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Dirk Bakker

De Gruyter Publishing, Operations, Production editor

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Dirk Bakker is a production editor with De Gruyter Brill publishers. His academic work focused on Semitic languages and cultures, most notably Aramaic/Syriac and Hebrew. His PhD was concerned with the linguistic analysis of the Syriac Book of the Laws of the Countries. Dirk has a general interest in linguistics, paleography, codicology, and writing systems of the world.

~~ Selected publications ~~

2007: Review of J. Lund, The Book of the Laws of the Countries. A Dialogue on Free Will versus Fate. A Key-Word-in-Context Concordance (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007): Aramaic Studies 5/2: 276-282.

2008: 'Lemma and Lexeme. The Case of III-Aleph and III-Yodh Verbs' in J.W. Dyk & W.Th. van Peursen (eds.), Foundations for Syriac Lexicography III (Perspectives on Syriac Linguistics 4), Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press: 11-25.

2011: Bardaisan's Book of the Laws of the Countries: A Computer-Assisted Linguistic Analysis/ (dissertation, Leiden University).

2011 (with W.Th. van Peursen): 'Digital Text Comparison of Ancient Hebrew Texts. A Case Study of the Two Accounts of the Battle against the Canaanite Army Captain Sisera (Judges 4-5)', in R.J. Korna, Kecheng Liu, N.R. Faber (eds.), Proceedings ICISO conference, Leeuwarden: Fryske Akademy: 145-152.

2013 (co-editor): The Old Testament in Syriac according to the Peshiṭta Version, Part IV Fasc. 4. Ezra and Nehemiah – 1–2 Maccabees, Leiden: Brill.
Supervisors: W.Th. (Willem) van Peursen and J.W. (Janet) Dyk

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Willem T H . Van Peursen

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

The University of Georgia

Union Presbyterian Seminary

University of Wisconsin-Madison

John Huehnergard

The University of Texas at Austin

Cardiff University

University College London

Abel Covarrubias

Universidad Pontificia de México

Moscow Circle for Aramaic Studies

National Research University Higher School of Economics

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Papers by Dirk Bakker

The Bible in the Syriac Tradition

by Willem T H . Van Peursen, Dirk Bakker, and Bas ter Haar Romeny

Preliminary programme of the Amsterdam Summer School on Syriac Christianity, week 1 (20-24 July 2... more

Syriac Christianity in Context

by Willem T H . Van Peursen, Dirk Bakker, Peter-Ben Smit, and Bas ter Haar Romeny

This is the preliminary programme of the second week of the Amsterdam Summer School on Syriac Chr... more

Letters, wat zijn dat eigenlijk? (Taalcanon, 2012)

Dissertation: Bardaisan's Book of the Laws of the Countries: A Computer-Assisted Linguistic Analysis (2011)

(With W.Th. van Peursen) Digital Text Comparison of Ancient Hebrew Texts. A Case Study of the Two Accounts of the Battle against the Canaanite Army Captain Sisera (Judges 4-5) (2011)

In the Bible there are two accounts of the battle against the Canaanite army captain Sisera, in J... more In the Bible there are two accounts of the battle against the Canaanite army captain Sisera, in Judges 4 and 5. Since the second half of the 19 th century the majority of scholars assumed that the poetic version in Judges 5 is an archaic text (from ca. the 13 th or 12 th cent. BC), and that Judges 4 is a later prose report of the same battle, dependent on the poetic version. In the last decades of the 20 th century, however, this view has been challenged and since then scholars have been divided into seemingly immovable scholarly positions. The aim of our pilot was to investigate how a systematic computational analysis could overcome this deadlock. First, we built various similarity matrices (matching each verse of Chapter 4 with each verse of Chapter 5) based upon both 'sighted' methods (e.g. shared lexemes) and 'blind' methods (e.g. Normalized Compression Distance). Second, we examined those segments that had a high similarity score to see what textual features account for the similarity. Third, we investigated these features and their distribution over the larger corpus of the book of Judges. In our conclusions we addressed the impact of our findings on the questions posed to these chapters by traditional biblical scholarship.

