III (2003): Arabic Linguistics (original) (raw)

PERSPECTIVES ON ARABIC LINGUISTICS VII PAPERS FROM THE SEVENTH ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM ON ARABIC LINGUISTICS

On March 5-6, 1993, the Seventh Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics was held at the University of Texas at Austin. The symposium was sponsored by the Arabic Linguistic Society, The University of Texas College of Liberal Arts, its Middle East Center, and its Departments of Linguistics and Oriental and African Languages and Literatures, and by the University of Utah's College of Humanities and the Department of Languages and Literature. A total of eighteen papers were presented at the symposium; of these, eight are published in this volume. Two other papers (Safi & Broselow et. al) were presented at the Eighth Annual Symposium but are included here for thematic reasons. The papers presented at the symposium were selected on the basis of an anonymous review of abstracts submitted to the Program Committee. The papers included in the volume were further reviewed by the editor before their final acceptance for publication.

Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (Vol. II)

2009

Reviewed by Gonzalo Rubio (Pennsylvania State University) This is the first volume of a four-volume reference work on Arabic language and linguistics. 1 The second (Eg-Lan) volume was published in late 2006, and the third one (Lat-Pu) in early 2008. This is an unusually fast pace for a project of this nature, and the editors and the publisher must be congratulated for their diligence. As its title indicates, this encyclopedia includes articles on a wide variety of linguistic topics, from language acquisition to computational linguistics and descriptive grammar. Nevertheless, the present review will focus exclusively on entries that pertain, in one way or another, to historical linguistics. The entry on "Afro-Asiatic languages" by Andrzej Zaborski (35-40) is necessarily brief, but it provides the reader with a general idea of the kinship that relates the various branches of this large family: Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, and (for those who distinguish it from Cushitic) Omotic. A particularly interesting feature of Zaborski's presentation lies in his questioning the accuracy of the family tree model (the Stammbaummodell) as a rendition of the historical connections between the branches of Afroasiatic (see also Rubio 2003, 2006). However, the bibliography for this entry is a bit puzzling. There is no mention of Lipiński (2001). It is true that many have pointed out the idiosyncrasies that plague Lipiński's manual, especially the fact that no references are provided in the text of such a massive volume, so the reader never knows if something is a commonly accepted theory or a minority opinion, and whether a specific point is someone else's idea or the author's. Still, as Voigt (2003) has noted, in spite of all its shortcomings, Lipiński's overview shows much more awareness of recent developments in the study of Semitic and Afroasiatic languages than Kienast's (2001) does, but only the latter is listed in this entry's bibliography. If idiosyncrasies were a reason

Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics

BRILL eBooks, 2006

Reviewed by Gonzalo Rubio (Pennsylvania State University) This is the first volume of a four-volume reference work on Arabic language and linguistics. 1 The second (Eg-Lan) volume was published in late 2006, and the third one (Lat-Pu) in early 2008. This is an unusually fast pace for a project of this nature, and the editors and the publisher must be congratulated for their diligence. As its title indicates, this encyclopedia includes articles on a wide variety of linguistic topics, from language acquisition to computational linguistics and descriptive grammar. Nevertheless, the present review will focus exclusively on entries that pertain, in one way or another, to historical linguistics. The entry on "Afro-Asiatic languages" by Andrzej Zaborski (35-40) is necessarily brief, but it provides the reader with a general idea of the kinship that relates the various branches of this large family: Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, and (for those who distinguish it from Cushitic) Omotic. A particularly interesting feature of Zaborski's presentation lies in his questioning the accuracy of the family tree model (the Stammbaummodell) as a rendition of the historical connections between the branches of Afroasiatic (see also Rubio 2003, 2006). However, the bibliography for this entry is a bit puzzling. There is no mention of Lipiński (2001). It is true that many have pointed out the idiosyncrasies that plague Lipiński's manual, especially the fact that no references are provided in the text of such a massive volume, so the reader never knows if something is a commonly accepted theory or a minority opinion, and whether a specific point is someone else's idea or the author's. Still, as Voigt (2003) has noted, in spite of all its shortcomings, Lipiński's overview shows much more awareness of recent developments in the study of Semitic and Afroasiatic languages than Kienast's (2001) does, but only the latter is listed in this entry's bibliography. If idiosyncrasies were a reason

Arabic Linguistics

Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik 73, 2021

This book, which collects 69 papers written by Joshua Blau, is a celebration of Arabic Linguistics. It covers a variety of topics from almost every field in Linguistics, as well as every historical stage of the Arabic language. Phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, and even stylistic phenomena are discussed in Classical Arabic, Middle Arabic, and Modern Arabic dialects from the perspective of one of the most experienced philologists and linguists. Articles on Middle Arabic, and specifically on Judeo-Arabic, comprise, however, the majority of the book, being the focus of Blau's research along the years. In this respect, the book's title is somehow misleading. Despite the vast scope of linguistic research that the book presents, an innocent reader would expect a different product from a book named "Arabic Linguistics". This, however, does not affect the phenomenal work presented in this collection. Blau did not conform with a mere collection of his articles printed in their original form. He edited them and added new observations that he gained as a scholar of Arabic linguistics along the years. From the perspective of the development of the linguistic understanding of Arabic, it would have been interesting to clearly see the amendments that were made, but Blau chose not to mark them in any particular way. The positive side of that choice is, clearly, a more coherent paper. Arabic Linguistics is not a book for beginners. The reader has to be acquainted with the Arabic language and with the tradition of its

The arabized and the intruder: A survey of Arabic linguists' efforts

Multidisciplinary Reviews

This study aims to illuminate the endeavors of ancient Arabic linguists in the surveillance and classification of words falling into the categories of "Arabized" and "intruder," and to demonstrate the impact of the inclusion of these words on the enrichment of the Arabic language. It further seeks to identify the methodologies employed by scholars in addressing these lexical components. Employing a descriptive and analytical approach, this study elucidates the repercussions of incorporating Arabized and foreign words on the evolution and vitality of the Arabic language. The findings of this study affirm the Arabic language's capacity to subject foreign and extraneous terms to the morphological and phonetic conventions of the Arabic linguistic framework. Moreover, it reveals a consensus among scholars regarding their approaches to handling Arabized and intruder words, with an overarching commitment to preserving the essence and integrity of the Arabic language...