The purpose of this article is to analyse some Hittite adjectives, to discuss the different options concerning their morphological parsing – and, if available, their etymology – and to clarify the issues behind the productivity of some specific suffixes.
Review: Carmen Dagostino, Marianne Mithun, and Karen Rice (eds.) 2023 (vol. 1), 2024 (vol. 2). The languages and linguistics of indigenous North America: A comprehensive guide, Volume 1; Volume 2. (The World of Linguistics 13.1-2). Berlin – Boston: De Gruyter Mouton . Pp. LII (front matter) + 1-715 + separate enlarged map insert (vol. 1), and + pp. XII (front matter) + [987] 717-1702 (vol. 2)
This paper examines the development of Moroccan Darija Wikipedia since its launch in July 2020. It details the strategies employed by the Wikimedia Morocco user group, focusing on bot automation and editing contests, to foster growth within this low-resource language Wikipedia. The paper highlights the opportunities Darija Wikipedia presents for Artificial Intelligence research, particularly in Natural Language Processing, given its status as the largest online Darija dataset. It also explores how the standardization efforts undertaken by the user group enable valuable collaboration between volunteers, experts, and researchers, potentially setting a prece-dent for other similar language communities. Furthermore, the paper addresses key challenges, including ensuring community sustainability and mitigating vandalism, and analyzes the manifestation of diverse spelling conventions (phonetic, etymological) within the encyclopedia’s content.
This study aims to analyze the transition of (Moroccan) Mixed Arabic from oral to written productions in digital communication. The phenomenon of literacy in written Moroccan Arabic is an issue already observed by scholars, especially concerning the developments of standardization from below (Caubet 2017a-b, 2018; Miller 2017; Pennisi 2025, among others). Discussing the traditional perspective of the functionalist diglossic continuum of the Arabic language (Youssi 1992), this study aims to compare the morphosyntactic characteristics of (Moroccan) Mixed Arabic in oral and written productions through speakers/writers practices emerging from Moroccan digital media production. While several studies have already focused on the descriptions of dialectal elements occurring in different textual typologies, especially in Moroccan traditional media (Hoogland 2013, 2018; Brigui 2016, among others), the present study aims to analyze how a (Moroccan) Mixed Arabic style contributes to (informally) conventionalize a journalistic register, which is continuously employed in online newspapers and digital multimodal platforms. In order to achieve those goals, a corpus of written and oral data from 1) a digital Moroccan newspaper (Goud), 2) episodes of a talk-show, and 3) podcast, i.e. premeditated and unpremeditated communication in written and oral communication, has been contextually analyzed. The comparative analysis of oral and written practices shows that a mixed register of contemporary (Moroccan) Mixed Arabic is spreading in formal media Moroccan communication, serving variable discursive strategies.
Processing text across different scripts presents significant hurdles in natural language processing, especially when dealing with non-standardized orthographies and informal writing systems common in low-resource languages. To address this, we introduce Sawtone, an integrated framework designed to enable consistent cross-script phonetic alignment and text normalization. At its heart is an architecture built for interoperability, combining a unified phonological feature space rooted in linguistic principles with modular, language-specific adapters. This structure allows for robust mapping and comparison between any pair of scripts. Crucially, it enables diverse adapters—developed using different methods or data—to work together cohesively for cross-language tasks. The framework readily supports alloglottographic text and is designed to function with minimal resource requirements. We demonstrate its practicality through implementations for transliteration, cross-script sequence alignment, and text normalization, further illustrated by a case study on preprocessing Moroccan Arabic data for Large Language Model (LLM) training. Initial results are encouraging: transliteration reached an 88% BLEU score, phonetic-based text sequence alignment achieved 87-95% accuracy across various language and script pairs, and text normalization significantly reduced variations in spelling. Sawtone offers a structured, interoperable foundation for advancing phonetic-aware NLP across linguistic boundaries.
This study focuses on a corpus-based description of the process of linguistic adaptation of nominal English loanwords in Russian containing the deverbal suffix -ING, transliterated into Russian as инг /ɪng/. 89 loanword items were analyzed in terms of their linguistic characteristics, such as morphological structure and frequency of occurrence in the corpus. The study discusses the complex nature of the lexical items that are transferred from one language into another through ongoing language contact. The corpus-based analysis included such procedures as the search for any relevant items within a given time frame in a selected corpus, the identification and assigning of language-related characteristics to the items elicited from the corpus, and the statistical procedure that aimed to determine and describe the relationships that exist, or are likely to exist, between different types of characteristics of the loanwords.
