Download or read book Rewriting Dialectal Arabic Prehistory written by Alexander Borg and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study is the first attempt to reconstruct the prehistory of Arabic by examining lexical evidence of its symbiotic relationship with Ancient Egyptian already apparent from the Pyramid Texts (c. 2613–2181 BC). It documents the contention that Ancient Egypt was a strategic site in its early prehistory.
Download or read book Communal Dialects in Baghdad written by Haim Blanc and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-04-04 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Haim Blanc’s Communal Dialects in Baghdad is one of the most influential works ever written on the on the linguistic diachrony of vernacular Arabic. Based on original fieldwork conducted during the years 1957–1962, this book portaits the extensive regional continuum of modern spoken Arabic stretching across parts of Mesopotamia and N. Syria, evinced by the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian speech communities in Baghdad. Typos and other mistakes have been corrected in this reprint, which is accompanied by an Editorial Preamble by Alexander Borg and a Foreword by Paul Wexler, and contains references to the original page numbers.
Download or read book The IOS Annual Volume 21 Carrying a Torch to Distant Mountains written by Yoram Cohen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-29 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The IOS Annual Volume 21. “Carrying a Torch to Distant Mountains” brings forth cutting-edge studies devoted to a wide array of fields and disciplines of the Middle East, from the beginning of civilization to modern times.
Download or read book Arabic and the Case against Linearity in Historical Linguistics written by Jonathan Owens and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-28 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the long history of the Arabic language, from pre-Islamic Arabic via the Classical era of the Arabic grammarians up to the present day. While most traditional accounts have been dominated by a linear understanding of the development of Arabic, this book instead advocates a multiple pathways approach to Arabic language history. Arabic has multifarious sources: its relations to other Semitic languages, an old epigraphic and papyrological tradition, a vibrant and linguistically original classical Arabic linguistic tradition, and a widely dispersed array of contemporary spoken varieties. These diverse sources present a challenge to and an opportunity for defining a holistic but not necessarily linear Arabic language history. The geographical breadth and chronological depth of Arabic make it a fertile ground for a critical appraisal and application of perspectives from a range of subdisciplines including sociolinguistics, typology, grammaticalization, and corpus linguistics. Jonathan Owens draws on these approaches to investigate more than 20 individual case studies that cover more than 1500 years of documented and reconstructed history: the results demonstrate that Arabic is a far more complex historical object than traditional accounts have assumed. This complexity is further explored in a comparison of the historical morphology of three languages that can be compared over roughly the same period (500 AD-2022 AD): Icelandic, English, and Arabic. Icelandic and English are diametrically opposed on a parameter of linearity. Icelandic is effectively alinear: the morphology of the earliest Icelandic writings is the morphology of today. English is linear, having undergone a drastic change in morphology from its Old English stage to the Middle English period. Arabic is shown to be alinear in many important respects, but multilinear in others, with different sorts of linguistic changes being spread across many individual historical speech communities.
Download or read book Language Contact in Ancient Egypt written by Thomas Schneider and published by LIT Verlag. This book was released on 2023-06-20 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to the field of language contact and multilingualism in ancient Egypt before the Greco-Roman period (4th millennium BCE4th c. BCE). It gives a survey of the historical evidence of linguistic interference of Egyptian with languages in Africa, the Near East and the Mediterranean, discusses the different attested phenomena of language contact and offers a case study of foreign language communities in ancient Egypt. Detailed indexes makes this book a rich source of linguistic information for general linguistics and neighboring disciplines.
Download or read book Space and Time in a ni Arabic written by Letizia Cerqueglini and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-08-01 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work contributes to the discussion on the relationship between space and time in language and cognition and the role of culture in this relationship from the perspective of the dialect of aṣ-Ṣāniʿ, a Bedouin Arab tribe of the Negev (Israel).
Download or read book The IOS Annual Volume 22 Telling of Olden Kings written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-12-28 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The IOS Annual volume 22: “Telling of Olden Kings” brings forth cutting-edge studies devoted to a wide array fields and disciplines of the Middle East, from the beginning of civilization to modern times.
Download or read book Aspect Tense and Action in the Arabic Dialect of Beirut written by Stefan Bruweleit and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 results of the work is the fact that a thorough understanding of a verb system is only possible through an understanding of the categorial interplay of aspect, tense and action.
Download or read book Semitic Languages in Contact written by Aaron Butts and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-09-29 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 linguistics. These diverse studies are united by the theme of language contact. Thus, the volume aims to provide the status quaestionis of the study of language contact among the Semitic languages. With contributions from A. Al-Jallad, A. Al-Manaser, D. Appleyard, S. Boyd, Y. Breuer, M. Bulakh, D. Calabro, E. Cohen, R. Contini, C. J. Crisostomo, L. Edzard, H. Hardy, U. Horesh, O. Jastrow, L. Kahn, J. Lam, M. Neishtadt, M. Oren, P. Pagano, A. D. Rubin, L. Sayahi, J.Tubach, J. P. Vita, and T. Zewi.
Download or read book Arabic in Context written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 perspectives hopes to stand as an important methodological intervention, encouraging a shift in the way Arabic’s linguistic history is written.
