroglyphic and Cuneiform Luwian inscriptions of the second millennium BC. Since Hieroglyphic Luwian I (AANL 20301) is a prerequisite, this course will only offer a very brief grammatical refresher, and will immediately start with the texts. We will read the large 13th century hieroglyphic texts of Tudhaliya IV and a few Cuneiform Luwian rituals from the 15th and 14th century.

This course employs English translations of ancient Egyptian literary texts to explore the genres, conventions and techniques of ancient Egyptian literature. Discussions of texts examine how the ancient Egyptians conceptualized and constructed their equivalent of literature, as well as the fuzzy boundaries and subtle interplay between autobiography, history, myth and fiction.