Abstract
Before the relationship between individuals and texts intensified in the modern period, reading, writing and vocalization already played important roles in the lives of ordinary Ottoman subjects. From cradle to grave, textual and oral traditions mediated and informed daily existence in the pre-modern Ottoman empire. A number of clearly observed rituals marked the important stages and transitions in everyday life. Reading, whether textual or oral, and vocalization were crucial to almost all of them. Ottoman society and culture were predominantly oral but texts nevertheless enjoyed positions of prominence and surfaced at critical junctures.
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Notes
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© 2011 Benjamin C. Fortna
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Fortna, B.C. (2011). Lives of Reading and Writing. In: Learning to Read in the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230300415_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230300415_6
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