And then there’s over-the-top Venda citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?rep...

In al-Awabi Arabic (Oman), the prefix vowel of imperfect verbs is generally determined by the place of articulation of the first root consonant: yi- if C1 is coronal or emphatic [!] yiḍḥuk, yiḍrub, yiṣbaġ, yiṭlub

"Nicht mehr internationale Spitze" Jedes Jahr wird weltweit überprüft, wie frei Wissenschaftler arbeiten können. Jetzt ist Deutschland beim "Academic Freedom Index" aus der Spitzengruppe gefallen. Was steckt dahinter? Ein Interview. Im Tagesspiegel & im #WiardaBlog: www.jmwiarda.de/2025/03/13/n...

It has been a great DGfS conference last week in Mainz! I hope I could show that Syriac can contribute to our understanding of cyclic phonology. #DGfS47 #DGfS2025

the real outlier is #Romanian, which, I think, doesn't have a single example of such prothetic vowels in inherited #Latin words. which points either to early diatopic variation in this regard or to different word-initial phonotactic tendencies.

More than 40 downloads in just 2 days! So far and by far, the most downloaded paper of the volume. A big thank you to all who've read (or are reading) the paper! revistes.uab.cat/catjl/articl... #linguistics #academicsky

(1) How did Syriac end up with different 1s, 2ms perfect forms ket̠bet̠ vs. kt̠ab̠t, if the ancestors are katabt-u, katabt-a? (2) Why does 3fs show /e/ if the ancestor is katab-at? (3) Does 2fs show deletion of a *long* -ī (*katab-tī)? 1pl can be kt̠ab̠n, where's the -ā of *-nā?

It's finally there! My first publication as a single author: "Is there really root-and-pattern morphology?" revistes.uab.cat/catjl/articl... Arabic, (no!) roots & patterns, theoretical phonology and morphology, it's all there! #Arabic - #linguistics - #langsky - #phonology

"Arabisch zu sprechen, gefährdet die öffentliche Sicherheit", begründet die Polizei ihr Sprachverbot und kriminalisiert damit pauschal eine Sprache und die Menschen, die sie sprechen. Berliner Behörden müssen das Recht auf Protest und Nicht-Diskriminierung für alle wahren!

#OTD 139 years ago, Maria Klingenheben-von Tiling (1886-1974) was born 🥳 In her research, she specialised in the Cushitic and Bantu languages of Africa, such as Somali and Swahili, respectively. She was active at the Hamburg Colonial Institute. #WomenInLinguistics #Histlx #LinguisticBirthdays

In Germany, the word RECHTS 'right' has undergone an interesting semantic shift. Concerning politics, it just meant 'conservative'. But now, many use it as 'far-right (populist)'. Being conservative is nothing wrong. But this is not what ppl demonstrate against.

“A gradient-based preference for sonority markedness constraints in reading: evidence for intact phonological grammar in developmental dyslexia” by Norbert Maïonchi-Pino and Élise Runge www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This is censorship, full frontal attack on academic freedom by any means.

Phonology cannot alter morphology but only phonological exponents! A good example of avoidance of obligatory vowel contrast in stressed positions! (1/n)

CALL FOR PAPERS! I'm happy to announce the 41st Wetzlarer Tage der Phantastik: Beyond Elvish: Constructed Languages in Fantastic Worlds. 12th - 14th of September 2025, Phantastische Bibliothek Wetzlar, Germany. Submission deadline: 28th of February 2025 www.phantastik.eu/veranstaltun...

Foreign language taste says more about the ppl who say "I (dis)like the sound of ..." than about the respective languages. Of course I have my phonesthetic preferences, but *familiarity* is a major factor in foreign language assessment. Cf. Reiterer et al. 2020, www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I'm a formal phonologist. This field is/was kind of dominated by men (Halle, Kiparsky, Vennemann, Prince, Smolensky ...). Considering that more than ¾ of the students in my phonology class are women, I decided to present some inspiring female phonologists and their work. (1/2)

William Labov is overleden. Een van de inspirerendste taalwetenschappers die ik heb gekend. Een in memoriam. neerlandistiek.nl/2024/12/in-m...

How to say the fire 🔥 in different languages - #Semitic: Arabic: نار nār Syriac: ܐܫܬܐ ʼešāṯā Bibl. Hebrew: אש ʼēš Gəʿəz: እሳት ʼəsat Tigrinya: ሓዊ ḥawwi Akkadian: išātu(m) Mehri: śīwōṭ

When I started with cuneiform, I learned the "monumental" form of the Old Babylonian period from a primer. But the main bunch of forms, I learned from Atrahasis - Old Babylonian, but cursive. While reading the epos, I made at least 100 flashcards and trained with them.

The interrogative 'why' in #Semitic languages: - Classical Arabic: li-māðā - Palestinian Arabic: (ʕa-)lē(š) - Modern Hebrew: la-ma - Syriac: l-mānā - Turoyo: l-mən - Old Ethiopic: bä-ʼəntä mənt - Amharic: lä-mən - Mehri: hɛːɬən ~ wə-koːh - Akkadian: ana mīni(m) ~ ammīni(m) (1/2)

The Oxford handbook of vowel harmony by Nancy A. Ritter and Harry van der Hulst (eds.), OUP, 2024 global.oup.com/academic/pro...

#linguistics - How students vs. researchers think about phonology: Students: - In language history, x happened because of y - The letters/sounds Bee, Dee, Gee ... - Ease/difficulty explains everything (1/2)

Doku-Tipp für Tolkien-Fans! www.arte.tv/de/videos/11...