Lemma and Lexeme: The Case of III-Aleph and III-Yodh Verbs (2008)

Traditional dictionaries of Syriac and other Aramaic dialects do not always provide all the infor... more Traditional dictionaries of Syriac and other Aramaic dialects do not always provide all the information required to meet modern linguistic needs. Often the entries in these dictionaries are ambiguous as to the morphological structure of words, and a clear distinction between a lexeme and its inflectional affixes is not provided. The lemmas often consist of inflected forms, and the information in the entries is insufficient for determining the identity of the lexeme. A result of these inaccuracies is the possible loss of distinction between separate types of lexemes, a clear example of which is the treatment of third-Alaph and third-Yodh verbs in Syriac and other Aramaic dialects. While the different grammars recognize a morphological distinction between these two verb types, this is rarely reflected in the dictionaries. A modern dictionary cannot allow such a loss of information to occur, but should meet the needs both of a linguistic scholar and of a translator. The entries should provide full linguistic information on the words they cover, granting a prominent position to the lexeme. The lexeme stands at the basis of word formation, and as such is an indispensable piece of information for the study of the morphological behaviour of grammatical forms.

Review: J. Lund, The Book of the Laws of the Countries. A Dialogue on Free Will versus Fate. A Key-Word-in-Context Concordance (2007)

His edition was included in the database of the on-line Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, 2 and it h... more His edition was included in the database of the on-line Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, 2 and it has recently been reissued by the publishers of Lund's concordance. 3 The text is attested in only one manuscript, 4 and such renewed interest is to be welcomed. While there have been several other editions and translations, this is the first attempt to make a systematic concordance of this important representative of early Syriac literature.

De Cherub en de Dief: Een Syrisch Dispuut aan de Poort van het Paradijs (MA thesis, Dutch) (Doctoraalscriptie, 2005)

Syriac/Aramaic: book chapters by Dirk Bakker

‘Lemmatization and Grammatical Categorization: The Case of Haymen in Classical Syriac’, in K.S. Heal and A.G. Salvesen (eds.), Foundations for Syriac Lexicography IV. Colloquia of the International Syriac Language Project (Perspectives on Syriac Linguistics 5; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias; 2014), 73–80.

by Willem T H . Van Peursen and Dirk Bakker

Decisions concerning morphological analysis have a considerable impact on the lexicographer’s wor... more Decisions concerning morphological analysis have a considerable impact on the lexicographer’s work. An example is the treatment of ܰܗܝ ܶܡܢ in Syriac grammars and dictionaries. Is it a stem formation of the verb ܐܡܢ? If so, is it a Paiʿel (R. and J. Payne Smith), a Paʿʿel (cf. Muraoka) or an Aphʿel/Haphʿel (Nöldeke, Costaz)? If not, can anothܶerܰ type of relationship between ܰܗܝ ܶܡܢ and the root ܐܡܢ be established? Is ܗܝܡܢ a denominative verb from ܐܡܝܢ (Duval), or a borrowing of the Hebrew Hiphʿil האמין (Brockelmann)? How should we account for the Hē, which differs both from the first root letter of ܐܡܢ and from the regular causative prefix in Syriac? Is it the result of strengthening (Duval)? Or the preservation of an ancient form (Nöldeke)? These questions will be addressed in this paper. We will argue that there is an etymological rather than an inflectional relationship with the root ܐܡܢ, and that for that reason in dictionaries ܰܗܝ ܶܡܢ should be treated as a quadriliteral root.

The Bible in the Syriac Tradition

by Willem T H . Van Peursen, Dirk Bakker, and Bas ter Haar Romeny

Preliminary programme of the Amsterdam Summer School on Syriac Christianity, week 1 (20-24 July 2... more

Syriac Christianity in Context

by Willem T H . Van Peursen, Dirk Bakker, Peter-Ben Smit, and Bas ter Haar Romeny

This is the preliminary programme of the second week of the Amsterdam Summer School on Syriac Chr... more

Letters, wat zijn dat eigenlijk? (Taalcanon, 2012)

Dissertation: Bardaisan's Book of the Laws of the Countries: A Computer-Assisted Linguistic Analysis (2011)

(With W.Th. van Peursen) Digital Text Comparison of Ancient Hebrew Texts. A Case Study of the Two Accounts of the Battle against the Canaanite Army Captain Sisera (Judges 4-5) (2011)

