Palestine languages?

[mollyringle]

Time to test the "LJ Genie" theory posed by madbard - namely, if you ask a question, any question, on your LJ, someone will pop up and provide an accurate answer. It may even be someone you've never heard of, but nonetheless they will appear.

So here goes:

One of my mom's university students emailed me (because I studied linguistics) to ask for some good sources on the history of languages in Palestine. Given that "Palestine" is a rather ambiguously defined land mass, especially over the course of history, and that I've never studied its languages in particular anyway, I don't really have any good suggestions. I plan to tell her to go to the university library and look up books with keywords like "historical linguistics," "sociolinguistics," "Semitic languages," and the names of individual languages spoken there through the ages (Aramaic, Syriac, etc.). But if anyone knows of any particular writers or books or articles that would provide a good background on the subject, do tell!

Thank you.

Comments

[raethe.livejournal.com]

maybe this (http://phoenicia.org/semlang.html).

[dirae.livejournal.com]

I am not sure if this will be of any help, but I was reading something about Aramaic awhile back and I bookmarked this site. It has a bibliography that could possible offer the student some sources (though most are not in English).

This is another web source I had bookmarked.

Some books that mention the subject of Semitic langauges that I am personally familar with include:
J. H. Greenberg, The Languages of Africa (2d ed. 1966)
S. Moscati, ed., An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (1964)
Testen, David., Parallels in Semitic linguistics : the development of Arabic and related Semitic particles (1998)

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

Well, there's this:

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Palestinian+West+Bank+and+Gaza

[aerin-pegadrak.livejournal.com]

You studied linguistics? What do you do now? I ask because I'm going to pursue a linguistics degree, and my family keeps giving me crap about how it's useless.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Heh. Er, well, I'm an admin assistant, and I don't really use my linguistic training at all.

Seems to me that if you don't want to teach linguistics in college, there are two main industry things that linguists can do: teach English as a second language, or work as a computational linguist.

As for me, I'm not sure I want to be a teacher. And I don't have the programming skills to be a computational linguist. But I loved the subject anyway, and really, earning a Master's was about the best way to kill time in Davis, CA.

However, I've lately wondered what it takes to become a dialect coach, since that would be quite cool...

Talk to advisors, and plan early and often! :)

[aerin-pegadrak.livejournal.com]

I'm actually looking at (possibly) going into film, and I, too, love the subject. I'm going to a small liberal arts college in Claremont, CA, so I'm basically killing time as well, although a teacher of mine suggested that I could create alien languages for films.

Thanks for the advice!

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! That sounds like the other dream job for a linguist: making up languages for movies. :) If you live near LA, then I'd look into it all right. Let me know what you find out!