#geez — Public Fediverse posts

#Ge'ez inscriptions along the top: dagəmawi mənelək nəguśä nägäśt zä-ʾityoṗya 'Menelik the second, King of Kings of Ethiopia' (left) moʿa ʾanbäsa zä-ʾəm-nägädä yəhuda 'The lion that is from the tribe of Judah has conquered' (right)

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2bgp6ilfohfngg6ehiyqctxt/post/3mk3n2ya6yk2b

#Ge'ez inscriptions along the top: dagəmawi mənelək nəguśä nägäśt zä-ʾityoṗya 'Menelik the second, King of Kings of Ethiopia' (left) moʿa ʾanbäsa zä-ʾəm-nägädä yəhuda 'The lion that is from the tribe of Judah has conquered' (right)

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2bgp6ilfohfngg6ehiyqctxt/post/3mk3n2ya6yk2b

#Ge'ez inscriptions along the top: dagəmawi mənelək nəguśä nägäśt zä-ʾityoṗya 'Menelik the second, King of Kings of Ethiopia' (left) moʿa ʾanbäsa zä-ʾəm-nägädä yəhuda 'The lion that is from the tribe of Judah has conquered' (right)

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2bgp6ilfohfngg6ehiyqctxt/post/3mk3n2ya6yk2b

#Ge'ez inscriptions along the top: dagəmawi mənelək nəguśä nägäśt zä-ʾityoṗya 'Menelik the second, King of Kings of Ethiopia' (left) moʿa ʾanbäsa zä-ʾəm-nägädä yəhuda 'The lion that is from the tribe of Judah has conquered' (right)

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2bgp6ilfohfngg6ehiyqctxt/post/3mk3n2ya6yk2b

#Ge'ez inscriptions along the top: dagəmawi mənelək nəguśä nägäśt zä-ʾityoṗya 'Menelik the second, King of Kings of Ethiopia' (left) moʿa ʾanbäsa zä-ʾəm-nägädä yəhuda 'The lion that is from the tribe of Judah has conquered' (right)

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2bgp6ilfohfngg6ehiyqctxt/post/3mk3n2ya6yk2b

MAKE.👏 IT.👏MAKE.👏 SENSE.👏
#AbortionISaHumanRight
#LindseyGraham
#LiveYourTruth
#ComeOut
#GEEZ
#STFU
#GTFO
#TTTH
🖕🙄🖕

Transcription of the #Ge'ez: qəddəst śəllase

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5ap4d3goxphqsmt2xzse27f2/post/3ma7l7irip22t

Transcription of the #Ge'ez: qəddəst śəllase

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5ap4d3goxphqsmt2xzse27f2/post/3ma7l7irip22t

Transcription of the #Ge'ez: qəddəst śəllase

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5ap4d3goxphqsmt2xzse27f2/post/3ma7l7irip22t

Transcription of the #Ge'ez: qəddəst śəllase

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5ap4d3goxphqsmt2xzse27f2/post/3ma7l7irip22t

Transcription of the #Ge'ez: qəddəst śəllase

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5ap4d3goxphqsmt2xzse27f2/post/3ma7l7irip22t

New paper on ordinals

This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.

Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.

Enjoy!

#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic

New paper on ordinals

This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.

Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.

Enjoy!

#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic

New paper on ordinals

This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.

Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.

Enjoy!

#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic

New paper on ordinals

This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.

Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.

Enjoy!

#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic

New paper on ordinals

This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.

Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.

Enjoy!

#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic

Unintentional #Ge'ez on this shoebox (ሶ)

West Virginia deploys over 300 #NationalGuard troops to #DC on #DictatorDon's say-so.

Remember his #Jan6 claim that only Nancy #Pelosi had the authority to call up the Nat'l Guard to protect DC?

#Geez, I don't know if #MAGAts are more gullable or more stupid for believing his bull$#!+.

West Virginia deploys over 300 #NationalGuard troops to #DC on #DictatorDon's say-so.

Remember his #Jan6 claim that only Nancy #Pelosi had the authority to call up the Nat'l Guard to protect DC?

#Geez, I don't know if #MAGAts are more gullable or more stupid for believing his bull$#!+.

West Virginia deploys over 300 #NationalGuard troops to #DC on #DictatorDon's say-so.

Remember his #Jan6 claim that only Nancy #Pelosi had the authority to call up the Nat'l Guard to protect DC?

#Geez, I don't know if #MAGAts are more gullable or more stupid for believing his bull$#!+.

West Virginia deploys over 300 #NationalGuard troops to #DC on #DictatorDon's say-so.

Remember his #Jan6 claim that only Nancy #Pelosi had the authority to call up the Nat'l Guard to protect DC?

#Geez, I don't know if #MAGAts are more gullable or more stupid for believing his bull$#!+.

West Virginia deploys over 300 #NationalGuard troops to #DC on #DictatorDon's say-so.

Remember his #Jan6 claim that only Nancy #Pelosi had the authority to call up the Nat'l Guard to protect DC?

#Geez, I don't know if #MAGAts are more gullable or more stupid for believing his bull$#!+.

New publications and podcast

Busy year for publications (think that’s it for me this year):

Semitic *ʾilāh- and Hebrew אלהים‎: From plural ‘gods’ to singular ‘God’ (Open Access)

Abstract: The Biblical Hebrew word אלהים‎ is plural in form. Semantically and syntactically, however, it can be plural or singular. The stem of this noun can be reconstructed as * ʾilāh-. As already noted by Wellhausen, this looks like a broken plural of *ʾil-, the Proto-Semitic word for ‘god’. This article takes Wellhausen’s observation and uses it to explain the plural morphology of Hebrew אלהים‎. I argue that *ʾilāh- should be reconstructed with redundant plural suffixes in some parts of the paradigm. This reconstructed paradigm is preserved virtually unchanged in Archaic Biblical Hebrew. The reconstructed paradigm also explains the almost complete replacement of *ʾil- by *ʾilāh- in Aramaic and Arabic and allows us to reassess the reasons for the association between the lexeme ‘god’ and plural number. Consequently, earlier suggestions that see אלהים‎’s plural number as a reflection of pre-Yahwistic polytheism or as a marker of abstractness are no longer tenable.

The varying size of the Sodom coalition in Genesis 14 (in FS Tigchelaar; email me for a PDF)

Trying my hardest to find something that might interest newly retired KU Leuven professor Eibert Tigchelaar, I used some Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple literature as well as other textual and linguistic evidence to seek for order in the number of kings on Sodom’s side in Gen 14. Turns out that this closely aligns with other indications of different layers in this fascinating chapter: one about a local raid, one that may be a reworking of a lost epic, and a third one building on the combination of the first two. If you understand Dutch (or want to practice!), also check out this brand new episode of Timo Epping’s Oudheid, all about this question.

#AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #Bible #Canaanite #GeEz #Genesis #Hebrew #Hosea #linguistics #news #Phoenician #ProtoSemitic

New publications and podcast

Busy year for publications (think that’s it for me this year):

Semitic *ʾilāh- and Hebrew אלהים‎: From plural ‘gods’ to singular ‘God’ (Open Access)

Abstract: The Biblical Hebrew word אלהים‎ is plural in form. Semantically and syntactically, however, it can be plural or singular. The stem of this noun can be reconstructed as * ʾilāh-. As already noted by Wellhausen, this looks like a broken plural of *ʾil-, the Proto-Semitic word for ‘god’. This article takes Wellhausen’s observation and uses it to explain the plural morphology of Hebrew אלהים‎. I argue that *ʾilāh- should be reconstructed with redundant plural suffixes in some parts of the paradigm. This reconstructed paradigm is preserved virtually unchanged in Archaic Biblical Hebrew. The reconstructed paradigm also explains the almost complete replacement of *ʾil- by *ʾilāh- in Aramaic and Arabic and allows us to reassess the reasons for the association between the lexeme ‘god’ and plural number. Consequently, earlier suggestions that see אלהים‎’s plural number as a reflection of pre-Yahwistic polytheism or as a marker of abstractness are no longer tenable.

The varying size of the Sodom coalition in Genesis 14 (in FS Tigchelaar; email me for a PDF)

Trying my hardest to find something that might interest newly retired KU Leuven professor Eibert Tigchelaar, I used some Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple literature as well as other textual and linguistic evidence to seek for order in the number of kings on Sodom’s side in Gen 14. Turns out that this closely aligns with other indications of different layers in this fascinating chapter: one about a local raid, one that may be a reworking of a lost epic, and a third one building on the combination of the first two. If you understand Dutch (or want to practice!), also check out this brand new episode of Timo Epping’s Oudheid, all about this question.

#AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #Bible #Canaanite #GeEz #Genesis #Hebrew #Hosea #linguistics #news #Phoenician #ProtoSemitic

New publications and podcast

Busy year for publications (think that’s it for me this year):

Semitic *ʾilāh- and Hebrew אלהים‎: From plural ‘gods’ to singular ‘God’ (Open Access)

Abstract: The Biblical Hebrew word אלהים‎ is plural in form. Semantically and syntactically, however, it can be plural or singular. The stem of this noun can be reconstructed as * ʾilāh-. As already noted by Wellhausen, this looks like a broken plural of *ʾil-, the Proto-Semitic word for ‘god’. This article takes Wellhausen’s observation and uses it to explain the plural morphology of Hebrew אלהים‎. I argue that *ʾilāh- should be reconstructed with redundant plural suffixes in some parts of the paradigm. This reconstructed paradigm is preserved virtually unchanged in Archaic Biblical Hebrew. The reconstructed paradigm also explains the almost complete replacement of *ʾil- by *ʾilāh- in Aramaic and Arabic and allows us to reassess the reasons for the association between the lexeme ‘god’ and plural number. Consequently, earlier suggestions that see אלהים‎’s plural number as a reflection of pre-Yahwistic polytheism or as a marker of abstractness are no longer tenable.

The varying size of the Sodom coalition in Genesis 14 (in FS Tigchelaar; email me for a PDF)

Trying my hardest to find something that might interest newly retired KU Leuven professor Eibert Tigchelaar, I used some Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple literature as well as other textual and linguistic evidence to seek for order in the number of kings on Sodom’s side in Gen 14. Turns out that this closely aligns with other indications of different layers in this fascinating chapter: one about a local raid, one that may be a reworking of a lost epic, and a third one building on the combination of the first two. If you understand Dutch (or want to practice!), also check out this brand new episode of Timo Epping’s Oudheid, all about this question.

#AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #Bible #Canaanite #GeEz #Genesis #Hebrew #Hosea #linguistics #news #Phoenician #ProtoSemitic

New publications and podcast

Busy year for publications (think that’s it for me this year):

Semitic *ʾilāh- and Hebrew אלהים‎: From plural ‘gods’ to singular ‘God’ (Open Access)

Abstract: The Biblical Hebrew word אלהים‎ is plural in form. Semantically and syntactically, however, it can be plural or singular. The stem of this noun can be reconstructed as * ʾilāh-. As already noted by Wellhausen, this looks like a broken plural of *ʾil-, the Proto-Semitic word for ‘god’. This article takes Wellhausen’s observation and uses it to explain the plural morphology of Hebrew אלהים‎. I argue that *ʾilāh- should be reconstructed with redundant plural suffixes in some parts of the paradigm. This reconstructed paradigm is preserved virtually unchanged in Archaic Biblical Hebrew. The reconstructed paradigm also explains the almost complete replacement of *ʾil- by *ʾilāh- in Aramaic and Arabic and allows us to reassess the reasons for the association between the lexeme ‘god’ and plural number. Consequently, earlier suggestions that see אלהים‎’s plural number as a reflection of pre-Yahwistic polytheism or as a marker of abstractness are no longer tenable.

The varying size of the Sodom coalition in Genesis 14 (in FS Tigchelaar; email me for a PDF)

Trying my hardest to find something that might interest newly retired KU Leuven professor Eibert Tigchelaar, I used some Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple literature as well as other textual and linguistic evidence to seek for order in the number of kings on Sodom’s side in Gen 14. Turns out that this closely aligns with other indications of different layers in this fascinating chapter: one about a local raid, one that may be a reworking of a lost epic, and a third one building on the combination of the first two. If you understand Dutch (or want to practice!), also check out this brand new episode of Timo Epping’s Oudheid, all about this question.

#AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #Bible #Canaanite #GeEz #Genesis #Hebrew #Hosea #linguistics #news #Phoenician #ProtoSemitic

New publications and podcast

Busy year for publications (think that’s it for me this year):

Semitic *ʾilāh- and Hebrew אלהים‎: From plural ‘gods’ to singular ‘God’ (Open Access)

Abstract: The Biblical Hebrew word אלהים‎ is plural in form. Semantically and syntactically, however, it can be plural or singular. The stem of this noun can be reconstructed as * ʾilāh-. As already noted by Wellhausen, this looks like a broken plural of *ʾil-, the Proto-Semitic word for ‘god’. This article takes Wellhausen’s observation and uses it to explain the plural morphology of Hebrew אלהים‎. I argue that *ʾilāh- should be reconstructed with redundant plural suffixes in some parts of the paradigm. This reconstructed paradigm is preserved virtually unchanged in Archaic Biblical Hebrew. The reconstructed paradigm also explains the almost complete replacement of *ʾil- by *ʾilāh- in Aramaic and Arabic and allows us to reassess the reasons for the association between the lexeme ‘god’ and plural number. Consequently, earlier suggestions that see אלהים‎’s plural number as a reflection of pre-Yahwistic polytheism or as a marker of abstractness are no longer tenable.

The varying size of the Sodom coalition in Genesis 14 (in FS Tigchelaar; email me for a PDF)

Trying my hardest to find something that might interest newly retired KU Leuven professor Eibert Tigchelaar, I used some Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple literature as well as other textual and linguistic evidence to seek for order in the number of kings on Sodom’s side in Gen 14. Turns out that this closely aligns with other indications of different layers in this fascinating chapter: one about a local raid, one that may be a reworking of a lost epic, and a third one building on the combination of the first two. If you understand Dutch (or want to practice!), also check out this brand new episode of Timo Epping’s Oudheid, all about this question.

#AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #Bible #Canaanite #GeEz #Genesis #Hebrew #Hosea #linguistics #news #Phoenician #ProtoSemitic

The Linguistic Politics of Ethiopian Philosophy:
Navigating Tradition, Modernity, and Globalization between Ge’ez, Amharic and English

Fasil Merawi (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia)
Jonathan Egid (SOAS University of London)

July 10, 2025, 2:15 pm (CEST)
Cultural Campus, Aula & Live Stream

https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/glophi/2025/07/07/the-linguistic-politics-of-ethiopian-philosophy-fasil-merawi-jonathan-egid/

#africanphilosophy #amharic #Ethiopia #geez #linguistics
#politics

The Linguistic Politics of Ethiopian Philosophy:
Navigating Tradition, Modernity, and Globalization between Ge’ez, Amharic and English

Fasil Merawi (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia)
Jonathan Egid (SOAS University of London)

July 10, 2025, 2:15 pm (CEST)
Cultural Campus, Aula & Live Stream

https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/glophi/2025/07/07/the-linguistic-politics-of-ethiopian-philosophy-fasil-merawi-jonathan-egid/

#africanphilosophy #amharic #Ethiopia #geez #linguistics
#politics

The Linguistic Politics of Ethiopian Philosophy:
Navigating Tradition, Modernity, and Globalization between Ge’ez, Amharic and English

Fasil Merawi (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia)
Jonathan Egid (SOAS University of London)

July 10, 2025, 2:15 pm (CEST)
Cultural Campus, Aula & Live Stream

https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/glophi/2025/07/07/the-linguistic-politics-of-ethiopian-philosophy-fasil-merawi-jonathan-egid/

#africanphilosophy #amharic #Ethiopia #geez #linguistics
#politics

The Linguistic Politics of Ethiopian Philosophy:
Navigating Tradition, Modernity, and Globalization between Ge’ez, Amharic and English

Fasil Merawi (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia)
Jonathan Egid (SOAS University of London)

July 10, 2025, 2:15 pm (CEST)
Cultural Campus, Aula & Live Stream

https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/glophi/2025/07/07/the-linguistic-politics-of-ethiopian-philosophy-fasil-merawi-jonathan-egid/

#africanphilosophy #amharic #Ethiopia #geez #linguistics
#politics

Leiden Summer School 2025

The program for this year’s Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics is up. Besides the Caucasian, Chinese, Language Description, Language Documentation, Indo-European (I/II), Celtic, Indology, Iranian, Linguistics (I/II), Mediterranean World, and Russian tracks, here’s the line-up for Semitic this year:

• An introduction to Arabic paleography and epigraphy (Ahmad Al-Jallad)
• Comparative Semitics (Marijn van Putten with guest lectures by me and maybe others)
• Rabbinic Hebrew (Martin Baasten)
• Classical Ethiopic (Martin Baasten)

Registration opens soon! The Summer School will run from July 21st through August 1st.

