After a brief hiatus following the Covid-19 phenomenon, the annual meeting of the North Atlantic Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics (NACAL) is back and will be held at the Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio, USA, from September 26-28, 2025. NACAL is an annual gathering featuring the presentation and discussion of original research on linguistic topics relevant to the languages of the Afroasiatic phylum (Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic, and Semitic).
Organizing Committee
Call for papers
Original contributions related to all aspects of Afroasiatic languages, including phonology, morphology, syntax, typology, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, language documentation and description, epigraphy, and more, are welcome.
Key dates
Submission deadline: May 15, 2025
Notification of abstract acceptance: May 30, 2025
Conference: September 26-28, 2025
Abstract submission
Abstracts should be submitted in English, with glosses or translations for words or examples in any other language. Each abstract, including the title and any data in figures or tables, must not exceed 500 words. Authors are asked to remove all personal identification from the abstract. Each contributor can submit at most one single-authored and one co-authored paper.
Talks will be allotted 20 minutes for the presentation with 10 minutes for questions and answers. The deadline for all submissions is May 15, 2025. Abstracts should be submitted to nacal2025@gmail.com. Please be advised that late submissions may not be considered.
Hotel and Travel Information: Attendees will be responsible for making their own hotel reservations; however, a block of rooms has been reserved at the Blackwell Inn. You can use the booking link or phone number provided to reserve your accommodations.
- Booking link: Department of Near Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures NAC
- Phone: 866-247-4003
- Booking Code: ASIANLANGSEPT25
- Group Rate: $169.00/night + tax and parking
- Reservation Deadline: August 30, 2025
Please note: The booking page may show a higher price ($200), but this includes taxes — the base rate remains $169. If you have any trouble booking, feel free to reach out to Bethany directly at 614-247-0577 or mccann.450@osu.edu.
Registration Fee: 80 USD for Tenured Faculty; 50 USD for students, non-tenured faculty, and independent scholars
Questions and other correspondence should be directed to the conference organizers at al-jallad.1@osu.edu.
NACAL 48 2025 Conference Program
Day 1: September 26
Location: PAES 111
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Morning Session
9:00 AM - 9:15 AM: Opening Address – C. Roullier and A. Al-Jallad
9:15 AM - 9:45 AM: Cody Beasley: Developments in the Arabic Modal System and a New Inscription from Khaybar, Saudi Arabia
9:45 AM - 10:15 AM: Phillip Stokes: Classical or Middle Arabic? On the Language of One of the Earliest Arabic Translation of the Gospels in Arabic (Vatican Arabic MS 13)
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM: Paul Fallon: Ejectives in Central Cushitic loanwords and native vocabulary
10:45 AM - 11:00 AM: Coffee Break
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Ruth Kramer and Matthew Hewett: In the Main Clause or in the Embedded Clause? Investigating a Cross-Clausal A-Dependency in Amharic
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM: Connor Roullier: Effects of Plural Type on Agreement in Six Arabic Varieties
12:00 AM - 1:30 PM: Lunch Break
1:30 PM - 5:00 PM: Afternoon Session
1:30 PM - 2:00 PM: Alexander Foreman: Some Vowels to Think With: A Provisional Pre-Exilic Reconstruction of the Vocalization of the Song of Moses
2:00 PM - 2:30 PM: Roni Henkin-Roitfarb and Iris Alfi-Shabtay: Past Tense in Hebrew and English of Arabic-Speaking 11th-Graders in Israel
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM: Charles Häberl: Actionality Classes of the Verb in Modern Western Aramaic: The Dialect of Maaloula
3:00 PM - 3:15 PM: Coffee Break
3:15 PM – 3:45 PM: Jason Overfelt: Functional heads motivate hyperactivity in Tigrinya
3:45 PM - 4:00 PM: End of Day 1 / Reflections
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Networking Reception
Day 2: September 27
Location: Hagerty Hall 186
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Morning Session
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM: Yishai Neuman: Lexical Propensity in Irregular Yet Expectable Phonological Variation in Semitic Roots and the Formation of Root Clusters
9:30 AM - 10:00 AM: Eran Cohen: The Common Semitic interrogative element *ʾayy
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM: Fahad Al-Sharif: Preliminary Notes on the Grammar of Urban Ḥijāzī Arabic
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM: Coffee Break
10:45 AM - 11:15 AM: Seth Wyatt: On the Egyptification of the Nuwaubian Language
11:15 AM - 11:45 AM: Ahmad Al-Jallad: Did Proto-Arabic have *[p] and *[tsˁ]? New evidence from old sources
11:45 AM - 1:30 PM: Lunch Break
1:30 PM - 5:00 PM: Afternoon Session
1:30 PM - 2:00 PM: Letizia Cerqueglini: The Bedouin Arabic Dialect of the Maʿānīyīn Confederation: Features and Classification
2:00 PM - 2:30 PM: Ahmad Al-Jallad and Alessia Prioletta: The Original South Semitic Alphabet Mnemonic
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM: David Mihalyfy: Egyptian’s N-stems and Auxiliary Verbs as Further Evidence for Its Creolid Origins?: A Summary of Recent Research Findings, with Implications for Afroasiatic Prehistory
3:15 PM - 3:30 PM: Coffee Break
3:30 PM - 4:00 PM: James D. Moore: DLATO A Next Generation Digital Environment: Introducing DEAPS
4:00 PM - 4:15 PM: Coffee Break
4:15 – 5:30 Keynote Na’ ama Pat-El: On syncretism in Semitic: a bug or a feature?
7:00 PM: Conference Dinner
Day 3: September 28
Location: Hagerty Hall 186
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Morning Session
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM: Bethany Weppler: Discourse Analysis: Constructing a Bouzebal Identity through Interaction, Indexicality, and Turn-Taking
9:30 AM - 10:00 AM: Ambrose Arralde: The origins of the verbal stems shaphʿel and eshtaphʿal in Aramaic
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM: Michael I Leff: Allophony and Realization of the Proto-Semitic *s1
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM: Coffee Break
10:45 AM - 11:15 AM: Tyler Moser: “Disability Pattern” or Semantic Cluster? Nominal Patterns for Disability Terms in Semitic Reconsidered
11:15 AM - 11:45 PM: Alessia Prioletta: Nominal Morphology of the Non-Sabaic Ancient South Arabian languages
11:45 AM - 1:30 PM: Lunch Break
Business Meeting
