The New Kurdish Language Project at Manchester

Jul 19, 2015 by

The New Kurdish Language Project at Manchester

Readers who followed my joint work with Martin Lewis on the Indo-European controversy (which culminated in a book recently published by Cambridge University Press) might recognize the weirdly-shaped map on the left (reproduced from...

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Tunisia’s Diverse Djerba Island and Its Annual Jewish Pilgrimage

Jun 2, 2015 by

Tunisia’s Diverse Djerba Island and Its Annual Jewish Pilgrimage

[This post was originally published in June 2012] An earlier post discussed Ibadi Islam, the predominant faith in Oman. In addition to Oman and its settlements in East Africa, the Ibadi faith can also be found in small pockets in...

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Tunisia’s Diverse Djerba Island and Its Annual Jewish Pilgrimage

May 5, 2015 by

Tunisia’s Diverse Djerba Island and Its Annual Jewish Pilgrimage

[Recent news reports of a potential terror attack against Jews in Tunisia make this post, originally published in June 2012, relevant again.] A previous post discussed Ibadi Islam, the predominant faith in Oman. In addition to Oman...

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Oman’s Uncertain Industrialization

May 4, 2015 by

Oman’s Uncertain Industrialization

[This post was originally published in June 2012.] As discussed in the previous post, political stability in Oman, a strategically placed Gulf country, hangs in the balance due to an impending succession crisis. The future of the...

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Oman, a Land Apart

May 4, 2015 by

Oman, a Land Apart

[Continuing with the theme of the Arabic-speaking world, here’s a post originally published in June 2012] Much attention in the conventional media has been focused on the “Arab Spring” events of the past year and a half....

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Why Are There So Many Arabic Varieties?—And Traces of Roman Heritage i...

Apr 27, 2015 by

Why Are There So Many Arabic Varieties?—And Traces of Roman Heritage in Moroccan Arabic

One of the question that keeps coming up in my online “Languages of the World” course is why languages diversify. As Ferdinand de Saussure explains in his Course in General Linguistics, language diversification is produced by the...

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