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Chapter 5. Between the Lines and in the Margins: Linguistic Change and Impagination Practices in South Asia

  • Tyler Williams
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Impagination – Layout and Materiality of Writing and Publication
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch Impagination – Layout and Materiality of Writing and Publication

Abstract

What happens to impagination practices when the technology of writing, formerly reserved only for “cosmopolitan” literary and liturgical languages, begins to be used for a vernacular language? How do existing impagination practices reshape the vernacular and how do the particularities of the vernacular and its social and performative environment reshape practices of impagination? This essay examines the early manuscript history of Hindi, a literary vernacular of North India, as it began to enter the realm of the written in the fourteenth through early seventeenth centuries, a realm that had until that time been monopolized by the cosmopolitan languages of Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic. This short survey demonstrates how the pioneers of writing in Hindi adopted or adapted existing practices of page layout, paratext, and binding and invented new solutions for the novel problems that the vernacular posed. Special attention is paid to commentarial literature as this genre presented a particular set of challenges for composers, scribes, and readers. Combining the study of large corpora of texts and the detailed study of individual manuscripts, I argue that the material form of early Hindi manuscripts bore a complex but legible relationship to textual genre and performance context.

Abstract

What happens to impagination practices when the technology of writing, formerly reserved only for “cosmopolitan” literary and liturgical languages, begins to be used for a vernacular language? How do existing impagination practices reshape the vernacular and how do the particularities of the vernacular and its social and performative environment reshape practices of impagination? This essay examines the early manuscript history of Hindi, a literary vernacular of North India, as it began to enter the realm of the written in the fourteenth through early seventeenth centuries, a realm that had until that time been monopolized by the cosmopolitan languages of Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic. This short survey demonstrates how the pioneers of writing in Hindi adopted or adapted existing practices of page layout, paratext, and binding and invented new solutions for the novel problems that the vernacular posed. Special attention is paid to commentarial literature as this genre presented a particular set of challenges for composers, scribes, and readers. Combining the study of large corpora of texts and the detailed study of individual manuscripts, I argue that the material form of early Hindi manuscripts bore a complex but legible relationship to textual genre and performance context.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. List of Figures VII
  4. List of Tables XIII
  5. List of Contributors XV
  6. Introduction 1
  7. I Slips, Scrolls, and Leaves: Before the Codex
  8. Chapter 1. Text and Paratext in the Greek Classical Tradition 23
  9. Chapter 2. Tabernacles of Text: A Brief Visual History of the Hebrew Bible 47
  10. Chapter 3. Impagination, Reading, and Interpretation in Early Chinese Texts 93
  11. Chapter 4. Sūtra Text in Pecha Format: Page Layout of the Tibetan Vimalakīrtinirdeśa 111
  12. Chapter 5. Between the Lines and in the Margins: Linguistic Change and Impagination Practices in South Asia 151
  13. II The Printed World
  14. Chapter 6. The Margin as Canvas: A Forgotten Function of the Early Printed Page 185
  15. Chapter 7. Page Layout and the Complex Semiotic System of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Chosŏn’s Samganghaengsildo 209
  16. Chapter 8. The Transformation of the Typical Page in the Handpress Era in the Southern Netherlands, 1473–c. 1800 237
  17. Chapter 9. Writer’s Block or Printer’s Block: The Book and Its Openings in Early Modern China 273
  18. Chapter 10. Placing Texts on Chinese Pages: From Bamboo Slips to Printed Paper 301
  19. Chapter 11. Recovering Translation Lost: Symbiosis and Ambilingual Design in Chinese/Manchu Language Reference Manuals of the Qing Dynasty 323
  20. Chapter 12. Japanophone Glosses (kunten) in Printed and Digitized Manuscripts 351
  21. III Beyond the Book
  22. Chapter 13. Beyond the Physical Page: Latest Practice of Scientific Publication 377
  23. Index 399
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698756-006

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. List of Figures VII
  4. List of Tables XIII
  5. List of Contributors XV
  6. Introduction 1
  7. I Slips, Scrolls, and Leaves: Before the Codex
  8. Chapter 1. Text and Paratext in the Greek Classical Tradition 23
  9. Chapter 2. Tabernacles of Text: A Brief Visual History of the Hebrew Bible 47
  10. Chapter 3. Impagination, Reading, and Interpretation in Early Chinese Texts 93
  11. Chapter 4. Sūtra Text in Pecha Format: Page Layout of the Tibetan Vimalakīrtinirdeśa 111
  12. Chapter 5. Between the Lines and in the Margins: Linguistic Change and Impagination Practices in South Asia 151
  13. II The Printed World
  14. Chapter 6. The Margin as Canvas: A Forgotten Function of the Early Printed Page 185
  15. Chapter 7. Page Layout and the Complex Semiotic System of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Chosŏn’s Samganghaengsildo 209
  16. Chapter 8. The Transformation of the Typical Page in the Handpress Era in the Southern Netherlands, 1473–c. 1800 237
  17. Chapter 9. Writer’s Block or Printer’s Block: The Book and Its Openings in Early Modern China 273
  18. Chapter 10. Placing Texts on Chinese Pages: From Bamboo Slips to Printed Paper 301
  19. Chapter 11. Recovering Translation Lost: Symbiosis and Ambilingual Design in Chinese/Manchu Language Reference Manuals of the Qing Dynasty 323
  20. Chapter 12. Japanophone Glosses (kunten) in Printed and Digitized Manuscripts 351
  21. III Beyond the Book
  22. Chapter 13. Beyond the Physical Page: Latest Practice of Scientific Publication 377
  23. Index 399
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Heruntergeladen am 29.10.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110698756-006/html
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