A Study of Linguistic Solecisms in the Medium Version of the Gǝʿǝz Acts of Saint Mark the Evangelist

Abstract

This article investigates linguistic solecisms in the Ethiopic Acts of Saint Mark the Evangelist, with particular attention to the medium version of the text. Linguistic solecisms, understood here as a departure from accepted linguistic norms, particularly orthographic, lexical and grammatical aspects, serves here as a valuable insight through which we examine the processes of translation and transmission in Gǝʿǝz literature. The Acts of Saint Mark, preserved as a hagiographic narrative and mediated through centuries of scribal activity, contains a number of constructions that diverge from classical Gǝʿǝz conventions. These deviations not only point to the linguistic and interpretive challenges encountered by translators working from Greek or Coptic sources but also illuminate the evolving character of Gǝʿǝz as a literary and liturgical language shaped by regional, temporal, and scribal contexts. Through close textual analysis, the article categorizes and interprets various types of awkward expressions, such as irregular verbal forms, disrupted syntactic patterns, and unexpected lexical combinations. While traditionally viewed as errors, such features can be understood as markers of translation strategies, indicators of linguistic adaptation, or evidence of scribes negotiating foreign idioms within an indigenous literary framework. Situating these findings within the broader tradition of Ethiopic hagiography, the article argues that solecisms contribute to the distinctive character of the hagiographic text and reveal important aspects of its historical development. This study mainly demonstrates that the analysis of solecism not only enriches our understanding of the Gǝʿǝz text but also provides valuable insights into the cultural adaptation that formed the Ethiopian Gǝʿǝz literary tradition.