#Arabic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #news #ProtoSemitic #Rabbinic

Leiden Summer School 2025

The program for this year’s Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics is up. Besides the Caucasian, Chinese, Language Description, Language Documentation, Indo-European (I/II), Celtic, Indology, Iranian, Linguistics (I/II), Mediterranean World, and Russian tracks, here’s the line-up for Semitic this year:

• An introduction to Arabic paleography and epigraphy (Ahmad Al-Jallad)
• Comparative Semitics (Marijn van Putten with guest lectures by me and maybe others)
• Rabbinic Hebrew (Martin Baasten)
• Classical Ethiopic (Martin Baasten)

Registration opens soon! The Summer School will run from July 21st through August 1st.

#Arabic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #news #ProtoSemitic #Rabbinic

Leiden Summer School 2025

The program for this year’s Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics is up. Besides the Caucasian, Chinese, Language Description, Language Documentation, Indo-European (I/II), Celtic, Indology, Iranian, Linguistics (I/II), Mediterranean World, and Russian tracks, here’s the line-up for Semitic this year:

• An introduction to Arabic paleography and epigraphy (Ahmad Al-Jallad)
• Comparative Semitics (Marijn van Putten with guest lectures by me and maybe others)
• Rabbinic Hebrew (Martin Baasten)
• Classical Ethiopic (Martin Baasten)

Registration opens soon! The Summer School will run from July 21st through August 1st.

#Arabic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #news #ProtoSemitic #Rabbinic

Leiden Summer School 2025

The program for this year’s Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics is up. Besides the Caucasian, Chinese, Language Description, Language Documentation, Indo-European (I/II), Celtic, Indology, Iranian, Linguistics (I/II), Mediterranean World, and Russian tracks, here’s the line-up for Semitic this year:

• An introduction to Arabic paleography and epigraphy (Ahmad Al-Jallad)
• Comparative Semitics (Marijn van Putten with guest lectures by me and maybe others)
• Rabbinic Hebrew (Martin Baasten)
• Classical Ethiopic (Martin Baasten)

Registration opens soon! The Summer School will run from July 21st through August 1st.

#Arabic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #news #ProtoSemitic #Rabbinic

Leiden Summer School 2025

The program for this year’s Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics is up. Besides the Caucasian, Chinese, Language Description, Language Documentation, Indo-European (I/II), Celtic, Indology, Iranian, Linguistics (I/II), Mediterranean World, and Russian tracks, here’s the line-up for Semitic this year:

• An introduction to Arabic paleography and epigraphy (Ahmad Al-Jallad)
• Comparative Semitics (Marijn van Putten with guest lectures by me and maybe others)
• Rabbinic Hebrew (Martin Baasten)
• Classical Ethiopic (Martin Baasten)

Registration opens soon! The Summer School will run from July 21st through August 1st.

#Arabic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #news #ProtoSemitic #Rabbinic

The Semitic languages show a regular correspondence of p in some languages and f in others. For instance, ‘mouth’ in Akkadian is p-ū; Biblical Hebrew pe; Biblical Aramaic pūm; Ge’ez ʾäf;1 and Classical Arabic fam-. (Modern South Arabian should have an f too, but has replaced this word.) This sound is uncontroversially reconstructed as Proto-Semitic *p, as in *p-ūm ‘mouth’.2 Traditionally, the change of *p to f was taken as a diagnostic feature of the South Semitic languages.

[p] to [f], a plosive changing into a fricative, is an example of lenition. Lenition is a common type of sound change, so we tell our students, so it makes sense that *p is the older sound and it changed to f. So far, so good.

While preparing my first couple of classes for Comparative Semitics this year, I suddenly wasn’t so sure about this anymore. Two things bother me:

1. The examples of p > f I know about are all part of a larger change affecting other plosives too, like Grimm’s Law (Proto-Indo-European *p, *t, *k, *kw > Proto-Germanic *f, *þ, *h, *hw and related changes) or Aramaic and Hebrew BGDKPT-spirantization. Is just p turning to f really so common? How about just f turning into p?
2. Most scholars don’t accept the family tree above anymore. In the current model, the changes look more like this:

Now we need three or four separate instances of *p > *f—just as I’m starting to doubt how common that change is. Huehnergard & Rubin (2011), who argue for this second family tree, explain this as an areal change that spread through contact. But what kind of a contact scenario should we think of here? Did f spread from Ancient South Arabian (if those languages even had it) to all its neighbours? It’s not like we see enough other shared contact features to confidently posit a South Semitic language area or something.

Looking at Afroasiatic, things don’t get better:

• Berber has f, not p
• Cushitic has f, not p
• Egyptian has p and f, but we don’t know which one corresponds to Semitic *p (if either)
• Chadic: same as Egyptian, to my knowledge
• (I’m not sure Omotic is Afroasiatic, still reading up on this)

So if we posit Proto-Semitic *p, either we need two more independent cases of *p > *f (Berber, Cushitic),3 maybe more (Egyptian? Chadic?), or we reconstruct *f for Proto-Afroasiatic and say Proto-Semitic changed *f to *p. At which point, why not cut out the middleman and keep *f, then change it to *p in East and Northwest Semitic? Just two changes instead of the minimum of six you need otherwise.

So, are there any good arguments to reconstruct Proto-Semitic *p—or should we press *f and leave behind this relic from theories that believed in a South Semitic subgrouping?

1. Probably influenced by Cushitic, but we can still take it as related to the other Semitic words. ↩︎
2. In my opinion, the only word known so far with a superheavy syllable, exceptionally permitted because the word is monosyllabic. ↩︎
3. I’m also really starting to doubt that Cushitic is one family. So maybe make that four (Berber, Beja, Agaw, East/South Cushitic). ↩︎

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2024/11/07/froto-semitic/

#Afroasiatic #Agaw #Akkadian #Ancie #Arabic #Aramaic #Beja #Berber #Chadic #Cushitic #Egyptian #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthAr #Omotic #ProtoSemitic

The Semitic languages show a regular correspondence of p in some languages and f in others. For instance, ‘mouth’ in Akkadian is p-ū; Biblical Hebrew pe; Biblical Aramaic pūm; Ge’ez ʾäf;1 and Classical Arabic fam-. (Modern South Arabian should have an f too, but has replaced this word.) This sound is uncontroversially reconstructed as Proto-Semitic *p, as in *p-ūm ‘mouth’.2 Traditionally, the change of *p to f was taken as a diagnostic feature of the South Semitic languages.

[p] to [f], a plosive changing into a fricative, is an example of lenition. Lenition is a common type of sound change, so we tell our students, so it makes sense that *p is the older sound and it changed to f. So far, so good.

While preparing my first couple of classes for Comparative Semitics this year, I suddenly wasn’t so sure about this anymore. Two things bother me:

1. The examples of p > f I know about are all part of a larger change affecting other plosives too, like Grimm’s Law (Proto-Indo-European *p, *t, *k, *kw > Proto-Germanic *f, *þ, *h, *hw and related changes) or Aramaic and Hebrew BGDKPT-spirantization. Is just p turning to f really so common? How about just f turning into p?
2. Most scholars don’t accept the family tree above anymore. In the current model, the changes look more like this:

Now we need three or four separate instances of *p > *f—just as I’m starting to doubt how common that change is. Huehnergard & Rubin (2011), who argue for this second family tree, explain this as an areal change that spread through contact. But what kind of a contact scenario should we think of here? Did f spread from Ancient South Arabian (if those languages even had it) to all its neighbours? It’s not like we see enough other shared contact features to confidently posit a South Semitic language area or something.

Looking at Afroasiatic, things don’t get better:

• Berber has f, not p
• Cushitic has f, not p
• Egyptian has p and f, but we don’t know which one corresponds to Semitic *p (if either)
• Chadic: same as Egyptian, to my knowledge
• (I’m not sure Omotic is Afroasiatic, still reading up on this)

So if we posit Proto-Semitic *p, either we need two more independent cases of *p > *f (Berber, Cushitic),3 maybe more (Egyptian? Chadic?), or we reconstruct *f for Proto-Afroasiatic and say Proto-Semitic changed *f to *p. At which point, why not cut out the middleman and keep *f, then change it to *p in East and Northwest Semitic? Just two changes instead of the minimum of six you need otherwise.

So, are there any good arguments to reconstruct Proto-Semitic *p—or should we press *f and leave behind this relic from theories that believed in a South Semitic subgrouping?

