Kasper Siegismund

Current research

The main topic of my PhD project is the Hebrew verbal system and its development from the classical system found in (most of) the Old Testament to the one found in the rabbinic literature.

Primary points of interest are the basic character of the system (temporal, aspectual, modal?) and the special system of interchange between simple and waw-prefixed forms, the so-called "consecutive system", which is arguably the most characteristic trait of the verbal system in the classical language, but which is no longer used in the later period of the language. To describe how this system came into being and subsequently went out of use again is one of the main objects of the project.

The second main object is an examination of the way the verbal system is actually used in the different corpora of texts at our disposal (inscriptions, the Old Testament, Qumran, Ben Sira, late papyrus letters, Mishnah etc.). The main focus of this part will be the Qumran documents and an evaluation of the way the classical system was received, understood and used there. As has been pointed out in the recent debate on the dating of Old Testament texts, there is no direct relation between linguistic traits and the date of a text. This is especially the case when the text is a literary work of a religious character with a possibly long period of composition, redaction and transmission as its background. Thus, we can reconstruct the general development of the system with a high degree of probability, but this development will not necessarily be reflected in a direct, linear way in the actual texts. We might have non-biblical texts from Qumran that exhibit a more archaic looking use of the verbal system than texts from the Old Testament that must have been written much earlier, reflecting the writers' attempt to write in what they perceived to be a classical language.

This part of the project will also include a discussion of the sociolinguistic status of the language at Qumran as a living spoken language, a purely literary standard language (with occasional interference from another type of language from a later linguistic stage that was the one actually spoken), or as a conscious attempt to create an anti-language (as Schniedewind argues). The same question can be asked concerning the situation at other points in time, e.g., the fact that the ancient inscriptions display a more or less classical verbal system raises the question whether this is a reflection of the real spoken language of the times or influence from a literary language.

CV

Juni 2018: Ph.d. ("Studies in the Hebrew Verbal System: Hebrew as a System of Relative Tense and the Origins and Development of the Classical Consecutive Forms").

15/12 2014 - 2018: Ph.d.-stipendiat ved Afdeling for Bibelsk Eksegese.

2014: Cand. theol.

2009-2014: Teologi på KU.

1998-ca. 2001: Ikke-afsluttede studier i indoeuropæisk sprogvidenskab ved KU.

1997: Klassisksproglig student fra Rødovre Gymnasium.

Knowledge of languages

Jeg beskæftiger mig primært med hebraisk (bibelsk, inskriptioner, Qumran, rabbinsk - ikke moderne hebraisk), men jeg læser også andre oldsemitiske sprog og bruger dem løbende i mit arbejde (bl.a. aramæisk/syrisk, etiopisk, ugaritisk, akkadisk, arabisk...). Jeg har tidligere læst indoeuropæisk sprogvidenskab i en årrække og har læsefærdigheder i en del sprog inden for denne familie (ud over græsk og latin bl.a. gotisk og bibelsk armensk). Desuden interesserer jeg mig generelt for sprogvidenskab, sproghistorie, sprogtypologi osv., samt især polynesiske sprog.

Teaching

I januar/februar 2017 arrangerede jeg et repetitionskursus i hebraisk. En oversigt over grammatikken, som jeg lavede i den forbindelse, kan downloades her: https://www.academia.edu/31254696/Hebraisk_grammatikoversigt_bibelsk_hebraisk_. 

I efteråret 2016 stod jeg (sammen med Søren Holst) for et valgfagskursus om dødehavsrullerne. Gloselister til læsning af udvalgte hebraiske tekster samt en oversigt over nogle særtræk ved Qumranhebraisk kan downloades her: https://ku-dk.academia.edu/KasperSiegismund/Teaching-materials.

I efteråret 2015 arrangerede jeg en studiekreds i klassisk etiopisk, inklusiv læsning af dele af 1 Enok på etiopisk. I den forbindelse lavede jeg en oversigt over sprogets grammatik, som kan downloades her: https://www.academia.edu/22795224/Kort_oversigt_over_udvalgte_essentielle_dele_af_den_klassisk_etiopiske_grammatik.