James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Seems deeply ingrained in Arabic (below from Borg’s Egypto-Arabic thing, which is weird in places but very interesting). Also reflected in at least Harsusi, so perhaps other MSA languages too. 020
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Safaitic names in NʿM have notably different suffixes to others, in part perhaps reflecting the popularity of the name Nuʿmān? If anyone has bright ideas as to why, I'd be keen to know. 131
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 29/08/2026Interestingly, Wehr follows his entry with ‘(syr.)’, which I guess means Syrian Arabic. Is that close to your dialect @lawzinaj.bsky.social? Barthelemy’s dictionary has it. 130
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 27/07/2026Ah yes of course. I was seduced by its similarity to the initial er of the Akkadian word. All examples of C1ēC2āC3ōn have a non-double-able C2, so this clinches it, right? 110
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 25/06/2026Egyp. bꜢq = ‘to shine, be bright/clear’ seems a nice cognate of Sem. בר׳׳ק ≈ ب-ر-ق = ‘to shine, flash’ etc. Not sure why it’s written with the tree det. Poss. because (iirc) bꜢq can also denote an oil tree (perhaps oil itself; not sure). If so, reminiscent of צה׳׳ר = ‘shine’ > יצהר = ‘oil’. 010
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 16/03/2026I don’t read German well enough to distinguish what’s nicely written from what isn’t, but some of Wellhausen’s work reads very nicely in translation. 010
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 16/03/2026I don’t read German well enough to distinguish what’s nicely written from what isn’t, but some of Wellhausen’s books read very nicely in translation. 011
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 02/01/2026The whole thing baffles me. E.g., see the attached entry from the CAL. 010
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 08/12/2025If מִשְׁאֶ֫רֶת (Exod. and Deut. only) is a kneading trough, it’d be nice if it was cognate with שְׂאֹר (‘leaven’). But what’s happened to its sibilant? Loaned into Egyptian (where its lateral fricative went) & borrowed back? Feels a bit far-fetched, not least because it’s not attested in Egyptian (afaik). 030
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 03/12/2025Not sure how much weight I can reasonably put on this text: 010
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 18/11/2025A neat Masoretic note on II Sam. 13. Something like, שׁממה [occurs] three times (ג̇), twice defectively (ב̇ חָסֵר) and once fully (וחד מָלֵא). [Ordered by appearance], [the first is] ותשב תמר ושממה, [the second, which is plene]כי־רבים בני־שוממה מבני, [and the third] נתנני שממה. 020
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 15/11/2025Huehnergard’s excellent article on Hebrew nominal patterns classifies כֻּתֹּ֫נֶת as a *quttul-t form, which it may be, but is it better explained in light of the tendency for pre-tonic *u to prompt gemination (עָמוֹק/עֲמֻקִּים), since כֻּתֹּ֫נֶת isn’t geminated in (unstressed) construct forms (e.g., כְּתֹנֶת הַפַּסִּים)? 140
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 12/11/2025Idea for paper. List various Modern South Arabian borrowings from Arabic where a lateral fricative is effectively restored, such as in the case of šəmāl ⇒ śēməl(i) = ‘inland/north’. Entitle the paper ‘The Imputation of Śin’. 011
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 05/11/2025Note: Hoch also has *yud (‘hand’), but that’s a fair bit later. 032
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 05/11/2025Question: Hoch has examples in (Egyptian) syllabic orthography of what appears to be *yomm (‘sea’) from the late 2nd millennium. How should these be explained? The effect of the Canaanite Shift on a stress-lengthened *a? Or the Phoenician Shift? (When does the latter date?) 395
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 16/09/2025It seems, however, to have been re-patterned in various ways in Arabic, likely due to its initial consonant cluster. It appears in Egyptian Arabic as ⟨simmāna⟩ = ‘a quail’, and (later?) acquired the classic u-a vowel melody associated with birds, hence ⟨sumānā⟩ (سمانَى) and ⟨sumāna⟩. 260
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 16/09/2025Re-patterned Geese. ⟨smn⟩ = ‘goose’ is a good Egyptian lexeme, attested from the Old Kingdom onwards. It presumably reflects *sV̆mānV̆(w) since it appears in Coptic as ⟨smune⟩. 152
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 18/08/2025Dear Coptic folk. Any ideas what Sᵃ and Sᶠ denote? 301