1. Probably influenced by Cushitic, but we can still take it as related to the other Semitic words. ↩︎
2. In my opinion, the only word known so far with a superheavy syllable, exceptionally permitted because the word is monosyllabic. ↩︎
3. I’m also really starting to doubt that Cushitic is one family. So maybe make that four (Berber, Beja, Agaw, East/South Cushitic). ↩︎

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2024/11/07/froto-semitic/

#Afroasiatic #Agaw #Akkadian #Ancie #Arabic #Aramaic #Beja #Berber #Chadic #Cushitic #Egyptian #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthAr #Omotic #ProtoSemitic

The Semitic languages show a regular correspondence of p in some languages and f in others. For instance, ‘mouth’ in Akkadian is p-ū; Biblical Hebrew pe; Biblical Aramaic pūm; Ge’ez ʾäf;1 and Classical Arabic fam-. (Modern South Arabian should have an f too, but has replaced this word.) This sound is uncontroversially reconstructed as Proto-Semitic *p, as in *p-ūm ‘mouth’.2 Traditionally, the change of *p to f was taken as a diagnostic feature of the South Semitic languages.

[p] to [f], a plosive changing into a fricative, is an example of lenition. Lenition is a common type of sound change, so we tell our students, so it makes sense that *p is the older sound and it changed to f. So far, so good.

While preparing my first couple of classes for Comparative Semitics this year, I suddenly wasn’t so sure about this anymore. Two things bother me:

1. The examples of p > f I know about are all part of a larger change affecting other plosives too, like Grimm’s Law (Proto-Indo-European *p, *t, *k, *kw > Proto-Germanic *f, *þ, *h, *hw and related changes) or Aramaic and Hebrew BGDKPT-spirantization. Is just p turning to f really so common? How about just f turning into p?
2. Most scholars don’t accept the family tree above anymore. In the current model, the changes look more like this:

Now we need three or four separate instances of *p > *f—just as I’m starting to doubt how common that change is. Huehnergard & Rubin (2011), who argue for this second family tree, explain this as an areal change that spread through contact. But what kind of a contact scenario should we think of here? Did f spread from Ancient South Arabian (if those languages even had it) to all its neighbours? It’s not like we see enough other shared contact features to confidently posit a South Semitic language area or something.

Looking at Afroasiatic, things don’t get better:

• Berber has f, not p
• Cushitic has f, not p
• Egyptian has p and f, but we don’t know which one corresponds to Semitic *p (if either)
• Chadic: same as Egyptian, to my knowledge
• (I’m not sure Omotic is Afroasiatic, still reading up on this)

So if we posit Proto-Semitic *p, either we need two more independent cases of *p > *f (Berber, Cushitic),3 maybe more (Egyptian? Chadic?), or we reconstruct *f for Proto-Afroasiatic and say Proto-Semitic changed *f to *p. At which point, why not cut out the middleman and keep *f, then change it to *p in East and Northwest Semitic? Just two changes instead of the minimum of six you need otherwise.

So, are there any good arguments to reconstruct Proto-Semitic *p—or should we press *f and leave behind this relic from theories that believed in a South Semitic subgrouping?

1. Probably influenced by Cushitic, but we can still take it as related to the other Semitic words. ↩︎
2. In my opinion, the only word known so far with a superheavy syllable, exceptionally permitted because the word is monosyllabic. ↩︎
3. I’m also really starting to doubt that Cushitic is one family. So maybe make that four (Berber, Beja, Agaw, East/South Cushitic). ↩︎

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2024/11/07/froto-semitic/

#Afroasiatic #Agaw #Akkadian #Ancie #Arabic #Aramaic #Beja #Berber #Chadic #Cushitic #Egyptian #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthAr #Omotic #ProtoSemitic

The Semitic languages show a regular correspondence of p in some languages and f in others. For instance, ‘mouth’ in Akkadian is p-ū; Biblical Hebrew pe; Biblical Aramaic pūm; Ge’ez ʾäf;1 and Classical Arabic fam-. (Modern South Arabian should have an f too, but has replaced this word.) This sound is uncontroversially reconstructed as Proto-Semitic *p, as in *p-ūm ‘mouth’.2 Traditionally, the change of *p to f was taken as a diagnostic feature of the South Semitic languages.

[p] to [f], a plosive changing into a fricative, is an example of lenition. Lenition is a common type of sound change, so we tell our students, so it makes sense that *p is the older sound and it changed to f. So far, so good.

While preparing my first couple of classes for Comparative Semitics this year, I suddenly wasn’t so sure about this anymore. Two things bother me:

1. The examples of p > f I know about are all part of a larger change affecting other plosives too, like Grimm’s Law (Proto-Indo-European *p, *t, *k, *kw > Proto-Germanic *f, *þ, *h, *hw and related changes) or Aramaic and Hebrew BGDKPT-spirantization. Is just p turning to f really so common? How about just f turning into p?
2. Most scholars don’t accept the family tree above anymore. In the current model, the changes look more like this:

Now we need three or four separate instances of *p > *f—just as I’m starting to doubt how common that change is. Huehnergard & Rubin (2011), who argue for this second family tree, explain this as an areal change that spread through contact. But what kind of a contact scenario should we think of here? Did f spread from Ancient South Arabian (if those languages even had it) to all its neighbours? It’s not like we see enough other shared contact features to confidently posit a South Semitic language area or something.

Looking at Afroasiatic, things don’t get better:

• Berber has f, not p
• Cushitic has f, not p
• Egyptian has p and f, but we don’t know which one corresponds to Semitic *p (if either)
• Chadic: same as Egyptian, to my knowledge
• (I’m not sure Omotic is Afroasiatic, still reading up on this)

So if we posit Proto-Semitic *p, either we need two more independent cases of *p > *f (Berber, Cushitic),3 maybe more (Egyptian? Chadic?), or we reconstruct *f for Proto-Afroasiatic and say Proto-Semitic changed *f to *p. At which point, why not cut out the middleman and keep *f, then change it to *p in East and Northwest Semitic? Just two changes instead of the minimum of six you need otherwise.

So, are there any good arguments to reconstruct Proto-Semitic *p—or should we press *f and leave behind this relic from theories that believed in a South Semitic subgrouping?

1. Probably influenced by Cushitic, but we can still take it as related to the other Semitic words. ↩︎
2. In my opinion, the only word known so far with a superheavy syllable, exceptionally permitted because the word is monosyllabic. ↩︎
3. I’m also really starting to doubt that Cushitic is one family. So maybe make that four (Berber, Beja, Agaw, East/South Cushitic). ↩︎

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2024/11/07/froto-semitic/

#Afroasiatic #Agaw #Akkadian #Ancie #Arabic #Aramaic #Beja #Berber #Chadic #Cushitic #Egyptian #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthAr #Omotic #ProtoSemitic

The Semitic languages show a regular correspondence of p in some languages and f in others. For instance, ‘mouth’ in Akkadian is p-ū; Biblical Hebrew pe; Biblical Aramaic pūm; Ge’ez ʾäf;1 and Classical Arabic fam-. (Modern South Arabian should have an f too, but has replaced this word.) This sound is uncontroversially reconstructed as Proto-Semitic *p, as in *p-ūm ‘mouth’.2 Traditionally, the change of *p to f was taken as a diagnostic feature of the South Semitic languages.

[p] to [f], a plosive changing into a fricative, is an example of lenition. Lenition is a common type of sound change, so we tell our students, so it makes sense that *p is the older sound and it changed to f. So far, so good.

While preparing my first couple of classes for Comparative Semitics this year, I suddenly wasn’t so sure about this anymore. Two things bother me:

1. The examples of p > f I know about are all part of a larger change affecting other plosives too, like Grimm’s Law (Proto-Indo-European *p, *t, *k, *kw > Proto-Germanic *f, *þ, *h, *hw and related changes) or Aramaic and Hebrew BGDKPT-spirantization. Is just p turning to f really so common? How about just f turning into p?
2. Most scholars don’t accept the family tree above anymore. In the current model, the changes look more like this:

Now we need three or four separate instances of *p > *f—just as I’m starting to doubt how common that change is. Huehnergard & Rubin (2011), who argue for this second family tree, explain this as an areal change that spread through contact. But what kind of a contact scenario should we think of here? Did f spread from Ancient South Arabian (if those languages even had it) to all its neighbours? It’s not like we see enough other shared contact features to confidently posit a South Semitic language area or something.