In the Bible there are two accounts of the battle against the Canaanite army captain Sisera, in J... more In the Bible there are two accounts of the battle against the Canaanite army captain Sisera, in Judges 4 and 5. Since the second half of the 19 th century the majority of scholars assumed that the poetic version in Judges 5 is an archaic text (from ca. the 13 th or 12 th cent. BC), and that Judges 4 is a later prose report of the same battle, dependent on the poetic version. In the last decades of the 20 th century, however, this view has been challenged and since then scholars have been divided into seemingly immovable scholarly positions. The aim of our pilot was to investigate how a systematic computational analysis could overcome this deadlock. First, we built various similarity matrices (matching each verse of Chapter 4 with each verse of Chapter 5) based upon both 'sighted' methods (e.g. shared lexemes) and 'blind' methods (e.g. Normalized Compression Distance). Second, we examined those segments that had a high similarity score to see what textual features account for the similarity. Third, we investigated these features and their distribution over the larger corpus of the book of Judges. In our conclusions we addressed the impact of our findings on the questions posed to these chapters by traditional biblical scholarship.

Lemma and Lexeme: The Case of III-Aleph and III-Yodh Verbs (2008)

Traditional dictionaries of Syriac and other Aramaic dialects do not always provide all the infor... more Traditional dictionaries of Syriac and other Aramaic dialects do not always provide all the information required to meet modern linguistic needs. Often the entries in these dictionaries are ambiguous as to the morphological structure of words, and a clear distinction between a lexeme and its inflectional affixes is not provided. The lemmas often consist of inflected forms, and the information in the entries is insufficient for determining the identity of the lexeme. A result of these inaccuracies is the possible loss of distinction between separate types of lexemes, a clear example of which is the treatment of third-Alaph and third-Yodh verbs in Syriac and other Aramaic dialects. While the different grammars recognize a morphological distinction between these two verb types, this is rarely reflected in the dictionaries. A modern dictionary cannot allow such a loss of information to occur, but should meet the needs both of a linguistic scholar and of a translator. The entries should provide full linguistic information on the words they cover, granting a prominent position to the lexeme. The lexeme stands at the basis of word formation, and as such is an indispensable piece of information for the study of the morphological behaviour of grammatical forms.

Review: J. Lund, The Book of the Laws of the Countries. A Dialogue on Free Will versus Fate. A Key-Word-in-Context Concordance (2007)

His edition was included in the database of the on-line Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, 2 and it h... more His edition was included in the database of the on-line Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, 2 and it has recently been reissued by the publishers of Lund's concordance. 3 The text is attested in only one manuscript, 4 and such renewed interest is to be welcomed. While there have been several other editions and translations, this is the first attempt to make a systematic concordance of this important representative of early Syriac literature.

De Cherub en de Dief: Een Syrisch Dispuut aan de Poort van het Paradijs (MA thesis, Dutch) (Doctoraalscriptie, 2005)

‘Lemmatization and Grammatical Categorization: The Case of Haymen in Classical Syriac’, in K.S. Heal and A.G. Salvesen (eds.), Foundations for Syriac Lexicography IV. Colloquia of the International Syriac Language Project (Perspectives on Syriac Linguistics 5; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias; 2014), 73–80.

by Willem T H . Van Peursen and Dirk Bakker

Decisions concerning morphological analysis have a considerable impact on the lexicographer’s wor... more Decisions concerning morphological analysis have a considerable impact on the lexicographer’s work. An example is the treatment of ܰܗܝ ܶܡܢ in Syriac grammars and dictionaries. Is it a stem formation of the verb ܐܡܢ? If so, is it a Paiʿel (R. and J. Payne Smith), a Paʿʿel (cf. Muraoka) or an Aphʿel/Haphʿel (Nöldeke, Costaz)? If not, can anothܶerܰ type of relationship between ܰܗܝ ܶܡܢ and the root ܐܡܢ be established? Is ܗܝܡܢ a denominative verb from ܐܡܝܢ (Duval), or a borrowing of the Hebrew Hiphʿil האמין (Brockelmann)? How should we account for the Hē, which differs both from the first root letter of ܐܡܢ and from the regular causative prefix in Syriac? Is it the result of strengthening (Duval)? Or the preservation of an ancient form (Nöldeke)? These questions will be addressed in this paper. We will argue that there is an etymological rather than an inflectional relationship with the root ܐܡܢ, and that for that reason in dictionaries ܰܗܝ ܶܡܢ should be treated as a quadriliteral root.