Just got blocked by a guy who didn’t like it that I objected to his claim that (in so many words) ICE was just using Israeli techniques. Funded by the American military industrial complex etc. Depressing considering he’s a very good scholar in his field.

Is banū tamīm the name of a tribe? Sībawayhi is unequivocal: no. Tamīm used in this way is the name of the patriarch: sons of tamīm. But tamīm as a diptote is the name of a tribe (قبيلة).

Howsabout a nation-wide general strike?

Memo to our so-called representatives in Congress: you do have the power to put an end to the lawlessness by ousting the Criminal-in-Chief.

If the dems had any cohones they would shut down the entire govt NOW.

How long before Satan declares martial law and sends in the Army?

Edward Gibson's new book has arrived on my desk – 350 pages on cognitively-oriented dependency syntax from MIT Press! mitpress.mit.edu/978026255357... For me, this is an exciting development, as I came to love dependency syntax in the 1980s, through European authors such as Tesnière and Mel'čuk.

The shit is hitting the fan, everybody acknowledges that. The interesting question is why. Is Trump the cause or the symptom? Nothing in history is inevitable. If it wasn’t Trump would the same thing (unraveling of the post WW2 consensus etc) happen anyway one way or another?

Here's a shocker. Khwarizmi's book originating algebra is الكتاب المختصر في الجبر والمقابلة . Do you read المقابلة (as most do and I always have) as something involving balancing or equivalencing? Well maybe not. Lisaan al-Arab: إذا ضمَمْتَ شيئا إلى شيءٍ قُلتَ قابلتُه به . Suggesting a very different sense

Is the fate of American democracy now in the hands of Minnesotans? They helped save the Union over 100 years ago.

Dear influencers: I appreciate your attention, following me even though you haven’t the foggiest idea what I’m talking about. It’s very flattering, especially when you have pretty girl icons! Regretfully I cannot follow you back. No offense it’s just a thing I have.

Am I the only one who thinks Michael Carter’s ethico-legal interpretation of Sībawayhi is utterly preposterous?

Holy smokes! My poster child for “great artist, bad person” has always been Gesualdo. Maybe I should reevaluate.

Chomsky: “… no notion of analogy or similarity will be of any help at all in explaining the core properties of language.” (chomsky.info/languageandp...) Sībawayhi’s masterful explanation of Arabic is almost entirely based on analogy. Who ya gonna buleev?

Sib ch. 205 treats ها of هذا etc. in some detail, including ها أنا ذا . The ها is for التنبيه not التوكيد . www.sibawayhi.org/kitab/205/

The American people (who elected Trump) clearly do not understand what is happening. RIP American democracy. It was a helluva ride.

Kitāb Sībawayhi ch. 285 translation draft 1 available. This is the first in a series of articles on انصراف ("diptotes" in Western terminology). www.sibawayhi.org/kitab/285/

Kitāb Sībawayhi ch. 10 translation draft 1 available. Topic: object complements for both transitive and intransitive verbs. All verbs "step to" their masdars and nouns of place and time. www.sibawayhi.org/kitab/010

Kitāb Sībawayhi: translation of ch. 9 now available. Topic: complements of intransitive and passive verb. Feedback welcome. www.sibawayhi.org/kitab/009/

Kitāb Sībawayhi: initial editing of Part I is now complete! www.sibawayhi.org/initial-edit...

Another fascinating bit from Sībawayhi, ch. 124: saying هذا مَنْ لا أرفُ منطلقًا is equivalent to هذا الذي قد علِمتُ أنّي لا أعْرفُهُ منطلقًا Note the clear distinction between علم and عرف. How to translate? Know, learn, recognize? Or grok?

Translate: هذا أوَّلُ فارسٍ مُقْبِلٌ Sībawayhi ch. 125.

Here’s a great mystery which afaik nobody has addressed. Why do the Arabic names of letters involve “extra” letters? E.g. why is د named dāl instead of dā’? Where the hell did that lām come from?

The great Pinker posted this on X : “For ecumenical word nerds: Arabic "Hikma," wisdom, is homologous to Hebrew "chochma," which is the "Ch" in Chabad ("chochma," wisdom, "bina," understanding, "daat," knowledge).” I do not trust him and I don’t think he knows either language.

The whole “imālah” (إمالة) thing. Surely I’m not the first to think it’s basically trivial. You say ضارب no imālah. You say كاتب, imālah. Former: /a/ as in father, latter, /a/ as in cat. Not that complicated.

Is Steven Pinker the worst “public intellectual” of our time? A monolingual psychologist who promotes (without fully understanding) discredited theories of language. And now he’s trashing Oliver Sacks based on reporting from The New Yorker, while saying in the same breath that it can’t be trusted.

Pop quiz: in ch.119 Sībawayhi give two distinct readings of هذا عبدُ الله منطلقٌ. Can you?