Looking at Afroasiatic, things don’t get better:

• Berber has f, not p
• Cushitic has f, not p
• Egyptian has p and f, but we don’t know which one corresponds to Semitic *p (if either)
• Chadic: same as Egyptian, to my knowledge
• (I’m not sure Omotic is Afroasiatic, still reading up on this)

So if we posit Proto-Semitic *p, either we need two more independent cases of *p > *f (Berber, Cushitic),3 maybe more (Egyptian? Chadic?), or we reconstruct *f for Proto-Afroasiatic and say Proto-Semitic changed *f to *p. At which point, why not cut out the middleman and keep *f, then change it to *p in East and Northwest Semitic? Just two changes instead of the minimum of six you need otherwise.

So, are there any good arguments to reconstruct Proto-Semitic *p—or should we press *f and leave behind this relic from theories that believed in a South Semitic subgrouping?

1. Probably influenced by Cushitic, but we can still take it as related to the other Semitic words. ↩︎
2. In my opinion, the only word known so far with a superheavy syllable, exceptionally permitted because the word is monosyllabic. ↩︎
3. I’m also really starting to doubt that Cushitic is one family. So maybe make that four (Berber, Beja, Agaw, East/South Cushitic). ↩︎

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2024/11/07/froto-semitic/

#Afroasiatic #Agaw #Akkadian #Ancie #Arabic #Aramaic #Beja #Berber #Chadic #Cushitic #Egyptian #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthAr #Omotic #ProtoSemitic

"safety manager", "safe space", "crisisteam", "zwaarwegende besluiten" die "democratisch tot stand komen".

Ze hebben het hier dus over een liedjesfestival.

#eurovisie #songfestival2025 #geez

bron: nos.nl

"safety manager", "safe space", "crisisteam", "zwaarwegende besluiten" die "democratisch tot stand komen".

Ze hebben het hier dus over een liedjesfestival.

#eurovisie #songfestival2025 #geez

bron: nos.nl

Ge'ez oder ፊደል (Fidäl) #geez

Ge'ez oder ፊደል (Fidäl) #geez

Ge'ez oder ፊደል (Fidäl) #geez

Ge'ez oder ፊደል (Fidäl) #geez

Ge'ez oder ፊደል (Fidäl) #geez

Bit of a posting spree this week, but I’m looking for feedback on something that’s been bothering me for several years now.

The terms Ethiosemitic, Ethio-Semitic and so forth have a big downside: they tend to (understandably!) trigger Eritreans, who make up a considerable share of the people speaking these languages. Hence, it would be nice if we could settle on an alternative. Afro-Semitic sounds kind of cool, but could be misinterpreted as including North African, Egyptian, and Sudanese Arabic, maybe even Punic. Something deriving from the Horn of Africa would be more precise, but I don’t see any elegant way to turn that into a single adjective. So my leading candidate is Abyssinian.

Pros:

• based on an endonym, Habesha
• used both in Antiquity and in the present
• unquestionably refers to speakers of the three biggest/most studied languages in this group: Ge’ez, Amharic, Tigrinya
• covers languages from both Ethiopia and Eritrea and from both main linguistic groups (South and North/non-South if North isn’t a valid category by itself)
• already an existing English word
• some history of linguistic usage
• not literally the same word as Habesha so there’s some liberty to use it differently

Cons:

• sounds kind of old-fashioned and colonial to me (maybe unrightfully so)
• often limited to predominantly Christian groups (Amharic and Tigrinya speakers), may exclude predominantly Muslim groups (Tigre, Harari speakers); isolated (mostly Christian) Gurage speakers seem like an edge case from what I can find online
• may be a loaded term given recent ethnic tensions in Ethiopia

So, what do you think? Is it worth going back to an outdated term in an attempt to make some people feel included and stop them from getting mad, with the risk of excluding another group of people and making them mad?1 I would especially love to hear from anyone with a relevant ethnic background—Habesha, Ethiosemitic speakers, what have you—but all input is very welcome.

1. But note that the biggest relevant non-Habesha group, Tigre speakers, are also excluded by Ethiosemitic. ↩︎

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2024/08/08/ethiosemitic-or-abyssinian/

#Amharic #GeEz #Gurage #linguistics #Tigre #Tigrinya

Bit of a posting spree this week, but I’m looking for feedback on something that’s been bothering me for several years now.

The terms Ethiosemitic, Ethio-Semitic and so forth have a big downside: they tend to (understandably!) trigger Eritreans, who make up a considerable share of the people speaking these languages. Hence, it would be nice if we could settle on an alternative. Afro-Semitic sounds kind of cool, but could be misinterpreted as including North African, Egyptian, and Sudanese Arabic, maybe even Punic. Something deriving from the Horn of Africa would be more precise, but I don’t see any elegant way to turn that into a single adjective. So my leading candidate is Abyssinian.

Pros:

• based on an endonym, Habesha
• used both in Antiquity and in the present
• unquestionably refers to speakers of the three biggest/most studied languages in this group: Ge’ez, Amharic, Tigrinya
• covers languages from both Ethiopia and Eritrea and from both main linguistic groups (South and North/non-South if North isn’t a valid category by itself)
• already an existing English word
• some history of linguistic usage
• not literally the same word as Habesha so there’s some liberty to use it differently

Cons:

• sounds kind of old-fashioned and colonial to me (maybe unrightfully so)
• often limited to predominantly Christian groups (Amharic and Tigrinya speakers), may exclude predominantly Muslim groups (Tigre, Harari speakers); isolated (mostly Christian) Gurage speakers seem like an edge case from what I can find online
• may be a loaded term given recent ethnic tensions in Ethiopia

So, what do you think? Is it worth going back to an outdated term in an attempt to make some people feel included and stop them from getting mad, with the risk of excluding another group of people and making them mad?1 I would especially love to hear from anyone with a relevant ethnic background—Habesha, Ethiosemitic speakers, what have you—but all input is very welcome.

1. But note that the biggest relevant non-Habesha group, Tigre speakers, are also excluded by Ethiosemitic. ↩︎

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2024/08/08/ethiosemitic-or-abyssinian/

#Amharic #GeEz #Gurage #linguistics #Tigre #Tigrinya

Happy to share that my article "Faulty Indictment in a Man-Made Era," previously published in #Geez #Magazine, has been accepted for display by the #NYC Climate #Writers Collective for exhibition in the #Climate Imaginarium on Governors Island this summer.

I posted the full text of the #article on my #blog a while back; please enjoy!

https://arielkroon.ca/faulty-indictment-in-a-man-made-era/

#ClimateChange #Anthropocene #Guilt #ClimateJustice #solarpunk

PS A huge thank-you to @HollySchofield for sending this my way

Happy to share that my article "Faulty Indictment in a Man-Made Era," previously published in #Geez #Magazine, has been accepted for display by the #NYC Climate #Writers Collective for exhibition in the #Climate Imaginarium on Governors Island this summer.

I posted the full text of the #article on my #blog a while back; please enjoy!

https://arielkroon.ca/faulty-indictment-in-a-man-made-era/

#ClimateChange #Anthropocene #Guilt #ClimateJustice #solarpunk

PS A huge thank-you to @HollySchofield for sending this my way

Happy to share that my article "Faulty Indictment in a Man-Made Era," previously published in #Geez #Magazine, has been accepted for display by the #NYC Climate #Writers Collective for exhibition in the #Climate Imaginarium on Governors Island this summer.

I posted the full text of the #article on my #blog a while back; please enjoy!

https://arielkroon.ca/faulty-indictment-in-a-man-made-era/

#ClimateChange #Anthropocene #Guilt #ClimateJustice #solarpunk

PS A huge thank-you to @HollySchofield for sending this my way

Happy to share that my article "Faulty Indictment in a Man-Made Era," previously published in #Geez #Magazine, has been accepted for display by the #NYC Climate #Writers Collective for exhibition in the #Climate Imaginarium on Governors Island this summer.

I posted the full text of the #article on my #blog a while back; please enjoy!

https://arielkroon.ca/faulty-indictment-in-a-man-made-era/

#ClimateChange #Anthropocene #Guilt #ClimateJustice #solarpunk

PS A huge thank-you to @HollySchofield for sending this my way

Happy to share that my article "Faulty Indictment in a Man-Made Era," previously published in #Geez #Magazine, has been accepted for display by the #NYC Climate #Writers Collective for exhibition in the #Climate Imaginarium on Governors Island this summer.

