An estimated 45.7 million Africans are forcibly displaced—refugees, internally displaced, or asylum seekers. 3% of them have left the continent. The rest—97%—have sought refuge somewhere in Africa. This graph shows where. africacenter.org/spo...

Some Korandje phrases posted by a friend on FB: Where is the boy? mən iskadda? The boy is in front of the house. iskadda ɑ-bɑ gɑ n=gaga The boy is behind the house. iskadda ɑ-bɑ gɑ m=bənḍɑ Where is the fish? mən lħut? The fish is in the sea. lħut bɑ ləbħɑ=ka www.facebook.com/groups/20165...

A nice example of sibilant harmony in old Tashlhiyt (retranscribed into IPA): tamnzujt undergoes (semi?-)regular j > ʃ / _t > tamnʒuʃt

A new article by Carles Murcia (in English, despite the title) about the etymology of the place name(s) Thagaste www.ifc-ojs.es/index.php/pa...

I just noticed that besides the inscriptions with the verb HRƔ there are other inscriptions that all seem to begin with the letters ⵏⵙ @maartenkossmann.bsky.social @phdnix.bsky.social @lameensouag.bsky.social

More gleanings: Ibn Tunart's (d.1172) dictionary (MS_088_a). Brackets= my lect, Tmz, Goulmima, Morocco) > isggusn: years (isggʷasn) > irn: months (ayyurn) > tanbdudt: summer (anbdu, ṣṣif) > tagrst: winter (tagrst) > talddrar: spring (tifsa, ṛṛbiʕ) > tamnžušt: fall (amḍṛ, lxrif) *seasons all fem!

For 50 years, a linguist recorded his great-great aunt speaking the Pomo language. Now he’s a Ph.D. student in linguistics working with those materials to help teach their language to new generations. news.berkeley.edu/2025/11/06/b...

Neo-Babylonian (ca 626-539 BC) lexical tablet from Borsippa listing sexagesimal numerals: šar-u (𒐬) = 36,000 šar-niš (𒐭) = 72,000 šar-u₂-šu (𒐮) = 108,000 šar-ni-mi-in (𒐰) = 144,000 šar-ni-nu-u (𒐱) = 180,000 šar-ŋeš₂ (𒄱) = 216,000 šar-gal-diš (𒐲) = 216,000 šar-gal-min (𒐳) = 432,000

And plenty of facts are neither in archives nor in attics, but in minds. There is no reference grammar or dictionary of, say, Burun, or Tetserret; if you want to know more than the absolute basics about them, you need to go out there and talk to one of the few people who speak these languages.

A few gleanings from Ibn Tunart’s (d.1172) dictionary (MS_088_a): > tid-xsinin: coal (lit. ‘the extinguished ones’ in opp. to ‘live coals’: tirgin) > azki, azgi: pottery (my local lect: ajʷg̱̱̱i) > tazkkiwt: (donut-like) jug stand 'Ar. al-jiʔawa' (local lect: tazzwutt - usually from palm fiber) 👇🏽

Encountered in a lexicon: قَتَلَ أَرْضًا عَالِمُهَا وَقَتَلَتْ أَرْضٌ جَاهِلَهَا qatala ʔarḍan ʕālimuhā wa-qatalat ʔarḍun jāhilahā "A land is killed by a person who knows it. A land kills a person who is ignorant of it." The medieval version of environmentalist pessimism, I guess...

I've been reading this to my five year old with an alveolar click for three nights now. So far he's replacing it with a velar stop but I will persevere

A nice new chapter by Taine-Cheikh on change-of-quality fʕāl in North African Arabic. (She criticises my proposal to derive this from Berber, preferring the old Form XI theory; I'm unconvinced, but I will need to take on board her comments on the Zenaga data.) hal.science/hal-05414180...

This looks like an amazing resource (under development) - the Cushitic Lexical Database, by Ahmed Sosal ahmedsosal.github.io/CLD/#/lexicon

Should be common sense, but good to see it quantified! (Another reason not to just rely on concept lists for phylogeny...)

Thread of threads on Libyco-Berber inscriptions: bsky.app/profile/maar...

Seen on Edgware Road... @haberl.bsky.social @olawikander.bsky.social

The FB group تعلم تدكصهك (Learn Tadaksahak) has been on a roll lately; here's a sample: www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=... (Translations in order: where are you going?, sit here, what is that?, sit there, tell me, tell him, thick, thin, short, long)

3 PhD positions available at Edinburgh University. Come work with us on West Nilotic languages! registryservices.ed.ac.uk/scholarships...

Les concours chercheurs CNRS au titre de l’année 2026 viennent d’être publiés au Journal officiel et sont désormais en ligne sur le site du CNRS. carrieres.cnrs.fr/concours-ext...

It’s Tuesday, oral exams period coming up, so a (temporary?) end to this Libyco-Berber tombstones series. But first: some really puzzling stuff. A series of inscriptions was found in 1938 in Mechta el Maza close to Bouchegouf (ex-Duvivier), Guelma region, eastern Algeria (RIL 1076-1091) 🧵

Crucial on how ChatGPT detectors imperil “non-native” writers of English. Esp if these were trained in colonial or colonial-like systems based on making you sound like the perfect “authoritative” “native speaker” who doesn’t even exists. Truly, you can’t win. marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-...

