Translection, Brajification and the erasure of earlier literary idioms in manuscript transmission

Book section : Chapter

Translation between languages, often between a cosmopolitan and a vernacular, is well attested in South Asia. In contrast, ‘translection’, that is shifts from one literary idiom or lect to another, has hardly received any attention. Early modern vernacular manuscript transmission allowed changing a vernacular literary idiom into another. Variant readings of texts preserved in manuscripts show that the literary idiom of a given work was often hotly contested by scribes. Normally translection was deployed in order to modernise, to ‘Brajify’, an archaic lect, or simply to adjust its morphology to more widespread linguistic forms. Not paying attention to the process of scribal Brajification may obscure our present perception of the scope of Braj Bhasha in late medieval and early modern literary works. 

Authors: Bangha, I

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Department of Academic Research and Publications, The Institute of Ismaili Studies
• Host title: Listening in Many Tongues: Multilingual Interpretive Communities and Acts of Translation in Early Modern South Asia
• Language: English
• Keywords: Brajification; translection; vernacular; manuscript transmission; Hindi; variant readings; lect; scribe; literary idiom; early modern
• Subtype: Chapter