Historical and comparative linguistics Books

Book SynopsisThis is the ninth volume of Babel und Bibel, an annual of ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Semitic studies. The principal goal of the annual is to reveal the inherent relationship between Assyriology, Semitics, and biblical studies—a relationship that our predecessors comprehended and fruitfully explored but that is often neglected today. The title Babel und Bibel is intended to point to the possibility of fruitful collaboration among the three disciplines, in an effort to explore the various civilizations of the ancient Near East.This volume includes as a major portion of its contents selected papers from the 6th Biannual Meeting of the International Association for Comparative Semitics.Table of ContentsSelected Papers Presented at the 6th Biannual Meeting of the International Association for Comparative SemiticsMaria Bulakh. Was There a Color Term *ḥmr in Proto-Semitic?Gregorio del Olmo Lete. The Use of the Infinitive in Sequential Constructions in UgariticYulia Furman, Sergey Loesov. Notes on Historical Morphology of TuroyoViktor Golinets. Amorite Animal Names: Cognates for the Semitic Etymological DictionaryOlga Kapeliuk. Neo-Semitic: New Verb Forms, New UsageGeoffrey Khan. Remarks on Roots and Stems in Christian Urmi Dialect of Neo-AramaicManfred Krebernik. Etymological and Historical Problems Concerning Akkadian tamkaru “merchant”Tania Notarius. The Second-Person Non-Negated Jussive in the Language of Ugaritic Poetry in Comparative Semitic PerspectivePeter Stein. The Cohortative in Biblical Hebrew – Subjunctive or Energic? A New Approach from the Sabaic PerspectiveOlga Stolbova. Ethiosemitic – Chadic Lexical ParallelsGábor Takács. Semitic "Fat": Some New EtymologiesEulàlia Vernet. Etymologischer Ursprung der reduplizierten und geminierten Wurzeln im Proto-SemitischenMariona Vernet. Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Semitic Verbal Root Incompatibilities: A New Typological ApproachOther StudiesAncient Near Eastern StudiesArticlesEnrique Jiménez. May the Reader Not Withhold the Tablet! On a Formula in Late Babylonian ColophonsReviewsM. Maiocchi. Classical Sargonic Tablets Chiefly from Adab in the Cornell University Collections (E. Markina)A. Kloekhorst. Accent in Hittite: A Study in Plene Spelling, Consonant Gradation, Clitics, and Metrics. (A. Sideltsev, M. Molina)Semitic StudiesArticlesT. Fain, J. N. Ford, A. Lyavdansky. Aramaic Incantation Bowls at the State Hermitage Museum, St. PetersburgShort NotesL. Kogan, A. I. al-Daʿrhi, K. McNeer. VitalyN. Kuzin, S. Loesov. The Sun Also Rises: ko-saləq u=yawmoOld Testament StudiesArticlesC. von Büttner. "My God Was My Help": A Note on the Great Isaiah Scroll (Isa 49:5)Abbreviations of Periodicals, Reference Works, Series, Sources, and Languages

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Book SynopsisThis book is the first wide-ranging study of the grammar of the Babylonian Aramaic used in the Talmud and post-Talmudic Babylonian literature (henceforth: Rabbinic Babylonian Aramaic) to be published in English in a century. The book takes as its starting point the long-recognized problem of the corrupt nature of the later textual witnesses of Babylonian Rabbinic literature and seeks both to establish criteria for the identification of accurate textual witnesses and describe the grammar of Rabbinic Babylonian Aramaic. The book is both programmatic and descriptive: it lays the foundations for future research into the dialect while clarifying numerous points of grammar, many of which have not been discussed systematically in the available scholarly literature. Following a critical survey of the currently available scholarly tools, the book considers the rôle of the Yemenite textual and reading traditions in the study of Rabbinic Babylonian Aramaic. While some previous authorities have regarded this tradition as a primary source for grammatical study of the dialect, by comparing the data of the earliest manuscripts to the forms employed in the Yemenite traditions, the present book demonstrates that the Yemenite traditions have been subject to secondary changes. Accordingly, it is concluded here that only the early eastern manuscripts preserve the dialect in its original form.The next chapter considers the problem of linguistic variation within the corpus. It is well established that the Talmudic literature employs a wide range of alternative grammatical forms. Several explanations have been proposed for this phenomenon. Some authorities have suggested that it arises from dialectal differences, while others have proposed that it represents the use of different literary registers. An alternative explanation is that the language was altered during the course of textual transmission. This study shows that none of these explanations can account for the wide extent of the phenomenon, which is found in the best textual witnesses and in ostensibly uniform contexts. It is argued that all of proposed explanations may partially account for the interchanges but, ultimately, the lack of a literary standard leads to the use of different forms. Syntax is often regarded as being one of the linguistic areas least affected by textual transmission. However, the early manuscripts show that Rabbinic Babylonian Aramaic employs a defined series of syntactic structures to mark the direct object. This clearly defined complimentary distribution is lost in the later textual witnesses, which use the structures interchangeably. It is thus shown that, for syntactic study, too, only a small group of textual witnesses can be regarded as reliable.

