Now Available Online | Black Doves Speak: Herodotus and the Languages of Barbarians


Black Doves Speak: Herodotus and the Languages of Barbarians,

by Rosaria Vignolo Munson

Munson coverThe CHS team is very pleased to announce the online publication of Black Doves Speak: Herodotus and the Languages of Barbarians, by Rosaria Vignolo Munson on the CHS website. (available for purchase in print through Harvard University Press).
In Greek thought, barbaroi are utterers of unintelligible or inarticulate sounds. What importance does the text of Herodotus’s Histories attribute to language as a criterion of ethnic identity? The answer to this question illuminates the empirical foundations of Herodotus’s pluralistic worldview. The first translator of cultures also translates, describes, and evaluates foreign speech to a degree unparalleled by other Greek ancient authors. For Herodotus, language is an area of interesting but surprisingly unproblematic difference, which he offers to his audience as a model for coming to terms in a neutral way with other, more emotionally charged, cultural differences.
Rosaria Munson is Professor of Classics at Swarthmore College.
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