I posted the full text of the #article on my #blog a while back; please enjoy!

https://arielkroon.ca/faulty-indictment-in-a-man-made-era/

#ClimateChange #Anthropocene #Guilt #ClimateJustice #solarpunk

PS A huge thank-you to @HollySchofield for sending this my way

Two recent publications by Marijn van Putten deserve your attention:

• ‘The Berbero-Semitic adjective’, BSOAS (Open Access). Abstract: “It has long been recognized that the Semitic suffix conjugation and the Berber adjectival perfective suffix conjugation have striking similarities in their morphology, which has been correctly attributed to be the result of a shared inheritance from Proto-Afro-Asiatic. Nevertheless, the function of these conjugations in the respective language families is quite distinct. This article argues that ultimately this suffix conjugation is a predicative suffix in the common ancestor of Berber and Semitic, and moreover shows that Semitic and Berber have significant overlap in the stem formations of adjectives. It is argued that these formations must likewise be reconstructed for their common ancestor.”
• ‘Segolate Plurals and North-West Semitic’, on his blog. Some comments:

Pluralses

Marijn argues against the view that a major shared innovation of the Northwest Semitic languages (Canaanite, Aramaic, Ugaritic et al.) is the regular insertion of *a in the plural of *CVCC– nouns (‘segolates’ in Hebraist terminology) and the replacement of broken plurals by external plurals, including these doubly marked *CVCaC-ū– and *CVCaC-āt– ones. As Jorik Groen and I noted under Marijn’s strong influence, the *a-insertion does not seem to be a Northwest Semitic innovation at all, but arose in pre-Proto-Semitic. “But …

…  I think the whole discussion, by focusing on these segolate plurals is in fact a red herring. Arabic’s plural system cannot be simply compared to the North-West Semitic plural system, and by assuming that they get equated important details are lost. I think if we take a more subtle approach, we can actually come to see a much more pervasive innovation in North-West Semitic, but it has nothing to do with segolate plurals.

Instead of the simple singular-plural distinction typical of Northwest Semitic, Arabic often distinguishes several plurals. Some of these are ‘paucals’, meaning they refer to a small number, and some nouns also have a singulative-collective distinction. Marijn illustrates this with singular (actually singulative?) baqar-at– ‘cow’ (/’head of cattle’), paucal baqar-āt– ‘(three to ten) cows’ (/’heads of cattle’), collective baqar- ‘cattle’, and plural ʔabqār– ‘cows’. We could add dual baqar-at–ā/ay-ni ‘pair of cows’, another category that is no longer productive in Iron Age Northwest Semitic.

Let me cite another passage, because it’s going to be important:

Masculine nouns, by definition cannot have collectives, but otherwise have the same system as the feminine, e.g. sg. kalb ‘dog’ pauc. ʔaklub (not **kalab-ūn) pl, kilāb. The notable difference here is therefore that the masculine nouns use a broken plural pattern (rather than a suffixed pattern) to makes the paucal (feminine nouns can actually do this too niʕmah pauc niʕa/imāt, ʔanʕum)

Arab grammarians state that all these plurals with an ʔa– prefix are actually paucals. But these forms are pretty isolated: they only occur in “South Semitic” (Arabic, Ancient and Modern South Arabian, and Ethiosemitic; probably not a genealogical subgroup) and the patterns attested in different languages don’t match that well, making them hard to reconstruct. So, Marijn suggests:

1. Proto-Semitic distinguished between singular, paucal (formed with the external plural suffixes, and *a-insertion if the singular stem was *CVCC-), and (broken) plural;
2. Northwest Semitic extends the use of the paucal to the plural, getting rid of the broken plurals; but
3. Arabic (in contact with the rest of “South Semitic”?) introduces new paucal ʔa– forms which replace the old ‘masculine’ paucals and compete with the ‘feminine’ ones.

So much for the summary, now I get to add some thoughts of my own.

Paucals or singulative plurals?

I’m no Arabist, and it would be great to check this in Bettega & D’Anna (2023), but I think Marijn may be conflating a few categories. The way I understand it, the distinction between collective baqar– ‘cattle’ and singulative baqar-at- ‘head of cattle’ (etc.) is important here: it is the basis for understanding baqar-āt– as the plural of the singulative, ‘heads of cattle’. This would be used when talking about several individuated cows, as opposed to a group of non-individuated ʔabqār– ‘cows’ or a collective of baqar– ‘cattle’. Since collectives are uncountable by default, the paucal numerals three through ten call for the use of the individuated/singulative plural, which may result in some overlap between the singulative plural and the paucal in usage.

This distinction becomes important with the masculines, where e.g. ʔaklub– is apparently a paucal, but not a plural singulative (because kalb- isn’t a singulative; there isn’t a contrasting collective). And in the competing feminine cases, I think there might be a contrast between plural singulative niʕim-āt-/niʕam-āt- ‘(individual) favours’ and paucal ʔanʕum– ‘(three to ten) favours’.

All of this implicitly relies on the idea that the paucals were originally only used with numerals, which we might get into some other time. For now, I just want to add that these paucals may be older than Marijn suggests.

How old are the ʔa– paucals?

Marijn writes:

While the true plural pattern kilāb has excellent Afro-Asiatic comparanda, and must certainly be old, ʔaklub is in fact extremely isolated, so isolated that it only occurs in Arabic (the Gəʕəz hägär pl. ʔähgur looks superficially similar, but would be equivalent to *ʔaCCūC).

Just last month, I suggested that Ge’ez CäCuC forms go back to *CaCuC- with a short *u. We might take the superficial correspondence between these ʔaCCuC- (Arabic) and ʔäCCuC (Ge’ez) plurals as an indication that Ge’ez u comes from short *u here too, both patterns reflecting *ʔaCCuC-. Another possible match is seen in Arabic ʔaCCiC-at-, Ge’ez ʔäCCəC-t-, which can be unified in a reconstructed pattern of *ʔaCCiC-(a)t-. And both languages also have many reflexes of the *ʔaCCāC- pattern. (But these aren’t normally counted as paucals, are they?) Either way, some paucal patterns may be reconstructible after all.

Some out-there support for this comes from the word for ‘finger’, Proto-Semitic *ʔitṣbaʕ-. This probably has a cognate in Ancient Egyptian ḏbꜥ, which doesn’t have anything corresponding to the Semitic *ʔ. Since fingers are often counted and come in sets of ten[citation needed], I like the idea that *ʔitṣbaʕ- might be a back formation from an unattested paucal like *ʔatṣbuʕ-1 or *ʔatṣbiʕ-(a)t- ‘(three to ten) fingers’. Since *ʔitṣbaʕ- has reflexes with *ʔi- all over Semitic, that would imply the existence of an *ʔa– paucal in Proto-Semitic.

An important argument against these paucals being old was already raised to me by Marijn privately. ʔa– plurals are fine with a glide occurring as the second radical, as in ʔanyuq- and ʔanwuq- ‘she-camels’ or ʔabwāb- ‘doors’. But in Proto-Semitic, glides were lost between a consonant and a vowel, lengthening the following vowel. So if these forms were old, we’d expect **ʔanūq- and **ʔabāb-. But I think this could be explained by the ongoing productivity of the paucal patterns, which led to glides being restored. True, we usually don’t see analogical restoration in e.g. the *maCCaC- pattern: qwm gives maqām-, not **maqwam-. But an inflectional category like the paucal could be more susceptible to analogy than a derivational one like *maCCaC-. So I think I do lean towards old, Proto-Semitic *ʔa- paucals.

How many plurals?

Where does that leave us? Close to Marijn’s suggestion, probably, but with at least one more contrast: individuated vs. non-individuated plurals. Maybe something like:

I’m not at all sure about this, but at least it gives us a place to park every form that seems old. The difference between non-individuated plurals and collectives in this system ends up being one of markedness: words for entities that usually occur as an undifferentiated mass have an unmarked collective and derive a (feminine) singulative, while other words have an unmarked singular and an associated broken plural. All in all, this seems like a very overspecified system that could easily collapse in varying ways, giving rise to the different pluralization strategies we find in the attested languages.