The main aim of this paper is to analyse the notion of polycentricity (Blommaert 2005; 2010) and its application to Moroccan Arabic as a possible polycentric language. I understand polycentricity in the sense that any environment in which human beings gather and communicate is by definition polycentric and may therefore contain more than one identifiable centre of power (Blommaert 2005). A second objective is to explore how the digitalisation of Moroccan society and the increased use of social media and digital platforms are central to the phenomenon of polycentricity in Moroccan Arabic. In order to do so, I will examine a corpus of uses in various social media and digital platforms as a highly revealing manifestation of polycentricity and heteroglossia in Moroccan Arabic. The analysis reveals how practices and voicing are not subject to constraints or a single norm that defines what is ‘irregular’ or plain, thereby creating a rather complex polycentric system in Moroccan Arabic that affects both the language itself as linguistic system and its patterns of use.
The present study investigates how Darija, within a complex multilingual and digital context, is reshaping the roles of traditionally dominant languages like Standard Arabic and French. It highlights a shift towards a more symmetrical sociolinguistic system, where local interactions redefine linguistic functions. The research also explores how Darija interacts with the Tamazight languages in the global digital sphere, addressing conflicts and competitions. It delves further into the concept of ‘Darijation’, an unintended result of North African language policies, and reveals that Darija is increasingly displacing other languages, creating a new linguistic landscape.
In this paper we explore the interaction between Maghrebi Darijas and Romance languages from the perspective of both historical and contemporary evidence. As Caubet 2002, following Lahlou 1991 argues, among contemporary educated populations in urban centres across the Maghreb, bilingual/multilingual interaction is the norm not the exception. Historical evidence tells us this was also the case in 11th century al-Andalus, though it is of course impossible down the centuries to reconstruct the actual interaction. We will however argue that certain surviving texts can provide an indication when analysed in terms of the constraints on conversational codeswitching such as is provided by Aabi. We start from the position that Maghrebi Darija is a special case of linguistic permeability due to its politico-geographic location on the frontier and given its thousand year history of close contact with Romance. To investigate this phenomenon in both its historical and contemporary manifestations we draw on the current construct of translanguaging, an alternative perspective on multilingual interaction to code switching as expounded in Baynham & Lee (2018) and the notion of convivencia as elaborated by Bossong in his study of linguistic conviviality and coexistence in mediaeval Andalusian poetry (Bossong 2010). We then go on to analyze this in two time slices: examining evidence of the productive convivencia/coexistence of romance and dialectal Arabic i) in the kharjas of 11th century al-Andalus as discussed by Bossong and others and ii) in the modern Maghreb music and performance scene (cf. Caubet 2002; Baynham & Gintsburg 2022). We do this here through analysis of a song by the Algerian singer Talyani and a performance of the Moroccan comedian Hanane el-Fadhili, using in both time slices translanguaging and Bossong’s notion of convivencia in our analysis. We then conclude by arguing as Heath (2020) does that for effective research into such varieties as Maghrebi Arabic, both currently and historically, it is necessary for cross disciplinary work between researchers in Arabic and its Romance contact languages, in order to fully address its sociolinguistics. We understand this as a form of disciplinary translanguaging to be undertaken in order to establish the dynamics of the convivencia/coexistence of Arabic and Romance elements in this type of data.
The outputs of the contact due to the presence and interaction of multiple languages in Morocco have been tackled by numerous sociolinguistic studies over the years (Ennaji 2002, Chekayri 2006, Caubet 2017b). This research attempts to illustrate the way this complex linguistic landscape affected the language of oral and written Moroccan advertising, wherein the alternation of registers and the functional expansion of the dārija became more detectable. To this end, in this study I aim to explore the correlation between language use and target audience, after providing a general overview of the first advertising materials disseminated in Morocco since the beginning of the 20th century. The discussion on linguistic innovations in this field will be accompanied by an analysis of commercials that have been aired on 2M, Morocco’s most popular television channel, since the 1960s-70s. This focus will allow us to emphasise the peculiarities of mostly oral advertising messages based on the target audience they seem to address. Further, the second part of the paper will be devoted to the reflection on the orthographic representation strategies used by speakers of Moroccan Arabic, by means of the analysis of billboards, which represent the so-called ‘outdoor advertising’. Furthermore, such billboards, whose pictures have been captured in various parts of Morocco, provide us with an opportunity to observe contact phenomena of alternation, insertion, and code-mixing (Appel & Muysken 1987), and to evaluate their role in the effectiveness of the advertising message, as well as to provide some observations in their orthographic treatment.