Download or read book An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions written by Ahmad Al-Jallad and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-03-20 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains a detailed grammatical description of the dialects of Old Arabic attested in the Safaitic script, an Ancient North Arabian alphabet used mainly in the deserts of southern Syria and north-eastern Jordan in the pre-Islamic period. It is the first complete grammar of any Ancient North Arabian corpus, making it an important contribution to the fields of Arabic and Semitic studies. The volume covers topics in script and orthography, phonology, morphology, and syntax, and contains an appendix of over 500 inscriptions and an annotated dictionary. The grammar is based on a corpus of 33,000 Safaitic inscriptions.
Download or read book UNESCO General History of Africa Vol I Abridged Edition written by Jacqueline Ki-Zerbo and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume covers the period from the end of the Neolithic era to the beginning of the seventh century of our era. This lengthy period includes the civilization of Ancient Egypt, the history of Nubia, Ethiopia, North Africa and the Sahara, as well as of the other regions of the continent and its islands."--Publisher's description
Download or read book History of Language written by Steven Roger Fischer and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2004-10-03 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is tempting to take the tremendous rate of contemporary linguistic change for granted. What is required, in fact, is a radical reinterpretation of what language is. Steven Roger Fischer begins his book with an examination of the modes of communication used by dolphins, birds and primates as the first contexts in which the concept of "language" might be applied. As he charts the history of language from the times of Homo erectus, Neanderthal humans and Homo sapiens through to the nineteenth century, when the science of linguistics was developed, Fischer analyses the emergence of language as a science and its development as a written form. He considers the rise of pidgin, creole, jargon and slang, as well as the effects radio and television, propaganda, advertising and the media are having on language today. Looking to the future, he shows how electronic media will continue to reshape and re-invent the ways in which we communicate. "[a] delightful and unexpectedly accessible book ... a virtuoso tour of the linguistic world."—The Economist "... few who read this remarkable study will regard language in quite the same way again."—The Good Book Guide
Download or read book Ancient Mesopotamia written by A. Leo Oppenheim and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-01-31 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."—Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book Review Ancient Mesopotamia—the area now called Iraq—has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East. Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun. "To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."—Leonard Cottrell, Book Week "Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."—Samuel Noah Kramer, Archaeology A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.
Download or read book Understanding Morphology written by Martin Haspelmath and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition of Understanding Morphology has been fully revised in line with the latest research. It now includes 'big picture' questions to highlight central themes in morphology, as well as research exercises for each chapter. Understanding Morphology presents an introduction to the study of word structure that starts at the very beginning. Assuming no knowledge of the field of morphology on the part of the reader, the book presents a broad range of morphological phenomena from a wide variety of languages. Starting with the core areas of inflection and derivation, the book presents the interfaces between morphology and syntax and between morphology and phonology. The synchronic study of word structure is covered, as are the phenomena of diachronic change, such as analogy and grammaticalization. Theories are presented clearly in accessible language with the main purpose of shedding light on the data, rather than as a goal in themselves. The authors consistently draw on the best research available, thus utilizing and discussing both functionalist and generative theoretical approaches. Each chapter includes a summary, suggestions for further reading, and exercises. As such this is the ideal book for both beginning students of linguistics, or anyone in a related discipline looking for a first introduction to morphology.
Download or read book Universals in Comparative Morphology written by Jonathan David Bobaljik and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-10-05 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument for, and account of linguistic universals in the morphology of comparison, combining empirical breadth and theoretical rigor. This groundbreaking study of the morphology of comparison yields a surprising result: that even in suppletion (the wholesale replacement of one stem by a phonologically unrelated stem, as in good-better-best) there emerge strikingly robust patterns, virtually exceptionless generalizations across languages. Jonathan David Bobaljik describes the systematicity in suppletion, and argues that at least five generalizations are solid contenders for the status of linguistic universals. The major topics discussed include suppletion, comparative and superlative formation, deadjectival verbs, and lexical decomposition. Bobaljik's primary focus is on morphological theory, but his argument also aims to integrate evidence from a variety of subfields into a coherent whole. In the course of his analysis, Bobaljik argues that the assumptions needed bear on choices among theoretical frameworks and that the framework of Distributed Morphology has the right architecture to support the account. In addition to the theoretical implications of the generalizations, Bobaljik suggests that the striking patterns of regularity in what otherwise appears to be the most irregular of linguistic domains provide compelling evidence for Universal Grammar. The book strikes a unique balance between empirical breadth and theoretical detail. The phenomenon that is the main focus of the argument, suppletion in adjectival gradation, is rare enough that Bobaljik is able to present an essentially comprehensive description of the facts; at the same time, it is common enough to offer sufficient variation to explore the question of universals over a significant dataset of more than three hundred languages.
Download or read book The Cambridge Guide to Homer written by Corinne Ondine Pache and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 974 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From its ancient incarnation as a song to recent translations in modern languages, Homeric epic remains an abiding source of inspiration for both scholars and artists that transcends temporal and linguistic boundaries. The Cambridge Guide to Homer examines the influence and meaning of Homeric poetry from its earliest form as ancient Greek song to its current status in world literature, presenting the information in a synthetic manner that allows the reader to gain an understanding of the different strands of Homeric studies. The volume is structured around three main themes: Homeric Song and Text; the Homeric World, and Homer in the World. Each section starts with a series of 'macropedia' essays arranged thematically that are accompanied by shorter complementary 'micropedia' articles. The Cambridge Guide to Homer thus traces the many routes taken by Homeric epic in the ancient world and its continuing relevance in different periods and cultures.
