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"Semitic languages Etymology"
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Genealogical Classification of Semitic
This volume is the first of its kind to offer a detailed, monographic treatment of Semitic genealogical classification. The introduction describes the author's methodological framework and surveys the history of the subgrouping discussion in Semitic linguistics, and the first chapter provides a detailed description of the proto-Semitic basic vocabulary. Each of its seven main chapters deals with one of the key issues of the Semitic subgrouping debate: the East/West dichotomy, the Central Semitic hypothesis, the North West Semitic subgroup, the Canaanite affiliation of Ugaritic, the historical unity of Aramaic, and the diagnostic features of Ethiopian Semitic and of Modern South Arabian.
The book aims at a balanced account of all evidence pertinent to the subgrouping discussion, but its main focus is on the diagnostic lexical features, heavily neglected in the majority of earlier studies dealing with this subject. The author tries to assess the subgrouping potential of the vocabulary using various methods of its diachronic stratification. The hundreds of etymological comparisons given throughout the book can be conveniently accessed through detailed lexical indices.
eBook
The origin of the Semitic relative marker
All Semitic languages use a relative marker as at least one strategy of relativization, and all branches show reflexes or relics of reflexes of an interdental relative marker. The wide consensus that the relative pronoun was originally identical to the proximal demonstrative is based on the formal identity between the bases of the two in West Semitic, and on the wide attestation of the process Demonstrative > Relative in world languages. In this paper, we will show that there are a number of significant problems with the reconstruction of the relative pronoun, which, when taken together, make tracing its origin to the demonstrative highly unlikely. Instead we will argue that the opposite is true: the demonstrative in West Semitic is a secondary formation on the basis of the relative marker.
Journal Article
The Linguistic Implications of Facebook Nicknames for Jordanian Males and Females
Facebook allows users to easily share their thoughts and feelings with other users. This study attempts to investigate the linguistic behavior of Jordanian Facebookers' choice of nicknames in Arabic. In so doing, it gives a window onto the norms and values of the Jordanian culture in a way that interaction in most other kinds of situations does not. The data consist of 234 nicknames (71 males and 163 females), which were collected from 11 large Facebook groups. Also, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 participants to obtain their views on their use of nicknames. The results showed that the preferred category of nicknames for males is “animals reference” (23.4%), whereas “celestial bodies reference” is the least frequent type used. Females preferred using nicknames under “superiority reference” (17.3%), whereas “job reference” and “famous characters’ reference” are the least frequent types used. Overall, this study lends evidence to the view that gender influences linguistic choices, including nicknames. Significantly, the analysis also shows that both males and females tend to use terms that have a “pessimistic reference” more than those that carry an “optimistic reference”. Besides, the analysis shows that “flora reference” is a category that was often used in female nicknames. Essentially, it enriches knowledge about the Jordanian culture as it provides information about the general mentality, ways of thinking, and emotional and evaluative attitudes towards the genuineness of the people. Such knowledge can be of great benefit to learners of Jordanian Arabic as a foreign language.
Journal Article
The Influence of Arabic on Spanish Vocabulary and Expressions: Implications for Jordanian Learners
The research investigates pedagogical and linguistic consequences of Arabic influence on Spanish language learning while focusing specifically on Jordanian speakers. The study explores vocabulary acquisition, pronunciation, and learner motivation by examining the history of Al-Andalus (711–1492 AD), a period during which Arabic words entered the Spanish lexicon, creating educational opportunities for language learning. The research used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to understand vocabulary acquisition in Jordanian learners as it collected results from 100 students in vocabulary tests along with interviews at several proficiency levels. Results from the investigation demonstrate that learners achieve better recognition and show increased confidence in recognizing words that originate from Arabic when studying Spanish particularly at the intermediate language level. The students encountered problems when pronouncing Spanish syllables /θ/ and trilled /r/ while also experiencing difficulty because of false cognates. The research through thematic analysis showed that students who became more proficient developed better metalinguistic abilities and strategic learning approaches which helped them to use their etymological knowledge for dealing with phonological and grammatical differences.
Journal Article
Omotic lexicon in its Afro-Asiatic setting VI: Addenda to Omotic roots with ḅ-, ṗ-, p- (or f-)a
The paper is a new contribution to revealing the Afro-Asiatic heritage in the lexicon of the Omotic languages by means of interbranch comparison using a.o. the ancient Egypto-Semitic evidence.
Journal Article
Second Language Arabic Knowledge Useful for Learning Hebrew Vocabulary
Arabic and Hebrew belong to the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, and thus, they are semantically and phonetically similar in many lexical aspects. This study examined the benefits of Malaysian university students having prior knowledge of Arabic while learning Hebrew. A two-page questionnaire was administered to two groups of 30 and 40 students at advanced and fundamental Arabic proficiency levels, respectively. Page 1 contained a checklist with Yes/No columns about 30 Hebrew words to examine the participants’ prior knowledge. If participants answered yes, they were asked to write the meaning of the word in English or Malay. They then answered multiple-choice questions about the 30 Hebrew words on Page 2. Arabic counterparts were not shown on the questionnaire to prevent cuing the participants. The first group of participants, 30 Malaysian students with advanced Arabic proficiency, learned an average of 23.07 Hebrew words. The vocabulary items most correctly identified by Group 1 were ‘olam “world” (30 correct answers), katavti “I wrote” (28), mavet “death” (28), melekh “king” (27), moakh “brain” (27), shabat “Saturday” (27), shen “tooth” (27), shamayim “sky” (26), shana “year” (26), ahavti “I loved” (26), and ozen “ear” (26). The second group, 40 Malaysian students with basic Arabic knowledge, acquired 12.83 words on average. The scores of the two groups differed with statistical significance at the 5% level (p < 0.001, df = 68, t = 14.26). From these results, it appears that Arabic lexical knowledge significantly facilitates Malaysian students’ acquisition of Hebrew vocabulary.
Journal Article
Going meta: Bringing together an understanding of metadiscourse with students’ metalinguistic understanding
The impetus behind this seminar series was the Writing the Future study, which involved a cross-linguistic corpus analysis of metadiscourse usage in first language Arabic university students’ argumentative texts in English and Arabic in a university in Qatar, paralleled by ‘writing conversation’ interviews with a sub-sample of the student writers to explore their metalinguistic understanding of metadiscourse used in their own Arabic and English texts. This seminar series comprised three seminars held in May and June 2022, with participants representing research perspectives from 11 countries.
Journal Article