Marijn van Putten
@phdnix.bsky.social
Historical Linguist; Working on Quranic Arabic and the linguistic history of Arabic and Tamazight. Game designer for Team18k
Carter in his book on Sibawayh, bizarrely claims that the pausal form of qāḍin is either qāḍī# or qāḍi#, and that the form qāḍ "is now widely accepted as correct, though only very few medieval sources explicitly refer to this form". Plenty of medieval sources refer to it... *including* Sibawayh.
New paper by @safaitic.bsky.social:
Al-Jallad. 2026. Echoes of Deuteronomy 6:5 in Two Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions (Paleo-Arabic) from Northwest Arabia
This paper identifies the earliest possible renditions of the Bible in pre-Islamic Arabic (Paleo-Arabic) epigraphy through an analysis of two sixth-century CE inscriptions from Northwest Arabia: BuSDA...
academia.edu
This is a great video! FGC devs should really watch this, as it does a great job breaking down different ways of handling 'plus' and 'minus' concepts, and their remifications. #gamedev #fgc youtu.be/rRXd_fJowdk
The Problem with Frame Data
YouTube video by TheoryFighter
youtu.be
Available for free download through Aug. 3rd -- Phillip W. Stokes's "The Linguistic Nature of Early Christian Arabic Literature," in the Cambridge Elements series. #Classics #AncientBlueSky www.cambridge.org/core/element...
The Linguistic Nature of Early Christian Arabic Literature
Cambridge Core - History of Religion - The Linguistic Nature of Early Christian Arabic Literature
cambridge.org
Our Persian instructor Taraneh suggested that she would speak to me in Persian & I would speak to her in Urdu and we'd see what would happen. So this is what happened.
Yo guys, al-Sirāfī's commentary of Sībawayh's grammar is so good. I honestly don't know how anyone manages to make sense of Sībawayh's often incredibly convoluted prose without our buddy...
nickposegay.com/a-judaeo-ara...
A Judaeo-Arabic Biblical Glossary as a Source for Arabic Historical Dialectology (2020) – Nick Posegay
MS T-S Ar.5.58 is a translation glossary from the Cairo Geniza that contains a list of Judaeo-Arabic glosses for Hebrew words from the biblical book of Samuel. These Arabic words are fully vocalised w...
nickposegay.com
Old Chinese course at Leiden, taught with Nathan Hill: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBkj...
Old Chinese 1: Chinese Historical Phonology | Guillaume Jacques & Nathan Hill | Leiden 2026
YouTube video by Nathan Hill
youtube.com
Arabic #WOTD تزعزع /tazaʕzaʕa/ (quadrilit. II) "be shaken violently" as in Anastasius of Sinai, De transfiguratione, Sin. ar. 428, fol. 297v: واذا ايقضت [كذا] البحار .. واذا تزعزعت قوات السما جمعا "if the seas were to be stirred up, if all the hosts of heaven were to be shaken violently ..."
Another interesting problem with the question of transmission is the following: We learn from al-Dānī's Ǧāmiʿ al-Bayān that the /i-humu/ form is transmitted by al-Taġlibī and al-Ṣūrī... But... this has somehow gotten lost, especially in didactic manuals that form the canon.
Marijn van Putten@phdnix.bsky.social · 2w agoIbn Ḏakwān mentions in his book he read both Q51:60 and Q83:31 without vowel harmony. This is reported by: - al-Ṣūrī - ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Ǧunayd - al-Taġlibī - ʾAḥmad b. ʾAnas. Ibn al-Muʿallā only reports Q51:60 al-ʾAḫfaš neither
Nearly having a stroke seeing this crossover of fairytale and propaganda presented as history for the purpose of clout-chasing. Particularly as I gave an in-depth talk for the benefit of these people last year. Never again… If you can bear gilded horseshit, it's here www.instagram.com/p/DbQpAv6twm6/
The word "Satan" (الشيطان) written with an inverted letter nūn (ن) in the Arabic version of the Book of Job in MS Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. ar. 468.
