Dutch "aarzelen" 'to hesitste, waver' is derived from "aars" 'arse', German "Arsch". It was formed based on French "reculer" 'move backwards' from "cul" 'arse'. English "arsle" is cognate. Sadly, the German cognate *arschelen (or *ärschelen?) is not used. #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

I made a little app to help myself remember German vocabulary. In the interest of efficiency and correct pronunciation, it uses the Google speech-to-text API. It asks you for an English word and you respond with the German in the format article + noun + pl or just the verb or uninflected adj.

Want to get a PhD in Yiddish or Hebrew? Or Yiddish AND Hebrew? We are accepting applications for the PhD in Jewish Languages & Literatures! Please help me get the word out! @jhuartssciences.bsky.social

Right now my core deliverable is drinking coffee

Just received my first submitted manuscript for Oxford Semitic Languages and Linguistics 😎 Just two small problems: I'm not involved with that series, and also, it doesn't seem to exist. 🤖

You gotta love how Caucasians literally undo centuries of sound changes to pronounce Arabic (voiceless) emphatics as ejectives. Listen to this Chechen woman’s طيف as тӀойф. youtube.com/shorts/dicGm...

What I love about the Hebrew Bible, more than anything else, is it's a collection of viral meme templates that have been in continuous use by shitposters since before recorded history began

Is Saudi in #Arabic al-suʕūdiyya or al-saʕūdiyya? If the former, why a in Saudi—does it represent the ayn?

#TIL that it's the Persian Wars that separate the Greek Archaic period (800–480) from the Classical one (480–323). Basic to people in the field I'm sure, but new to me.

Being available; sharing network and resources; giving timely feedback; offering opportunities and learning moments (e.g. co-reviewing a paper, organising a conference, co-presenting - these are things you have to learn somehow). Oh and be kind - there is enough harshness in academia.

badb s. bodb s. badb s. bodb ...

De beren in de bus smeren brood brood brood Brood brood brood Brood brood brood De beren in de bus smeren brood brood brood O, het is een wonder

might cause me to get disbarred as a linguist but I just wrapped individual pieces of lasagne up in tin foil and wrote "lasagnum" on them in a Sharpie, cracking up internally

Thanks google very useful

Looks like Levantine #Arabic ʕuṭle 'holiday' and ʕāṭil 'bad' are from the same root, probably in the sense of the Classical verb ʕaṭila 'to lack, be idle'.

"Nah, I'm a lifelong Greens supporter" - Ancient Romans when asked if they're White

The debuccalization of *q and its consequences have been a disaster for the Levantine dialects.

I was today years old (the Swahili derivation).

Maybe one month of hearing the guy in my Levantine Arabic course say 'again' and only now I realize that it's marra tānye 'a second time' and not some weird Classical nominative dual like marratāni 😭

"Daisy" comes from Old English dæġes ēage [ˈdæ.jes ˌæ͜ɑː.ɣe], which literally means "day's eye."

Buried the lede: "(Premium users can also converse with Satan.)"

A brilliant thread by my brilliant friend @bnuyaminim.bsky.social. But let's think about this circumstantial evidence a bit more. Are names really indicative of one's language or ethnicity (hard to pin that down actually)? This Nabataean from NW Arabia belongs to the clan of Banī Baʿlnatan...

#TIL the #Arabic word for the mail, barīd, is from #Latin veredus 'light horse' (via Greek), making it a distant cognate of #Dutch paard and #German Pferd. The Latin word was borrowed from #Celtic – can't imagine there are very many other Celtic words in Arabic! 📧🐎

@nathanielbdemiller.bsky.social look how pleased with himself he looks

Which ancient Egyptian was most modest about their views? Imho tep

🗿NABATAEAN NEWS🗿 Recently (2024), Laïla Nehmé published four #Nabataean texts from a burial site in north-western Saudi Arabia. Three are very fragmentary, but the fourth is the longest Nabataean text on stone found so far! Two things that stood out to me: 1/6

Was there really an oral Hebrew Masora before the written one? My latest article questions this widely held assumption. It's open access, and you can read it here: www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116...

sorry but you met me at a very don't do peer reviews time in my life

Jews think of an original boy's name challenge, Biblical edition

Cool, I mean, 𐢓𐢞𐢓𐢇

Ever wonder where the name Gaylord comes from? I did. It's from the Old French surname Gaillard (from gaillard (“strong”)), brought to England by the Normans. The spelling is the result of folk etymology.

What's up with #Arabic adjectives like suḫn 'hot', ḥulw 'sweet'? Normally, *CuCC- adjectives shouldn't be reconstructible. They look like abstract nouns; was there a development like 'food of sweetness' > 'sweet food', with reanalysis?

The deadline for the Incoming and Outgoing Mobility Grants, the Conference Grant and the Student Research Assistant funding is coming up soon: the 15th of November. For more information, see the NINO funding page: buff.ly/gwxlsvl

It’s that day, y’all. Time to do some Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald posting…

genuinely curious: what, according to my academic followers, are characteristics of good doctoral supervision?

Today in linguistic example sentences 🍅 (Source: Gueche Fotso's 2024 illustration of resumptive pronouns for left-dislocated topics in Nda'Nda')

I offer you the turkeytail mushrooms in our back garden

Hot take: if you post something nice and then go on to explain how crucial it is to find some distraction from the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad state of the world these days, that second part kind of ruins your post's distraction potential.

I am loving the layout of Ben's latest abecedarium! 😁 Kind of Ancient North Arabian style, what do you think?

So this is cool. If I understand correctly, German für ultimately goes back to a PIE locative *préh₂-i, while G. vor goes back to a PIE dative *prh₂-éi. Different Ablaut grade in the root (lost in Germanic) and ending.

One metric assload

Beat history names part III Ziyād ibn Abīh (Ziad son of his father) Herman the German Yaroslav the Eight-Minded Shoeless Joe Jackson Theodosius The Calligrapher Billy the Kid Sviatopolk the Accursed Ivan Moneybags

early career scholar and their first publication

Nice use of versjteren < #Yiddish פֿערשטערען fershteren 'to spoil', cf. #German verstören.

"quote" and "quoth" are not related. Quote is from Medieval Latin (via French) quotāre (“to distinguish by numbers, number chapters”), itself from Latin quotus (“which, what number"). Quoth is from ME quoth, quath, from OE cwæþ (first and third person past indicative of cweþan = to say).

Have a look at Peter Huber's "On the Old Babylonian Understanding of Sumerian Grammar" available at cdli.earth/articles/cdl...

Favourite sentences from my Levantine #Arabic course so far: rāyḥa laḥalab 'I'm/you're/she's going to Aleppo' ʔēmta btibda? 'When does it (f.) start?' bfaḍḍel ʔibʔa bilbēt 'I prefer to stay at home'

well, it finally happened, as I always knew it would. I am so exhausted I looked at the cover of Roald Dahl's "BFG" and ask 5yo if he wanted to listen to the "Big Fucking Giant" audiobook

sure, masoretes, this is referring to Daniel, a figure who even according to a literalist reading of its very figurative book live at the same time as Ezekiel, and not Danel father of Aqhat, a righteous non-Israelite of great antiquity who failed to save people alongside two other righteous etc.