A Grammar of Awjila Berber (Libya) Based on Paradisi’s Work
When I got my PhD in Octobre, I was planning for a publication of my book to come out fairly soon after. By most academic standards, 'July' is pretty soon after, but it took longer than...
View ArticleCentral Chadic - Berber parallels
I'm often pretty skeptical when it comes to Proto-Afro-Asiatic and cognates that are proposed for it. There are many great morphological similarities between the Afro-Asiatic languages.The lexical...
View ArticlePre-Proto-Berber lenition
I tend to not work too much on really deep reconstruction of Pre-Proto-Berber, because arguments tend to become very circular very quickly. Nevertheless something has been on my mind, and I doubt it...
View ArticleIn search of Awjili toilets
While I was writing my grammar and lexicon of Awjila Berber, I ran into the word səndás pl. səndásən 'toilet'. While it has Berber plural morphology it is somewhat of a surprising word in Awjila...
View ArticleBerber Ghosts in Arabic
In Federico Corriente’s 2013 Descriptive and Comparative Grammar of Andalusi Arabic, he dedicates a small section to the Berber contribution to the Andalusi Arabic lexicon. He says: “The B[erbe]r....
View ArticleThe Language of the Qurʔān
I'm going to attempt to revive this blog somewhat again. Although I certainly can't promise I will keep it up. Lately, I've been spending a lot of time on Arabic, and the history of the Arabic...
View ArticleThe issue of the Glottal Stop in the QCT
In Classical Arabic orthography the glottal stop [ʔ] is represented with the so-called hamza ء a letter which is often placed on top, or below other consonants to denote the presence of this glottal...
View ArticleThe Torēh?
There's something weird about the Classical Arabic word for the torah, the Jewish holy book. The Hebrew word is tōra spelled תורה <twrh>, and its a derivation from the verb yara, which in Hebrew...
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"to/for Allah" or just a jumble of lines?
Some time ago, there was a news storythatgarneredquitealotofmediaattention, came out claiming that a Viking Ring had been found in a 9th Century grave in Sweden which apparently had an Arabic...
View ArticleWas there nunation?
In Classical Arabic, nouns without a definite article that are not in the construct state receive so-called nunation, which is a literal translation of Arabic tanwīn 'Adding the letter nūn'. This gives...
View ArticleFinal diphthongs in the Qurʔān
One of the first quirks of Classical Arabic orthography one learns is the alif maqṣūrah or 'Broken Alif', this is, in modern orthography a word-final yāʔ without two dots below it, which you are to...
View ArticleRevision of Proto-Berber reconstructions of my MA Thesis
I was leafing through my MA thesis the other day. My first real work on Proto-Berber reconstruction. While I was pleasantly surprised that I'm not complete embarrassed about my idead on Proto-Berber...
View ArticleWhy does Arabic spell 'hundred' so weird?
As has hopefully become clear in these past blog posts, Arabic, and especially Arabic of the Qurʔānic text is spelled in a really weird way. Many of these weird spellings have fascinating explanations,...
View ArticleIs Thamud a triptote?
The word ṯamūdrefers to an ancient civilisation, which is mentioned several times in the Qurʔān.Like many place names, in Classical Arabic, ṯamūd is normally treated as a so called 'diptote'. Diptotes...
View ArticleNorth-American Conference of Afro-Asiatic Linguistics 44: 13-14 February 2016
In the weekend of 13 and 14 February 2016 I attended the North-American Conference of Afro-Asiatic Linguistics 44. There were a variety of very interesting talks, and I was able to give two talks at...
View ArticleOf kāfir and kafirūn
In an earlier post, I pointed out that the writing of ā word internally in the QCT is very inconsistent, and that sometimes it is written and sometimes it is not. I argued that because words that have...
View ArticleWhat is the deal with word-final ʔ nouns?
One of the great questions about the language of the QCT, is whether it was originally pronounced with case endings. I believe it's not a point of contention whether the QCT had case, it certainly did...
View ArticleCan you see the verb 'to see'?
As we have seen in an earlier blogpost, final weak verbs written with a <y> were probably pronounced as ē in the language of the QCT, e.g. ramē<rmy> < Proto-Arabic *ramaya. This is...
View ArticleNew Article: Noun Prefixes in Eastern Berber
After a fairly long wait, my article on the prefixes in Eastern Berber has finally appeared in Rivista degli Studi Orientali. I am somewhat happy that it has come out on this series, as it was one of...
View ArticleThe Qurʔānic feminine ending
The feminine ending in the both the orthography of the QCT and of general Classical Arabic is somewhat unusual. I have been putting off this blogpost (presumably my last on the QCT orthography, for...
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