On 11 April 2024, Pawel Nowakowski gave a paper at the Late Antique Seminar convened by Ewa Wipszycka-Bravo and Robert Wiśniewski, one of the most important history seminars at our University. Pawel’s paper was titled: ‘I pray, do not focus on their barbarous tongue.’ The written and spoken languages in monasteries of early Byzantine Syria, and presented general results of our project regarding the correlations of the finds of Syriac inscriptions and monastic sites. Pawel also reviewed the sermons of John Chrysostom and Severus of Antioch in order to get a greater insight into the issue of spoken and written Aramaic dialects in villages and monasteries of the Antiochene.

Abstract: The complex issue of written and spoken languages used in Eastern monastic communities of the early Byzantine period was discussed in detail, especially regarding the coenobia and laurae of Palestine. In my paper, I would like to focus on north Syrian communities. Drawing upon the recent results of the EpIdentinty project (NCN Sonata, UMO-2019/35/D/HS3/01872), I will review our dossier or literary sources and confront them with the evidence of Syriac inscriptions in order to answer the question: Did Syrian monks have a predilection for Syriac as a written language of epigraphy?

Link to the seminar website