One of the most fascinating aspects of Sībawayhi is his treatment of “nominal mood” for lack of a better term. Ch. 116 : أتاني زيدٌ الفاسقَ الخبيثَ note the نصب (accusative). You don’t say that (with accusative) to describe Zayd but to insult/condemn him. The inflection seems to be “modal”.

Re: Carter’s “Ethico-legal hypothesis”, which says that Sībawayhi just applied legal thinking to language, or something like that. Absurd in many ways but most obviously: …

Rereading some papers on Sībawayhi by Carter, Baalbaki, etc. My god it’s depressing. Most of it is total rubbish, often reads like a perverse parody of the real thing. I guess when nobody else can read the original you’re free to push your version, no matter how anachronistic and unhistorical.

Here’s a good one: هٰذَا بَاْبُ مَا يَعْمَلُ عَمَلَ الْفِعْلِ وَلَمْ يَجْرِ مَجْرَى الْفِعْلِ وَلَمْ يَتَمَكَّنْ تَمَكُّنَهُ and then وَذٰلِكَ قَوْلُكَ مَا أَحْسَنَ عَبْدَ اللهِ. Sībawayhi chapter 22. Whatsat mean? Works like a verb but doesn’t run like a verb?

First rule of scholarship: pay attention! Western scholars are puzzled by the “conditional” in Sībawayhi, because لو is not treated by him as a conditional. The reason is OBVIOUS: الجزاء does NOT mean conditional! It means something like “requital”. Ie it involves a notion of consequence.

Another memo to Arabists: الجزاء does NOT mean “conditional! Western writers routinely botch this because they confuse language and logic. They treat conditionals as involving a protasis and apodosis, both of which are (supposedly) truth-apt. So they’re puzzled by لو which is not a “conditional”.

Memo to Arabists: negation and denial are not the same. It’s not clear whether Sibawayhi understood the difference when using eg نفي but it is clear that treating this as negation is often wrong.

Everybody agrees Arabic doesn’t have “true” adverbs. But does it have true adjectives? Unequivocally: no!

What exactly does اللهُ أكبر "Allahu akbar" mean? Sībawayhi tells us in chapter 110: وَلٰكِنَّهُ حَذَفَ ذٰلِكَ اسْتِخْفَاْفًا كَمَا تَقُوْلُ أَنْتَ أَفْضَلُ وَلَا تَقُوْلُ مِنْ أَحَدٍ وَكَمَا تَقُوْل اللهُ أَكْبَرُ وَمَعْنَاْهُ الله أَكْبَرُ مِنْ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَكَمَا تَقُوْلُ لَا مَاْلَ وَلَا تَقُوْلُ لَكَ وَمَا يُشْبِهُهُ وَمِثْلُ هٰذَا كَثِيْرٌ It's a truncated version of "Allahu akbar min kulli shay'"

Think you know Arabic? Explain the difference between مررتُ بزيدٍ الطويلِ and مرربُ بزيدٍ كلِّ الرجلِ. Both الطويل and كلِّ الرجل count as صفة “adjective” but according to Sībawayhi they function in very different ways.

Is there anything worse in life than a piano player with no sense of rhythm playing Billy Joel and Elton John songs? Talk about losing the will to live!

Chapters 9-99 of the Kitāb have now all been edited at least once. Full tashkīl, fine-grained segmentation, color-coded typesetting (easy to pick out his demo dicta أقوال). www.sibawayhi.org/kitab/

It's so amazing to me that "A Grammar of Mandan" already has almost 900 downloads after being put online less than a year ago! It's amazing to see how Open Access publishing really boosts visibility, so I'm pleased to see more publishers go that direction.

Misreading "mood" in the Kitāb of Sībawayhi: the subjunctive www.sibawayhi.org/misreading-m...

It must be said: the bluesky ui totally stinks.

I will never forget having to edit Jamal’s final, posthumous piece for the Washington Post, after he was murdered. He was calling for free expression in the Arab world. You can read it here : www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/glo...

I see Steven Pinker has a new popsci book out. Carl Hiaasen also has a new book out. Based on previous research, I’m gonna guess the latter is more scientific.

Question for real historians: what is the earliest documented claim that the divine message was revealed in the language of the Arabs? Excluding the Quran itself I mean. Sībawayhi is very explicit about this. Prior evidence?

“postcolonial lenses”? Where can I get me some? I’m not seeing anything on Warby Parker.

“premodern blackface performance” is a phrase that was actually written in this. What does it mean? Like the Trinity, it’s a mystery.

How do you translate ما أنت إلّا سيرَ البريد سيرَ البريد ? Sib. ch. 70. “Going postal”?

Fuck. I guess I’m gonna have to learn a little Hebrew. (I’m too old for this shit!) At the very least I need to learn the letters. What’s the best (free) online resource for this?

Sībawayhi is incredibly irenic in general but I think he must have been a little cantankerous. He doesn’t mind saying that this or that expression is ugly, vile, disgusting etc. even when he’s talking about Al-Khalīl. Also explains lots of insults. Ch. 75: إنّما أنت شُرْبَ الإبل “you drink like a camel”