I know I risk mass-unfollowing and cancellation, but today we will look at a Libyco-Berber inscription on a rock, not at a tombstone. In 1960, a spectacular found was made in the High Atlas in Morocco at a place called Azib-n-Ikkis. It consists of a stylized man in a cowboy coat with LB inscription

Apparently there's a new book on "the Idaksahak and their scholars' efforts in financial judgements: the case of fiqh letters" - published in Kano, Nigeria, of all places. I haven't seen a copy, but an earlier work (thesis?) by the same author is online:

Learned a new Darja word today: خناشب xnašəb "splinters" You won't find this word in any Standard Arabic dictionaries, but it comes from Arabic anyway:

Striking from @brankomilan.bsky.social: Hitlerism as a continuation of the established practices of "the West" toward the rest of the humanity. I think this has some important resonance for our own time. brankomilanovic.substack.com/p/the-last-c...

Meanwhile in occupied Syria: "Ibrahim['s] house, along with 14 others, was bulldozed to make way for an Israeli military base – one of 6 built across southern Syria over the last year." "An Israeli incursion...at the end of November left at least 13 Syrians dead, including two children."

Interesting talk by Prof Tejera Gaspar about the presumed Latino-Canarian inscriptions (which he doesn’t consider to be in Latin script) Thanks to Jonay Acosta Armas pn the other platform. www.youtube.com/live/HVnJeXx...

For Saturday’s Libyco-Berber tombstone, let’s have a look at a double inscription on the same stone, RIL 989, found in Mechta Charef in eastern Algeria. Copy by Rodary.🧵

Today is Friday and we will have a look at a small cemetery from Ksaïr in the Bou Hadjar region of eastern Algeria. All nine stelae in this cemetery seem to belong to Slnbrt and his family. (all copies and photos were made by Rodary and published in CHabot 1940 [RIL]) 🧵

Correspondence Meaning : We saw a gazelle pursued by a lion #Tamajeq : nǝnay ǝzǝnkǝḍ istaɣ ahar #Tetserret : nǝṣra ažonkǝḍ ikkikel ar

Good morning. Here are the six sources of dreams acc. to Bar Bahlul (Duval, col. 753.12-15) /hergå/ thinking about something /mqaddmuṯ iḏaʕṯå ḏ-nap̄šå/ the soul's foreknowledge /yuqrå ḏ-esṭomḵå/ the stomach being full /sp̄iquṯå ḏ-esṭomḵå/ the stomach being empty /šēḏå/ a demon /alåhå/ God

Just one more bilingual Libyco-Berber tombstone for Thursday, RIL 252, found in Aïn el Hafra in eastern Algeria. The reproduction in Chabot (1941) is, well..., not *very* helpful. But we can trust his transcriptions! 🧵

I'd like to see more articles on the meaning of terms usually translated as "language". The concept of community languages as a way to keep secrets is definitely not unique to Vanuatu...

Et si ce truc typiquement taiwanais venait s'hybrider avec la culture populaire occidentale? Et voici le Bopomofo-elfique: une version tolkienisée du bopomofo. On peut écrire de faux parchemins: 8/13

Libyco-Berber (LB) Tombstones - the Monday edition. Today, we will have a look at an inscription from Morocco. LB tombstones are written in two different scripts, commonly called "eastern" and "western". For the eastern script we have enough useful bilinguals to be certain about their reading. 🧵

It's Sunday, so maybe another Libyco-Berber (LB) tombstone? Today we will take a look at RIL 803, a LB-Punic bilingual text. It was found in 1890 in Fedj Mzala (Mechta Beni Oukden), Mila region, Algeria, and published and explained by a certain Cpt. Mélix (copy copied from Chabot 1940).

Hypercorrection in Arabic loans

It is Saturday, so why not present you with a Libyco-Berber tombstone ? This is RIL 145 from Kef Beni Fredj in northeastern Algeria - one of the more famous bilingual stelae. First an image of the stela as a whole (by Reboud; all images taken from Chabot 1940):

Abusin wǝr iha elam wǝr il amagal ar aṇenam Otrǝšǝn wǝr iyya ilǝm wǝr il ašafaṛ ar iṣarǝm My wound is not on the body Its only remedy is seeing you

An excellent piece by Yasmin Khan in @theguardian.com – and I’m very relieved the preposterous case against her has been dropped. www.theguardian.com/food/comment...

Correspondence - To milk - Milking #Tamajeq : - əẓẓəg - taẓək #Tetserret : - oṣṣəg - toṣəg

"takubbanit n tukksa n lmelḥ i waman n yilel Bgayet" Interesting that they went for a puristic neologism for "sea" (ilel instead of lebḥeṛ), but not for "salt" (lmelḥ instead of tisent).

5-year (!) postdoc opportunity: Join our Edinburgh team and do fieldwork on the Burun languages! Deadline for application: 17 December. Position starts March 1st, 2025 elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Des conseils que j'ai regroupés pour ces concours (surtout section 1 2 et 3) : mathurinm.github.io/cnrs_inria_a...

In Alur, "do you fight?" is apparently: îíìíi̋

رحمهما الله

CNRS cancels Web of Science in order to focus on qualitative evaluation and promoting the development of open databases. www.cnrs.fr/en/update/cn...

🪨✋Abnaw n ifanen 🥘 Comment façonne-t-on les plats à cuire dans les #Babors ? Découvrez la procédure traditionnelle #amazighe avec notre vidéo : ▶️ youtu.be/zHL7tGwlcRM?... Vous aussi, transmettez-nous vos vidéos, nous les diffuserons sur la chaîne @AmazighLanguages ! ⵣ🌟 tinemmirin ☀️ⵣ