2 In linguistics, the quest for comparative cross-cultural research into standardisation started with Jespersen (1925, 46) and was coined 'comparative standardology ' by Joseph (1987, 13) and resulted in a comprehensive comparative work on Germanic languages (Deumert and Vandenbussche 2003a) (see especially Deumert and Vandenbussche 2003b, 1), which is discussed in the following sections. For manuscript studies, see Sobieroj 2016 and his overview of a recent trend in Arabic studies to 'place variance itself in the focus of research' (Sobieroj 2016, 2). 3 One significant exception is a collection of articles edited by Jennifer Cromwell and Eitan Grossman (2018), Scribal Repertoires in Egypt from the New Kingdom to the Early Islamic Period. This work deserves special attention. With their focus on the exact opposite of the subject of this volume, there is a shared goal to study the connected phenomena -'their' variation and 'our' standardisation -in the complex linguistic and extra-linguistic dimensions. Although the cultural and geographic scope of Cromwell and Grossman 2018 is Egypt, their book is in essence a cross-cultural and typologically oriented comparative study since it covers cultures in Egypt which co-existed or replaced one another in the course of four millennia, while the typological frame is given through the lens of historical sociolinguistics informed by European philology (especially studies of pre-modern English). 17 It should be noted that these dates are only helpful as general guidelines for periodisation of the norms of Classical Arabic because, as den Heijer (2012, 10) puts it, 'an overall history of Arabic orthography, which only partly overlaps with palaeography (a much better documented and studied issue!) is yet to be written'.27 On the issue of deviation from the norms conditioned by distinctive group and individual identity, see Weth and Juffermans 2018.

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The novel by Al-Ṭayib Ṣāliḥ The Season of Migration to the North is a classic of the post-modern Arabic literature. The critical literature of the last century has privileged the post-colonial interpretation. One of the aims of this essay is to reveal the inner reality of the main characters, who are not seen from an external point of view, but within a closer relationship with the reader.

PersPectives ecdotiques Pour textes en moyen arabe : l'exemPle des traitÉs thÉologiques de sulaymān al-ĠazzĪ 1 Paolo la spisa J'ai essayé de faire ici pour la langue française ce que ferait un architecte qui voudrait reconstruire sur le papier Saint-Germain des Prés tel que l'admira le xi e siècle. gaston Paris Summary: this article briefly exposes the methodological problems that an editor has to resolve to produce a critical edition of written middle arabic texts. usually, the editors not only often fail to take into account all of the manuscript witnesses, but they also tend to correct the middle arabic features, regarding them as errors made by illiterate copyists. in this respect, it is possible to distinguish two different schools of editing arabic texts: one is in favour of a semi-diplomatic edition, while the second adopts an interventionist method that does not take into account the relationships between witnesses from a genealogical point of view. this paper highlights that even for written middle arabic texts, the methodological distinction that is nowadays applied in romance philology between 'criticism of forms' and 'criticism of variants' is a possible solution to overcoming the apparent impasse between a blind fidelity to a chosen witness and changing both forms and variants by creating an eclectic text. to achieve this, the author took some examples from the manuscript tradition of sulaymān al-Ġazzī's theological treatises (xth-xith centuries). in a critical approach, this contribution intends to stimulate the scientific debate on the issues raised by the neo-lachmannian method. account is taken of the facts that interpretation is an essential phase of textual criticism work and that the mechanical nature of a stemma must always be accompanied by a sound knowledge of the history of the manuscript tradition, bearing in mind that 'each case is unique'.