This paper examines how ancient and Byzantine scholars may have conceptualised a “dialectal” lexicon of Greek, with particular attention to the problem of linguistic normativity. It offers a comparative discussion of two markedly different sources: Gregory of Corinth’s Περὶ Αἰολίδος and the anonymous lexicographical compilation Γλῶσσαι κατὰ πόλεις (Urb. Gr. 157). Both works seek to illustrate dialectal variation primarily through lexical material, yet they do so within distinct scholarly frameworks and with differing assumptions about linguistic correctness. The analysis draws on criteria developed in modern Ancient Greek dialectology (notably by García Ramón) in order to assess how far the lexical items presented in these sources can be regarded as genuinely dialect specific. Given the secondary nature of the evidence, these criteria cannot be applied mechanically; rather, they serve as a heuristic tool for evaluating the internal logic and reliability of the lexicographical traditions under consideration. Particular attention is paid to the role of literary language, poetic diction, and interdialectal influence in shaping what ancient scholars classified as “dialectal”. The study shows that Gregory of Corinth operates with an implicit normative baseline, ultimately rooted in Attic and the learned tradition, against which other dialects are evaluated, whereas the Γλῶσσαι κατὰ πόλεις lack any explicit reference to a standard variety and instead reflect classificatory practices derived largely from literary authority. In both cases, dialectal normativity emerges as prescriptive and scholarly rather than descriptive of vernacular usage. The findings underline the difficulty of defining a “dialectal” lexicon for Ancient Greek and suggest that modern lexicographical approaches must take greater account of the literary, chronological, and scholarly filters through which dialectal material has been transmitted.
This paper deals with the role of morphology in the reconstruction of lexical meaning. It focuses on the case of the Arabic Form VIII verbs in order to illustrate the challenge that morpho-semantics presents for historical lexicographers assuming the unity of a language throughout a long period of its use. In this connection, the paper attempts to show that, although Form VIII verbs have been in use since the early stages of Arabic, it is likely that users assigned them different meanings according to whether Form VIII morpho-semantics was transparent or opaque. Three factors have been identified that increase the opacity of this category: allomorphy, polysemy and frequency of the derivation base. 529 items were culled from a bilingual dictionary for the purposes of the study, and allomorphy was found to contribute about 12% to morphological opacity, and more than 70% of the verbs had a non-prototypical sense. Many of the extended senses seem to have lost all kinds of semantic relation to the prototypical sense, thus resulting in less transparency in the semantics of the derived forms. The study also argues that the less frequent the base of the derivation is, the more opaque Form VIII will be. The paper concludes that, given the lack of rich data from the early stages of Arabic, it is likely that a satisfactory reconstruction of the meaning of derived forms will probably never be achieved.
The present paper deals with Bartholomae’s Law in Indo-Iranian languages. After a new examination of the data, it concludes that in the case of Bartholomae’s Law, there is no assumed ʽtransfer of aspiration ʼ or any other similar process but that the attested plosives are the result of a process of plosivization of the original Indo-Iranian voiced fricatives Δ (< IE *Dh). Thus, the process described by Bartholomae is not an exception in developing of plosive clusters but a regular process affecting the original fricatives, plosives in the outcome clusters being of secondary origin.
This article substantiates the practical possibility of modeling the information component of thinking using modern computer technologies, providing programmers with a code diagram of general artificial thinking for familiarization. The rationale for the approach is based on the ideas of the theory of knowledge, philosophy and methodology of language. Attention is paid to the discussion of some provisions of the criticism of artificial systems of thought.
The Catholic Church plays a vital role in Polish public life, strengthened only by the political change, which brought to power the right-wing conservative Law and Justice party. This role could be seen as a reflection of Poland’s religious landscape. Yet, it is accepted only in restricted domains of life: while 61% of people accept the Church taking the stance in matters of morality, 55% disapprove of the Church voicing opinions about the Parliament’s bills (CBOS 2013).This study aims to analyse which of these domains are represented in the corpus of official documents of the Polish Catholic Church (241 000 words, 259 documents).To achieve this aim, the study, situated within the corpus-supported Critical Discourse Analysis paradigm (van Dijk 1993, Baker 2006), combines collocation and concordance analysis methods.The findings reveal the presence of both religious and secular dimensions, although in different manners. The former has a rather individual character, whereas the latter concerns public life. Overall, the results support the view of the Polish Catholic Church as an administrator of values (Graff 2010) and point to the great self-involvement of the Church.
In several regions of Japan, various dialects exhibit a peculiar suffix -me, which mostly attaches to animal names, and seems to carry out various functions. The exact nature of its use is, to some extent, still unclear, since this -me is alternatively described as expressing endearment, familiarity or smallness, or, on the contrary, depreciation, fear or distance (which lead to some authors regarding it as two different homophonous suffixes). On a more grammatical scale, its relationships with definiteness, with plural and collective number and with animacy have also been questioned. Thus, this article aims at examining the different uses of -me in Japanese dialects, and its possible connection with other suffixes, in order to tackle the question of its origin(s).
The present study summarizes the forms of numerals of the first decade in more than 200 Central Chadic languages and their varieties, including their sources, to analyze their internal structure and external relations, in both genetic and areal plans.
The brief report announces the current work on the forthcoming first two fascicles of an etymological dictionary elaborating the Afro-Asiatic background of a Chadic language group, one of the first ones in this genre in the history of Chadic linguistics.