1. Reflected in Arabic as ʔaṣbuʕ-, but as a byform of the singular. According to the lexicographers, both syllables of the stem can take any of the three short vowels, but only ʔiṣbaʕ- is commonly used and approved of. ↩︎

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2024/01/22/van-putten-berbero-semitic-adjectives-and-semitic-plurals/

#Afroasiatic #Arabic #Berber #Egyptian #GeEz #linguistics #news #ProtoSemitic

Two recent publications by Marijn van Putten deserve your attention:

• ‘The Berbero-Semitic adjective’, BSOAS (Open Access). Abstract: “It has long been recognized that the Semitic suffix conjugation and the Berber adjectival perfective suffix conjugation have striking similarities in their morphology, which has been correctly attributed to be the result of a shared inheritance from Proto-Afro-Asiatic. Nevertheless, the function of these conjugations in the respective language families is quite distinct. This article argues that ultimately this suffix conjugation is a predicative suffix in the common ancestor of Berber and Semitic, and moreover shows that Semitic and Berber have significant overlap in the stem formations of adjectives. It is argued that these formations must likewise be reconstructed for their common ancestor.”
• ‘Segolate Plurals and North-West Semitic’, on his blog. Some comments:

Pluralses

Marijn argues against the view that a major shared innovation of the Northwest Semitic languages (Canaanite, Aramaic, Ugaritic et al.) is the regular insertion of *a in the plural of *CVCC– nouns (‘segolates’ in Hebraist terminology) and the replacement of broken plurals by external plurals, including these doubly marked *CVCaC-ū– and *CVCaC-āt– ones. As Jorik Groen and I noted under Marijn’s strong influence, the *a-insertion does not seem to be a Northwest Semitic innovation at all, but arose in pre-Proto-Semitic. “But …

…  I think the whole discussion, by focusing on these segolate plurals is in fact a red herring. Arabic’s plural system cannot be simply compared to the North-West Semitic plural system, and by assuming that they get equated important details are lost. I think if we take a more subtle approach, we can actually come to see a much more pervasive innovation in North-West Semitic, but it has nothing to do with segolate plurals.

Instead of the simple singular-plural distinction typical of Northwest Semitic, Arabic often distinguishes several plurals. Some of these are ‘paucals’, meaning they refer to a small number, and some nouns also have a singulative-collective distinction. Marijn illustrates this with singular (actually singulative?) baqar-at– ‘cow’ (/’head of cattle’), paucal baqar-āt– ‘(three to ten) cows’ (/’heads of cattle’), collective baqar- ‘cattle’, and plural ʔabqār– ‘cows’. We could add dual baqar-at–ā/ay-ni ‘pair of cows’, another category that is no longer productive in Iron Age Northwest Semitic.

Let me cite another passage, because it’s going to be important:

Masculine nouns, by definition cannot have collectives, but otherwise have the same system as the feminine, e.g. sg. kalb ‘dog’ pauc. ʔaklub (not **kalab-ūn) pl, kilāb. The notable difference here is therefore that the masculine nouns use a broken plural pattern (rather than a suffixed pattern) to makes the paucal (feminine nouns can actually do this too niʕmah pauc niʕa/imāt, ʔanʕum)

Arab grammarians state that all these plurals with an ʔa– prefix are actually paucals. But these forms are pretty isolated: they only occur in “South Semitic” (Arabic, Ancient and Modern South Arabian, and Ethiosemitic; probably not a genealogical subgroup) and the patterns attested in different languages don’t match that well, making them hard to reconstruct. So, Marijn suggests:

1. Proto-Semitic distinguished between singular, paucal (formed with the external plural suffixes, and *a-insertion if the singular stem was *CVCC-), and (broken) plural;
2. Northwest Semitic extends the use of the paucal to the plural, getting rid of the broken plurals; but
3. Arabic (in contact with the rest of “South Semitic”?) introduces new paucal ʔa– forms which replace the old ‘masculine’ paucals and compete with the ‘feminine’ ones.

So much for the summary, now I get to add some thoughts of my own.

Paucals or singulative plurals?

I’m no Arabist, and it would be great to check this in Bettega & D’Anna (2023), but I think Marijn may be conflating a few categories. The way I understand it, the distinction between collective baqar– ‘cattle’ and singulative baqar-at- ‘head of cattle’ (etc.) is important here: it is the basis for understanding baqar-āt– as the plural of the singulative, ‘heads of cattle’. This would be used when talking about several individuated cows, as opposed to a group of non-individuated ʔabqār– ‘cows’ or a collective of baqar– ‘cattle’. Since collectives are uncountable by default, the paucal numerals three through ten call for the use of the individuated/singulative plural, which may result in some overlap between the singulative plural and the paucal in usage.

This distinction becomes important with the masculines, where e.g. ʔaklub– is apparently a paucal, but not a plural singulative (because kalb- isn’t a singulative; there isn’t a contrasting collective). And in the competing feminine cases, I think there might be a contrast between plural singulative niʕim-āt-/niʕam-āt- ‘(individual) favours’ and paucal ʔanʕum– ‘(three to ten) favours’.

All of this implicitly relies on the idea that the paucals were originally only used with numerals, which we might get into some other time. For now, I just want to add that these paucals may be older than Marijn suggests.

How old are the ʔa– paucals?

Marijn writes:

While the true plural pattern kilāb has excellent Afro-Asiatic comparanda, and must certainly be old, ʔaklub is in fact extremely isolated, so isolated that it only occurs in Arabic (the Gəʕəz hägär pl. ʔähgur looks superficially similar, but would be equivalent to *ʔaCCūC).

Just last month, I suggested that Ge’ez CäCuC forms go back to *CaCuC- with a short *u. We might take the superficial correspondence between these ʔaCCuC- (Arabic) and ʔäCCuC (Ge’ez) plurals as an indication that Ge’ez u comes from short *u here too, both patterns reflecting *ʔaCCuC-. Another possible match is seen in Arabic ʔaCCiC-at-, Ge’ez ʔäCCəC-t-, which can be unified in a reconstructed pattern of *ʔaCCiC-(a)t-. And both languages also have many reflexes of the *ʔaCCāC- pattern. (But these aren’t normally counted as paucals, are they?) Either way, some paucal patterns may be reconstructible after all.

Some out-there support for this comes from the word for ‘finger’, Proto-Semitic *ʔitṣbaʕ-. This probably has a cognate in Ancient Egyptian ḏbꜥ, which doesn’t have anything corresponding to the Semitic *ʔ. Since fingers are often counted and come in sets of ten[citation needed], I like the idea that *ʔitṣbaʕ- might be a back formation from an unattested paucal like *ʔatṣbuʕ-1 or *ʔatṣbiʕ-(a)t- ‘(three to ten) fingers’. Since *ʔitṣbaʕ- has reflexes with *ʔi- all over Semitic, that would imply the existence of an *ʔa– paucal in Proto-Semitic.

An important argument against these paucals being old was already raised to me by Marijn privately. ʔa– plurals are fine with a glide occurring as the second radical, as in ʔanyuq- and ʔanwuq- ‘she-camels’ or ʔabwāb- ‘doors’. But in Proto-Semitic, glides were lost between a consonant and a vowel, lengthening the following vowel. So if these forms were old, we’d expect **ʔanūq- and **ʔabāb-. But I think this could be explained by the ongoing productivity of the paucal patterns, which led to glides being restored. True, we usually don’t see analogical restoration in e.g. the *maCCaC- pattern: qwm gives maqām-, not **maqwam-. But an inflectional category like the paucal could be more susceptible to analogy than a derivational one like *maCCaC-. So I think I do lean towards old, Proto-Semitic *ʔa- paucals.

How many plurals?

Where does that leave us? Close to Marijn’s suggestion, probably, but with at least one more contrast: individuated vs. non-individuated plurals. Maybe something like:

I’m not at all sure about this, but at least it gives us a place to park every form that seems old. The difference between non-individuated plurals and collectives in this system ends up being one of markedness: words for entities that usually occur as an undifferentiated mass have an unmarked collective and derive a (feminine) singulative, while other words have an unmarked singular and an associated broken plural. All in all, this seems like a very overspecified system that could easily collapse in varying ways, giving rise to the different pluralization strategies we find in the attested languages.

