The Talking Dead: Writing a Dictionary of a Dead Language

February 11, 2020

5:00PM - 6:30PM

Mendenhall Lab Room 115

2020-02-11 17:00:00 2020-02-11 18:30:00 The Talking Dead: Writing a Dictionary of a Dead Language The Talking Dead: Writing a Dictionary of a Dead Language with Dr. Ahmad Al-JalladThis talk will present the Safaitic dictionary (https://brill.com/view/title/55037?language=en), the first lexicon of this extinct variety of Arabic written over 2000 years ago in northeastern Jordan and southern Syria. The inscriptions attest a large number of unique words and idioms that cannot be understood by simply consulting the Classical Arabic dictionaries. Instead, the philologist must reconstruct their meanings based on comparative evidence from related languages, anthropological parallels, archaeological context, and in rare cases, fossils in the local vernacular. This talk will guide the listener through this process, highlighting some of the most interesting cases. I will conclude with how the triangulation of meaning in Safaitic, on its own terms, can shed light on the sense of obscure vocabulary in other early Arabic texts, such as the Qur’an and the pre-Islamic poetry.Spring 2020 NELC Department Lecture Series The NELC Department welcomes our students, colleagues, and the general public for this talk, part of our 2020 Department Lecture Series. A reception with snacks and drinks will be held in the NELC Department Office, Hagerty Hall room 300, immediately after the talk. Mendenhall Lab Room 115 America/New_York public

The Talking Dead: Writing a Dictionary of a Dead Language with Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad

This talk will present the Safaitic dictionary (https://brill.com/view/title/55037?language=en), the first lexicon of this extinct variety of Arabic written over 2000 years ago in northeastern Jordan and southern Syria. The inscriptions attest a large number of unique words and idioms that cannot be understood by simply consulting the Classical Arabic dictionaries. Instead, the philologist must reconstruct their meanings based on comparative evidence from related languages, anthropological parallels, archaeological context, and in rare cases, fossils in the local vernacular. This talk will guide the listener through this process, highlighting some of the most interesting cases. I will conclude with how the triangulation of meaning in Safaitic, on its own terms, can shed light on the sense of obscure vocabulary in other early Arabic texts, such as the Qur’an and the pre-Islamic poetry.

Spring 2020 NELC Department Lecture Series

The NELC Department welcomes our students, colleagues, and the general public for this talk, part of our 2020 Department Lecture Series. A reception with snacks and drinks will be held in the NELC Department Office, Hagerty Hall room 300, immediately after the talk.