English names were translated directly from Japanese, but then German and many other names from English rather than the original Japanese. So it’s Nockchan and Kicklee in German. I don’t know about Mandarin or Cantonese. There is very little information that Pokémon reveals about the whole process.

#Romanian saying of the day: Soare cu dinți. 'Sun with teeth.' Said when it's sunny but very cold outside. I.e. with clattering teeth. #langsky

This slide is from my phonology class this semester. In my preparations, I've accidently learned that the meaning of Māori *moana* is 'sea'! Didn't know that before! I suppose it's similar/the same in other Oceanic languages. #langsky #Moana

National Linguistics Day (UK) - Tue 26th Nov! www.linguisticshq.co.uk/national-lin... Spread the word about what an exciting discipline it is to study! Some ideas on how to participate at awareness-days.co.uk/awareness-da... #NationalLinguisticsDay #Linguistics please share!

"Schwa is never stressed" is a saying I really hate. It screams eurocentrism. Cf.: - Syrian Arabic: [ˈʁər.fe] 'room', [ˈmə.dən] 'cities' - Amharic: [ˈnə.gə] 'tomorrow', [ˈsəb.bə.rə] 'he broke (sth.)'. - Kwak'wala: [tʼə.tʼə.ˈkʷʼəs] 'fish hawk', [nəp.ˈbəs] 'always throwing rocks' #langsky

What do you think is the language WALS calls "Gwari"? The same applies to its major reference, Hyman & Magaji (1970).

Considering Classical Arabic, I should start using the conjunctive in my 1st language (🇩🇪) in context of negation + perfect or future tense.

🇩🇪 blau 🇬🇧 blue 🇮🇹🦳 caeruleus 🇬🇷🦳 γλαυκός (glaukós) 🇵🇸 أزرق ~ إزرأ (ʔazraq ~ ʔizraʔ) 🇳🇴🇩🇰🇸🇪 blå 🇹🇷✝️ ܙܪܩܐ (zarqā ~ zarqo) 🇮🇱 כחול (kaxol) 🇪🇷🇪🇹🦳 ኵሕሊ (kʷəħli) #langsky

A slide from my current linguistics class "The Syllable". I try to show my students both the respective basics (mainly stuff from the 80s) AND current research, such as this map taken from @ianjoo.bsky.social & Hsu (2024). I love their database, the Phonotacticon! #langsky

Since June we have a cat! Say hi to Kēli! Although her name means 'cat' in High Valyrian, she likes Aramaic, Hebrew and theoretical phonology very much as one can see by means of my books.

It's time. Let me know if I missed you or if you'd like to be taken off the list.

Bye bye Netherlands! You've been a leading country in science+research. In both of my subjects (Semitics & linguistics), Dutch researchers are among the best in the world. But a very outdated ideology made you do so. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Dear colleagues around the world, As you may know, the Netherlands has, since this summer, been governed by a radical right-wing administration with an agenda reminiscent of Orbán's Hungary.

Parma Eldalamberon, No. 23, "The Feanorian Alphabet, Part 2" and "Eldarin Pronouns" by J. R. R. Tolkien, is now available on demand: app.thebookpatch.com/BookStore/pa...

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #722.428! Thank you for the invitation, @tlakamasako.bsky.social!

The word 'fairy' is related to 'infantry' and 'professor'. And that's not all: these words are also related to 'fate', 'fatal', 'fame', 'fable', and 'to confess'. They all come from Latin words derived from a stem meaning "to speak". Click the infographic to learn how:

Yesterday, I got the reviews of my 1st single author paper. Review 2 has very constructive criticism. But review 1 is ... what the hell. It's devastating. It's written in a very emotional, personal way. The reviewer has been excluded by the journal from the rest of the review process. #academia

Zwei Nächte faszinierende Aktenlektüre und packendes Parlamentsfernsehen…

Today working on a problem of Syriac phonology, I (nearly) faced the dread of every Stratal OT phonologist: intra-stratal opacity! (But luckily I think I can avoid it.) I felt its deadly breath. #linguistics

Great idea with Eritrean/Ethiopian cuisine at a wine festival! But I wish they would have written "Eritrean" or "Ethiopian" not "African". It's like saying "paella and black pudding belong to the same cuisine since both are European dishes."

Sometimes I feel like a traitor to one of my former and favourite professors. I learned so much. But still I neglected his advice. In a one to one conversation, he once warned me about Distributed Morphology. And now ... treason! #linguistics

It's confirmed: In July, I'm going to participate in the 2nd International Conference on Constructed Languages (I-CONlangs II), this year in Orléans 🇫🇷 My contributions: - What is the consonantal phoneme inventory of Quenya? (talk) - Horn - a "stony" conlang for Prime Video's The Gryphon (poster)

Two #Semitic words of the day 🖐🏽🌳 *yad- 'hand, arm' - Akkadian idu(m) 'arm, side' - Arabic يد yad 'hand, forleg' - Hebrew יד yād 'hand, forearm' - Syriac ܐܝܕܐ ʔīdā 'hand, arm' - Old Ethiopic እድ ʔəd 'hand' - Mehri ḥayd 'hand, arm' (1/2)

It's my first day as scholarship holder for my PhD. I can finally read and write without bothering about limited time and money. I'm eventually free! I can do what my passion and expertise are good for. I can be me. A great thank thank you to the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung for making that possible