So there is something slightly weird about the report of Ibn Ḏakwān in the Ǧāmiʿ al-Bayān... al-Dānī tells us that al-Taġlibī reports both Q51:60 yawmihumu llaḏī and Q83:31 ʾahlihumu nqalabū without vowel harmony for Ibn Ḏakwān... but where is he getting that info from?
Marijn van Putten@phdnix.bsky.social · 2w agoWhat happens when the written records of a Quranic reading tradition conflicts with the oral? What wins out? The answer here is not always straightforward, and similar circumstances can lead to opposite outcomes. Let us have a look at two cases from al-Dānī's Ǧāmiʿ al-Bayān
What happens when the written records of a Quranic reading tradition conflicts with the oral? What wins out? The answer here is not always straightforward, and similar circumstances can lead to opposite outcomes. Let us have a look at two cases from al-Dānī's Ǧāmiʿ al-Bayān
Yesterday I was informed of the shocking news that Professor Harry Stroomer has unexpectedly passed away. He was emeritus professor of Afro-Asiatic linguistics at Leiden, and one the founding figures of Amazigh studies in Leiden. A short thread on what I'll remember him for.
condolences. There was a beautiful interview with him in NRC (in Dutch) last year: www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...
Hij ‘had een woordenboek nodig’ van de grootste Berbertaal. Veertig jaar later was het af
Taalkunde: Taalkundige Harry Stroomer werkte veertig jaar aan een woordenboek Tachelhiyt, een van de drie Berbertalen in Marokko. Het telt ruim 3.000 pagina’s.
nrc.nl
It is with great sadness that we learned that Harry Stroomer, em. prof. of Afroasiatic linguistics at Leiden University has passed away. Harry was the founder of Amazigh studies in Leiden and the Doktorvater of a whole group of scholars in Amazigh studies (me included). May his soul rest in peace.
77 previously unedited #Nabataean, #Nabataeo-Arabic, and #Paleo-Arabic inscriptions published on DiCoNab last year! Overview publication by Nehmé, Norris, Al-Jallad (@safaitic.bsky.social), and Tokunaga.
The Digital Corpus of Nabataean and Developing Arabic Inscriptions ...
Introduction The 77 inscriptions presented in this bulletin are all previously unpublished texts made publicly accessible on DiCoNab at https://diconab.huma-num.fr/. They were provided by various p...
journals.openedition.org
My new book is out! And it's freely-downloadable via the following link for the next two weeks. The Linguistic Nature of Early Christian Arabic Literature - www.cambridge.org/core/element...
The Linguistic Nature of Early Christian Arabic Literature
Cambridge Core - Biblical Studies - New Testament - The Linguistic Nature of Early Christian Arabic Literature
cambridge.org
Some thoughts on NM•NH, a Libyco-Berber ethnonym that everybody on Bluesky has been wondering about for ages. In the eastern script, the dot symbol can be used to substitute for a letter. Which letters are involved is not entirely clear - Y, Z and Z² are pretty certain, but there may be more hiding
6. Arabic script is not linear!! consonants are supposed to stack!! i get accepting compromises when you’re dealing with the introduction of the printing press, but we have OpenType fonts now. ـحـ is a crime against calligraphy
28. initial hamza should *always* be transcribed in Classical Arabic and MSA. it behaves differently from ʔalif al-waṣl and i think that’s important to indicate
Niya Prakrit, a Central Asian Gāndhārī dialect, was the administrative language of Shanshan (3–4 c. CE). N. Schoubben shows the strong Iranian (Bactrian) influence, but rejects a “Tocharian C” substrate, and argues Kushan officials shaped it. #openaccess www.harrassowitz-ver...
My first proper foray into Afroasiatic-level reconstruction just came out in BJALL: "Disentangling Afroasiatic *t-morphemes: No path from middle to imperfective" brill.com/view/journal... Sadly not open access, but I'd be delighted to send a copy to anyone who asks me for one (myfirstname@gmail)
brill.com
Here's a Lam-Alif-cum-Ankh to grace your day. gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/b... You'll get a kick out of this one @majnouna.com
