I'm rehashing my half-baked phonology ideas when I have a publication deadline; I think that might mean it's time for a break from the BlueSky

That depends on the country ... I once had someone say yes to an idea just to get me to shut up about it, and then they permanently ghosted me.

Fujairah Arabic word of the day فتريل /fɨtrīl/ 'nose ring' Any ideas about the etymology?

I was not ready for this at 4:30am

My uncle's copy of Sefer Yetzirah, acquired so from his friend, has the best inscription of this sort I've ever seen It goes as follows אסור ליקח בלי רשות. ואם תקח, אהפוך אותך לצפרדע.

One funny thing about the desert: People can just walk up and say "my car is stuck" and like, if you have four-wheel-drive, you cannot say no, because they might not see anyone else.

obligatory camel photo

I turned on the YouTube, someone pronounced Goethe to rhyme with "both", I turned off the YouTube

Huh, kinda weird that this seems related to Ar. فَجْأَة (fajʔa). Are there other examples like this?

It seems to me that demonstrative هذا has three functions in the Emirates: الطوى هذا "There are the wells" (gesturing) هذا/هذي الطوي "this well" (adnominal?) هذا/هذي هو الطوي "this is the well" (pronominal?)

“Probabilistic syllable structure” by Emiyare Ikwut-Ukwa, Kushal Thaman, Annalisa Welinder, Arto Anttila and Giorgio Magri (Nov. ’25) www.lingref.com/cpp/wccfl/42...

I don't really care what people say about me, but it sure does hurt my feelings when my smart watch says "you can do it!" because I did nothing all day

I think I've eaten 28 out of 53 Emirati dishes. (I have probably had some of these but can't remember.) Good, but not great

We went to the Mirzam Chocolate Factory in Dubai and they had this stellar list of local foods on the door. I will have to get to work!

With following suffixes or clitics, Form II imperfect verbs are often transcribed with deletion of /ɨ/ (or /i/), which is regular, and degemination, which is not: yɨġassɨl + ūn > yġaslūn [jɨʁɐsluːn]]

yes, the science just isn't there yet

Ruus Al Jibal Arabic word of the day إنتين /ɨntīn/ 'you' (f.s.) n.b. 1. This form is also found in al-Rams (UAE), and the Tihāma coast (Yemen). Opposite coasts! 2. cf. RJA's 2FS perf. suff. -tīn; also 2FS imperf. suff. -īn. 3. Some suggest that /ɨntīn/ could be singular or plural ...

the last one is why we still can't transcribe the sound of someone hocking up a loogie in IPA

The one I couldn't remember was: rgūl + -ōt > gīlōt 'leg'

We need more words like breadbasket. "Colombia is the coffeebasket of South America." "Switzerland is the watchbasket of Europe." "Vietnam is the cashewbasket of southeast Asia." "Brazoria County is the breakfast-taco-basket of Texas." "South Korea is the electronicsbasket ..."

Some weird problems with long vowel sequences in Ruus Al Jibal lī + weyš → leywīš 'why?' hō + deyn + ōk → hōdīnōk 'those' šōf + ey + tīn → šōfeyteyn 'you f.s. saw'

My Arabic coffee set up ☕️ Ingredients: 2 cups water 2 tbsp coffee 6 cardamom pods 1–2 saffron sprigs 1. Put saffron & cardamom in dallah 2. Bring water & coffee just to a soft boil 3. When coffee settles (1–2 min), pour in dallah

whoa.

I'm so glad to see Sammy J is back.

verbs are why we cannot have nice things

This makes me so mad every time I open this book to check something about morphology

Emirati Arabic word of the day تعبان taʕbān 'tired; sick' ex taʕbāna. She's under the weather.

My son accidentally mixed a few pieces from two jigsaw puzzles (500pc and 1000pc) and now I have no choice but to skip thesis revisions and I guess meals and completely finish both puzzles

Lifehack for runners/hikers: If your hydration pack is really loud and sloshy because air always gets in it, all you have to do is turn it upside-down, suck the air out, and close the valve ... It's also better for keeping it clean, I think.

How have I not noticed this? 😂

approved

‘Alfambra’… what an obscure Aragonese toponym, huh?

What other US states have (fake) Arabic etymologies?

Q: "National Day is coming up. Do you know any other emirates?" A: "I can only remember Minnesota!"

In Fujairah they speak of three types of mountains, according to their color: البيضية white السودية black الحمرية red The second and third, at least, have made their way into Emirati toponyms. They do name mountains, but they use color distinctions sometimes in lieu of name.

Subtweeting myself out of boredom: I just realized you can even get the 3MS form with infixation qalley-lī "he said to me" (?!) So this is a parallel for Bernabela's ḍarbē-k "he hit you". So it comes up with enclitics other than pronouns.

In Ruus Al Jibal, this might be qalleyt-leyh The hollow root has been reanalyzed like a geminate root in some areas ...

Today I let the baby pull a bunch of books off a messy shelf ... Later, when I picked them up, I saw he had found a book Emirati Arabic Verbs by Hanan Alfardan. I had completely forgotten about that book, and it is very pertinent to the stuff I have been working on! "Good baby." *pats head*

I really want to mute "LLM" on here but I am worried that I will miss some important news about the Allman Brothers, or Hallmark, or Bill Pullman, or Millard Fillmore, or Bellmead Texas, or the Modified Stillman Method of brushing your teeth

Ancient kilns unearthed at Kuwait's Bahra 1 site www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetai...

I kinda did penance with this exercise because I forgot some of these family plurals recently—obviously it's embarrassing if someone talks about their family and you can't remember how to refer to them as a whole. It's a lot to remember!

Let's pluralize some diminutive tribe names! 1. First, the simple ways: Delete the nisba مطَيري، مطير طنَيجي، طنيج قطَيطي، قطيط† حمَيدي، حميد Add fem. sing. -ah عتَيبي، عتَيبة†

Fujairah Arabic word of the day مسيبلو /msēblō/ 'a type of grass with horizontal stems' This type of grass grows in the shade of date palm trees and is used as goat feed. n.b. Probably only used in the mountains. The -ō suffix occurs on a few flora and fauna words, with no obvious meaning.

I love this version of the Arabic alphabet because it has consonant-vowel interactions youtu.be/joaa_H3ejoM

If you speak an Omani dialect, you can call your traditional ox-walk well a zōyira, zāgira, zaygira, zīgira, gāzira, yāzira, zāǧira, ǧāzira, I'm pretty sure that there are just no rules about how to say that word.

The correct way to eat rice is not with a spoon or fork but with your hands. This is partly because all the whole cloves, cardamom, and coriander need to be sifted out, and you have to separate the lamb meat from the bone. If done correctly, it burns your hands just a tad.

Fujairah Arabic word of the day هفسن hafsɨn 'to be absent' ex bahafsɨn ɨl-yōm. 'I will be absent (from work or school) today.' cf. in Gulf dialects, أبسنت absɨnt

A couple of highlights from today: 1. My dear friends slaughtered a goat from their farm the morning of my visit. 2. When I described where I grew up, they said "It's kind of the Fujairah of America, isn't it?" Yes. Yes, it is. ❤️

Spending the day in Masafi (Fujairah), not to be confused with neighboring Masafi (Ras Al Khaimah) 🤩

Toddler English word of the day cucumber ≈ computer 🥒 = 💻