1. Reflected in Arabic as ʔaṣbuʕ-, but as a byform of the singular. According to the lexicographers, both syllables of the stem can take any of the three short vowels, but only ʔiṣbaʕ- is commonly used and approved of. ↩︎

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2024/01/22/van-putten-berbero-semitic-adjectives-and-semitic-plurals/

#Afroasiatic #Arabic #Berber #Egyptian #GeEz #linguistics #news #ProtoSemitic

Two recent publications by Marijn van Putten deserve your attention:

• ‘The Berbero-Semitic adjective’, BSOAS (Open Access). Abstract: “It has long been recognized that the Semitic suffix conjugation and the Berber adjectival perfective suffix conjugation have striking similarities in their morphology, which has been correctly attributed to be the result of a shared inheritance from Proto-Afro-Asiatic. Nevertheless, the function of these conjugations in the respective language families is quite distinct. This article argues that ultimately this suffix conjugation is a predicative suffix in the common ancestor of Berber and Semitic, and moreover shows that Semitic and Berber have significant overlap in the stem formations of adjectives. It is argued that these formations must likewise be reconstructed for their common ancestor.”
• ‘Segolate Plurals and North-West Semitic’, on his blog. Some comments:

Pluralses

Marijn argues against the view that a major shared innovation of the Northwest Semitic languages (Canaanite, Aramaic, Ugaritic et al.) is the regular insertion of *a in the plural of *CVCC– nouns (‘segolates’ in Hebraist terminology) and the replacement of broken plurals by external plurals, including these doubly marked *CVCaC-ū– and *CVCaC-āt– ones. As Jorik Groen and I noted under Marijn’s strong influence, the *a-insertion does not seem to be a Northwest Semitic innovation at all, but arose in pre-Proto-Semitic. “But …

…  I think the whole discussion, by focusing on these segolate plurals is in fact a red herring. Arabic’s plural system cannot be simply compared to the North-West Semitic plural system, and by assuming that they get equated important details are lost. I think if we take a more subtle approach, we can actually come to see a much more pervasive innovation in North-West Semitic, but it has nothing to do with segolate plurals.

Instead of the simple singular-plural distinction typical of Northwest Semitic, Arabic often distinguishes several plurals. Some of these are ‘paucals’, meaning they refer to a small number, and some nouns also have a singulative-collective distinction. Marijn illustrates this with singular (actually singulative?) baqar-at– ‘cow’ (/’head of cattle’), paucal baqar-āt– ‘(three to ten) cows’ (/’heads of cattle’), collective baqar- ‘cattle’, and plural ʔabqār– ‘cows’. We could add dual baqar-at–ā/ay-ni ‘pair of cows’, another category that is no longer productive in Iron Age Northwest Semitic.

Let me cite another passage, because it’s going to be important:

Masculine nouns, by definition cannot have collectives, but otherwise have the same system as the feminine, e.g. sg. kalb ‘dog’ pauc. ʔaklub (not **kalab-ūn) pl, kilāb. The notable difference here is therefore that the masculine nouns use a broken plural pattern (rather than a suffixed pattern) to makes the paucal (feminine nouns can actually do this too niʕmah pauc niʕa/imāt, ʔanʕum)

Arab grammarians state that all these plurals with an ʔa– prefix are actually paucals. But these forms are pretty isolated: they only occur in “South Semitic” (Arabic, Ancient and Modern South Arabian, and Ethiosemitic; probably not a genealogical subgroup) and the patterns attested in different languages don’t match that well, making them hard to reconstruct. So, Marijn suggests:

1. Proto-Semitic distinguished between singular, paucal (formed with the external plural suffixes, and *a-insertion if the singular stem was *CVCC-), and (broken) plural;
2. Northwest Semitic extends the use of the paucal to the plural, getting rid of the broken plurals; but
3. Arabic (in contact with the rest of “South Semitic”?) introduces new paucal ʔa– forms which replace the old ‘masculine’ paucals and compete with the ‘feminine’ ones.

So much for the summary, now I get to add some thoughts of my own.

Paucals or singulative plurals?

I’m no Arabist, and it would be great to check this in Bettega & D’Anna (2023), but I think Marijn may be conflating a few categories. The way I understand it, the distinction between collective baqar– ‘cattle’ and singulative baqar-at- ‘head of cattle’ (etc.) is important here: it is the basis for understanding baqar-āt– as the plural of the singulative, ‘heads of cattle’. This would be used when talking about several individuated cows, as opposed to a group of non-individuated ʔabqār– ‘cows’ or a collective of baqar– ‘cattle’. Since collectives are uncountable by default, the paucal numerals three through ten call for the use of the individuated/singulative plural, which may result in some overlap between the singulative plural and the paucal in usage.

This distinction becomes important with the masculines, where e.g. ʔaklub– is apparently a paucal, but not a plural singulative (because kalb- isn’t a singulative; there isn’t a contrasting collective). And in the competing feminine cases, I think there might be a contrast between plural singulative niʕim-āt-/niʕam-āt- ‘(individual) favours’ and paucal ʔanʕum– ‘(three to ten) favours’.

All of this implicitly relies on the idea that the paucals were originally only used with numerals, which we might get into some other time. For now, I just want to add that these paucals may be older than Marijn suggests.

How old are the ʔa– paucals?

Marijn writes:

While the true plural pattern kilāb has excellent Afro-Asiatic comparanda, and must certainly be old, ʔaklub is in fact extremely isolated, so isolated that it only occurs in Arabic (the Gəʕəz hägär pl. ʔähgur looks superficially similar, but would be equivalent to *ʔaCCūC).

Just last month, I suggested that Ge’ez CäCuC forms go back to *CaCuC- with a short *u. We might take the superficial correspondence between these ʔaCCuC- (Arabic) and ʔäCCuC (Ge’ez) plurals as an indication that Ge’ez u comes from short *u here too, both patterns reflecting *ʔaCCuC-. Another possible match is seen in Arabic ʔaCCiC-at-, Ge’ez ʔäCCəC-t-, which can be unified in a reconstructed pattern of *ʔaCCiC-(a)t-. And both languages also have many reflexes of the *ʔaCCāC- pattern. (But these aren’t normally counted as paucals, are they?) Either way, some paucal patterns may be reconstructible after all.

Some out-there support for this comes from the word for ‘finger’, Proto-Semitic *ʔitṣbaʕ-. This probably has a cognate in Ancient Egyptian ḏbꜥ, which doesn’t have anything corresponding to the Semitic *ʔ. Since fingers are often counted and come in sets of ten[citation needed], I like the idea that *ʔitṣbaʕ- might be a back formation from an unattested paucal like *ʔatṣbuʕ-1 or *ʔatṣbiʕ-(a)t- ‘(three to ten) fingers’. Since *ʔitṣbaʕ- has reflexes with *ʔi- all over Semitic, that would imply the existence of an *ʔa– paucal in Proto-Semitic.

An important argument against these paucals being old was already raised to me by Marijn privately. ʔa– plurals are fine with a glide occurring as the second radical, as in ʔanyuq- and ʔanwuq- ‘she-camels’ or ʔabwāb- ‘doors’. But in Proto-Semitic, glides were lost between a consonant and a vowel, lengthening the following vowel. So if these forms were old, we’d expect **ʔanūq- and **ʔabāb-. But I think this could be explained by the ongoing productivity of the paucal patterns, which led to glides being restored. True, we usually don’t see analogical restoration in e.g. the *maCCaC- pattern: qwm gives maqām-, not **maqwam-. But an inflectional category like the paucal could be more susceptible to analogy than a derivational one like *maCCaC-. So I think I do lean towards old, Proto-Semitic *ʔa- paucals.

How many plurals?

Where does that leave us? Close to Marijn’s suggestion, probably, but with at least one more contrast: individuated vs. non-individuated plurals. Maybe something like:

I’m not at all sure about this, but at least it gives us a place to park every form that seems old. The difference between non-individuated plurals and collectives in this system ends up being one of markedness: words for entities that usually occur as an undifferentiated mass have an unmarked collective and derive a (feminine) singulative, while other words have an unmarked singular and an associated broken plural. All in all, this seems like a very overspecified system that could easily collapse in varying ways, giving rise to the different pluralization strategies we find in the attested languages.

1. Reflected in Arabic as ʔaṣbuʕ-, but as a byform of the singular. According to the lexicographers, both syllables of the stem can take any of the three short vowels, but only ʔiṣbaʕ- is commonly used and approved of. ↩︎

https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2024/01/22/van-putten-berbero-semitic-adjectives-and-semitic-plurals/

#Afroasiatic #Arabic #Berber #Egyptian #GeEz #linguistics #news #ProtoSemitic

SOLD! For £4,445 / $5,600 / 316,000 Ethiopian Birr

Emperor Haile Selassie's Ge'ez-inscribed silver fly whisk, yesterday at Sotheby's https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/royal-noble/haile-selassie-i-emperor-of-ethiopia-a-caucasian

Anyone know where it is going? #haileselassie #ethiopia #geez

SOLD! For £4,445 / $5,600 / 316,000 Ethiopian Birr

Emperor Haile Selassie's Ge'ez-inscribed silver fly whisk, yesterday at Sotheby's https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/royal-noble/haile-selassie-i-emperor-of-ethiopia-a-caucasian

Anyone know where it is going? #haileselassie #ethiopia #geez