The Arabic script in Africa contains sixteen papers on the past and present use of Arabic script to write African languages. These writing traditions, which are sometimes collectively referred to as Ajami, are discussed for single or multiple languages, with examples from all major linguistic phyla of Africa but one (Khoisan), and from all geographic areas of Africa (North, West, Central, East, and South Africa), as well as a paper on the Ajami heritage in the Americas. The papers analyze (ethno-) historical, literary, (socio-) linguistic, and in particular grammatological aspects of...

Neo-Mandaic is the last phase of a pre-modern vernacular closely related to Classical Mandaic, a Mesopotamian Aramaic idiom of Late Antiquity. This unique language is critically endangered, being spoken by a few hundred adherents of Mandaeism, the only gnostic religion to have survived until the present day. All other Mandaeans, numbering several tens of thousands, are Arabic or Persian speakers. The present study concerns the least known aspect of the language, namely its lexicon as reflected in both its dialects, those of the cities of Ahvaz and Khorramshahr in the Iranian province of...

In Ancient Hebrew Periodization and the Language of the Book of Jeremiah, Aaron Hornkohl defends the diachronic approach to Biblical Hebrew and the linguistic dating of biblical texts. Applying the standard methodologies to the Masoretic version of the biblical book of Jeremiah, he seeks to date the work on the basis of its linguistic profile, determining that, though composite, Jeremiah is likely a product of the transitional time between the First and Second Temple Periods. Hornkohl also contributes to unraveling Jeremiah's complicated literary development, arguing on the basis of...

The linguistic categories of aspect, tense and action are closely interrelated. In the first part of Aspect, Tense and Action in the Arabic dialect of Beirut, Stefan Bruweleit defines the three categories and describes the interplay between them at a metagrammatical level. In the next parts he applies the theoretical findings of the first part to the Arabic dialect of Beirut, investigates the ways temporal, aspectual and actional categories are expressed and shows how to decide whether the verb system of the dialect has to be regarded as aspectual or as temporal. One of the main...

"Research on the function and semantics of the verbal system in Hebrew (and Semitics in general) has been in constant ferment since McFall's 1982 work The Enigma of the Hebrew Verbal System. Elizabeth Robar's analysis provides the best solution to this point, combining cognitive linguistics, cross-linguistics, diachronic and synchronic analysis. Her solution is brilliant, innovative, and supremely satisfying in interpreting all the data with great explanatory power. Let us hope this research will be quickly implemented in grammars of Hebrew." Peter J. Gentry, Donald L....

Semitic Languages in Contact contains twenty case studies analysing various contact situations involving Semitic languages. The languages treated span from ancient Semitic languages, such as Akkadian, Aramaic, Classical Ethiopic, Hebrew, Phoenician, and Ugaritic, to modern ones, including languages/dialects belonging to the Modern Arabic, Modern South Arabian, Neo-Aramaic, and Neo-Ethiopian branches of the Semitic family. The topics discussed include writing systems, phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. The approaches range from traditional philology to more theoretically-driven...

Language Contact and the Development of Modern Hebrew is a first rigorous attempt by scholars of Hebrew to evaluate the syntactic impact of the various languages with which Modern Hebrew was in contact during its formative years. Twenty-four different innovative syntactic constructions of Modern Hebrew are analysed, and shown to originate in previous stages of Hebrew, which, since the third century CE, solely functioned as a scholarly and liturgical language. The syntactic changes in the constructions are traced to the native languages of the first Modern Hebrew learners, and later to...

In Coastal Dhofari Arabic: A Sketch Grammar, Richard Davey provides a detailed description of a hitherto neglected Arabic dialect found in southern Oman. Previously recorded by Rhodokanakis, as part of the sudarabische Expedition of the Austrian Imperial Academy, the dialect presented here offers a specific account of the day-to-day language spoken by the historical sedentary, coastal community. Using data collected during 2010-2012, Richard Davey delivers an overview of the phonology, morphology and syntax of this variety. In addition to this, a lexicon of coastal Dhofari Arabic is...

The writing of Arabic s linguistic history is by definition an interdisciplinary effort, the result of collaboration between historical linguists, epigraphists, dialectologists, and historians. The present volume seeks to catalyse a dialogue between scholars in various fields who are interested in Arabic s past and to illustrate how much there is to be gained by looking beyond the traditional sources and methods. It contains 15 innovative studies ranging from pre-Islamic epigraphy to the modern spoken dialect, and from comparative Semitics to Middle Arabic. The combination of these...

In Historical Aspects of Standard Negation in Semitic Ambjörn Sjörs investigates the grammar of standard negation in a wide selection of Semitic languages. The bulk of the investigation consists of a detailed analysis of negative constructions and is based on a first-hand examination of the examples in context. The main issues that are investigated in the book relate to the historical change of the expression of verbal negation in Semitic and the reconstruction of the genealogical relationship of negative constructions. It shows how negation is constantly renewed from the reanalysis of...