I've started private tutoring Biblical Hebrew on the side, and it's been so fun. Got called a "born teacher" and I feel like this 🥰

Was the sound shift *w > /v/ in postvernacular Hebrew precipitated by a corresponding shift in vernacular Aramaic? Or does it represent an independent development?

Is Robert Alter the only English translator to render תֹּהוּ as 'waste' in Gen 1:2? (correctly imo)

The more Sumerian I learn the more I wonder if they really were aliens after all...I'm going to find the Martian who invented the /ba-/ prefix and give him a piece of my mind

I got my first real linguistics research job this week :D (it's a pretty junior role but even so!! I'm being paid money?? to do research??)

My Sumerian teacher told me I have to learn German, sink or swim. I'm sinking about it...

Now that this got a solid 4 likes, I think I’ll follow the trend and offer *1 opinion about Libyco-Berber for 1 like*

Recently learned that Gilgamesh's name 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒎌 is supposed to be read "Bilgamesh" and I'll never recover

Peeping out my cave to tell you all that I have overcome my fear of the evil little triangles. 𒋗𒌌𒈬𒌝!

Bad Semitic linguistics from the 1940s: "Gesture Origin of Semitic Languages" by Alexander Jóhannesson in 1944. Made the argument that the Semitic and Indo-European languages derive from the "imitation by the organs of speech of the movements of the hands". www.nature.com/articles/154...

Fascinated by the numbers for Maimonides here.

I was recently reminded that it is not good form in certain Jewish study circles to publicly declare that you have quote "mad beef with Maimonides"

Seeing the LibGen / Meta news is so surreal, I literally had a nightmare a few weeks ago that Amazon announced that it had bought LibGen (somehow)

Phoenician q: On the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II, what does the curse "let [my defilers] have no root below nor fruit above nor form in the life under the sun" (ʔl ykn lm šrš lmṭ w pr lmʕl w tʔr b ḥym tḥt šmš) refer to in terms of Phoenician conceptions of the afterlife?

Movies you've watched more than six times, gifs only

Bummed. The popular young nephew I've been preparing to rule after me has died under mysterious circumstances. Gonna cry on the shoulder of his charmless but ambitious brother, who was first to offer condolences to me

Music is keeping my mind off of...all this. Terry Riley & Don Cherry in Köln in 1975, absolutely beautiful youtu.be/i6449e2LsUI?...

Therapy today was about actionable steps to preserve digital knowledge ahead of looming Christofascist censorship. What I learned: 1) implore archives to back up their servers out of the US, 2) digitize your physical media that hasn't already been digitized, 3) print stuff out on acid-free paper.

Shame!

I made it up to Gen 5 last night...slow going but I am learning!

Okay so. This is terrifying.

Open access!! www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116...

Coptic ⲃⲣϭⲟⲟⲩⲧ βrkʲɔ́wt "chariot" a loan from Semitic *markab(a)t- (lit. "riding-place"; cf. Arabic rakiba "ride"). in the Akkadian cognate, the m..b dissimilate; so it's narkabtu(m) it's one of my favorite wanderwörter; i have a pet theory that it somehow underlies Celtic *karbanto- "chariot"

I'm at the point where I can, armed with enough time and a dictionary, chip away at Koine Greek texts on my own, and I'm proud of myself hehe :^)

You can say this doesn’t matter because billionaires view normal people as instruments for their will but keep in mind we’re talking about a guy who cried after being booed at a Dave Chappelle stand up set

The nakedness of it all. The shamelessness and profound self interest. I cannot comprehend this shit

TIL that Ze'ev Ben-Hayyim, the scholar of the Samaritan Hebrew grammatical and reading traditions, lived to be 105!

What the fuck

Uhhhhh...🙃

I just learned that not everyone pronounces "worship" and "warship" as homophones? Other people don't pronounce worship as /ˈwɔɹʃɪp/? 😭

The very first time I met my gf's dad he told me that Life of Brian is the perfect movie to watch stoned. Tonight I'm honoring his advice 🫡

When you get an extra shot of espresso in the coffee to go… 🫨 Ethiopia, 18th c. (?) #trinity #god #coffee #awake #africanart

Since we love the little canine echoes from the past, here’s another lovely one from a dog in ancient Ur. The cuneiform inscription names king Ur-Nammu who ruled around 2100 BCE. The accidental paw prints are such a delight 🐾 www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...

#Սուդանահայ #Sudanahye is a research project that documents the history & cultural heritage of #SudaneseArmenians. Many Armenians came to Sudan fleeing the #ArmenianGenocide of 1915 by the Ottoman empire, followed by a later wave of immigration in the 1950s. Insta: @/Sudanahye sudanahye.com

This tablet has always fascinated me. It’s a magical text written in the cuneiform writing system. BUT the language is Aramaic which is not written in cuneiform. It’a the only complete Aramaic cuneiform text that I know of, and is extremely interesting. It likely dates to the Seleucid Period.

Icelandic tonguetwister: Barbara Ara bar Ara araba bara rabarbara [ˈparpara ˈaːra ˈpaːr ˈaːra ˈaːrapa ˈpaːra ˈraːparˌpaˑra] 'Barbara daughter of Ari gave Ari the Arab only rhubarb.'

Day 1 Million of being permanently bothered that the Biblical Hebraica Stuttgartensia is bound the wrong way around for a Hebrew book

It was really lucky that Wikipedia rhymes with encyclopedia

This is a sewing pattern. It is also a page from a late 14th century manuscript that is one of two primary sources for an important Icelandic saga (Sturlunga saga), but that was probably not important to the 17th century person who really needed a sewing pattern. #upcycling

Marking two years since the passing of the late #Blin cultural champion, Tekie Alibekit, friends of the scholar have opened an Academia archive for some of his written work: independent.academia.edu/TekieAlibekit

POV: A six-winged angel with a ten-day stubble just landed on top of you 😮‍💨 Ethiopia, 18th–19th c. (?) #angel #beard #beardedmen #beardedangel #africanangel #africanart

Was at a trans women's music house show last night, talking to a friend telling me she can no longer leave the country because her gender was changed to "x" on her passport and airports are denying it. Weirdly and horrifically grateful I still have M on all my documents.

Hey wait! I can read this!! 🥹🤓

How do we get the kamatz in חֲטָאֵיכֶם (Isaiah 1:18) from חֶטְא? Why not **חַטְאֵיכֶם like other *qatl- nouns?

I made a joke about the sDm.n.f and it was perfect.

Tried to make a joke about the sDm.f but it was almost indistinguishable from all the others.

On the other hand: scouring & reinterpreting texts in search of answers to modern questions has been at the core of our theological process for two millennia. Is the Talmud trans-affirming as we understand it? Ehhh. Can it be the textual basis of a trans-affirming Judaism anyway? That's what we do.

"your definition of sex is bonkers", "you don't understand how pronouns actually work", they *know*, they don't care. the absurdity is part of the cruelty, the absurdity is meant to distract you, the absurdity is meant to make you give them publicity. and you are *still* falling for it

Unexpected upside of living under mortal terror for my future as a Jewish trans woman in fascist America: I have never been more motivated to distract my brain by doing copious amounts of vocabulary drills