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Book SynopsisThis study offers a synchronic and diachronic account of the Biblical Hebrew verbal tense system during the Second Temple period, based on the books of Esther, Daniel, and Ezra and Nehemiah, along with the non-synoptic parts of Chronicles. In analyzing the development of this system, Cohen discerns the changes that mark the transition from the classical era to the Second Temple period. The book is divided into two main parts: a survey of previous research along with the methodology of the present study; and a descriptive analysis of the verbal system in late biblical prose literature. In the first section, the author discusses the eclectic nature of the biblical corpus, including the ramifications of this heterogeneity on linguistic efforts to for­mulate a synchronic structural account of its texts. Moreover, he surveys the principal linguistic concepts of tense, aspect, and mood, and the ver­bal paradigm’s complex nature. The second part of the book offers a synchronic account of the Second Temple period verbal system. It features a categorical breakdown and analysis of all the verb forms in the corpus’s prose texts. The author examines the reasons behind these changes by dint of a diachronic comparison with other strata of the Hebrew language—namely, biblical texts of the First Temple period, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the language of the Sages.

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Book SynopsisLinguistic and Genetic (mtDNA) Connections between Native Peoples of Alaska and California: Ancient Mariners of the Middle Holocene traces the linguistic and biological connections between contemporary Aleut people of southwest Alaska and historic Utian people of central California. During the Middle Holocene Period, Aleut and Utian languages diverged from their common parent language, Proto-Aleut-Utian (PAU), spoken by people who resided on or near Kodiak Island in coastal southwest Alaska. Around the time of divergence, Utians departed the PAU homeland, migrating by watercraft along the eastern Pacific coast to the San Francisco Bay Area. The affiliation between Aleut and Utian languages is strongly supported by comparative linguistics and by the genetic link (mtDNA) of groups speaking these languages. On their migration, Utians encountered coastal groups speaking languages different from their own. Through these prolonged and intimate interactions, words were borrowed from

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Book SynopsisOf all the theological issues discussed in Christian circles, few have received more attention than the New Testament "gift of tongues." Were the tongues at Corinth "real languages," or something else? Some charismatics and an assortment of sympathetic observers, spurred on by modern linguistic analyses of audio recordings of modern tongues vocalizations, argue that modern tongues and the tongues in Corinth alike are not real languages at all. The questions Bruce Edminster seeks to answer in The Gift of Tongues include whether the Corinthian gift is the same as the one found in the book of Acts, what is the meaning and significance of the word "edification" in the context of the Corinthian phenomenon, and is the gift of tongues "real" language, the language of the angels, or a non-language? Further consideration asks what should the "gift of tongues" should be used for? Evangelism? Personal devotion? Self-gratification?

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Book SynopsisThe Russian language has evolved into a lingua franca in post-Soviet immigrant communities, prompting an analysis of its use in different domains. Everyday Linguistic and Cultural Practices of the Russophone Diaspora explores the language maintenance of Russian abroad, emphasizing the role of educational ventures and transnational communications facilitated by the internet. This book researches specific aspects of migrant life, including occupational practices, homemaking, family dynamics, cultural engagement, and linguistic hybridity, and makes use of extensive empirical data spanning Soviet, post-Soviet, and non-Soviet migrant generations collected from European, North American, and Asian communities. Relations between different migration waves are not always friendly, but are mediated through online discussion forums, which help to foster mutual understanding. Like all migrants, Russophones seek better opportunities by establishing new homes, revealing intergenerational differences in lifestyle and adaptation. This volume focuses on the emigration waves between 1990 and 2020, and points to shifts in values and migration expectations and reflecting on the evolution of diasporic communities and the dynamic adaptation of the Russian language.

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