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 15/08/2025Yes. Golinets also has a few cognates that I have just noticed. 110
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 15/08/2025And Golinets’s onomastic lexicon gives a whole load of words, which seem to work particularly well in the case of theophoric names. 110
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 15/08/2025The online Sabaic Wordbook website (or whatever) has this. It also glosses the Minaic ʾWS as ‘to replace, give as a replacement’. 100
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 15/08/2025Possibly. Steingass has it as below. Some people are dubious of Steingass’s dictionary; I’ve always found it very good. 100
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 15/08/2025Anyone know if this is cognate with the Classical Arabic ʔWS = ‘to help’? 251
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 14/08/2025Nice--have been reading this chapter for a while now, and have finally put two and two together re its author! Thanks! @maartenkossmann.bsky.social 030
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 13/08/2025So cool that Old Nubian manuscripts preserve the [u]-vowel of the Old Egyptian ⟨jrp⟩ = ‘wine’ (3rd mill.), which has shifted to [ē] in the Coptic ⟨ērp⟩. Thanks for sharing! 011
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 12/08/2025Dear Dialectologists. Could anyone tell me if the attached description of Moroccan Arabic vowels sound right, and, if so, how this relates to stress? Do you end up with stressed shewa-type vowels, or does stress accompany length? 230
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 01/08/2025Looking at a bit of Ugaritic, it has just occurred to me that BHL = ‘to disinherit’ fits the use of בה׳׳ל in Psalm 2 pretty well. 001
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 01/08/2025Yes. Very Najdi-like. Huehnergard 2008 on Ugaritic Vocabulary p. 272 has good stuff on this. 110
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 23/07/2025Could some kind soul give me a hand with some Greek, which I (previously) thought I knew how to read. I’m struggling with ⟨?φηι⟩ and ⟨Αθερ-νε?-?φηι⟩. 000
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 02/07/2025How come a word for ‘coriander’ can also mean ‘destiny, good fortune’ in both Egyptian (below) and Hebrew (גד)? 030
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 26/06/2025I sometimes wonder if we’re reading hieroglyphs right. How can this be a name? 000
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 24/05/2025Opinions from #Egyptology folk very welcome. Wondering about translating this name as ‘The Panther’, but reluctant to go against the website’s compilers. Perhaps ultimately cognate with לביא (‘lioness’)? 001
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 20/05/2025Decided to put the eBL (Akkadian) data into a big file so I can search it with regular expressions, etc.—e.g., below is a selection of a search for parrus/purrus nominal patterns. Let me know if you could benefit from a copy. 172
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 15/05/2025The whole article of Fox's confuses me a bit. At face value, it looks as if he thinks the Canaanite Shift resulted in a shortening of the vowel. 110
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 14/04/2025An Egyptian name (⟨Jḫ⟩) with a curious correspondence to the name given to the manna by the Israelites, viz. ‘What is it?’ (מָן הוּא). 010
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 11/04/2025Right. Or I suppose it could go the other way—‘Grant survival and security to those left’ or something like that. In Hebrew, the roots ŠʾR and ŚRD are pretty much synonymous. Syriac seems to have both senses of ŚRD. 100
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 10/04/2025I’ve done a very rough job of converting it into searchable strings (shown below). I can’t devote much time to doing a proper job of converting it now (and can’t remember half of what I learnt in Syriac either), but if anyone wants a copy, please let me know. 010
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 10/04/2025Dear All. Someone kindly sent me a Word version of J. Payne-Smith’s Syriac dictionary, which looks like this: 110
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025Dear #Aramaic folk. Brockelmann cites a few diminutive-ish Aramaic *qattūl forms. Anyone aware of others, or Hebrew ones? 321
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 23/03/2025Anyone out there happen to know where the reconstruction *kimḥ comes from? 210
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 06/03/2025All very interesting—thanks! I digitised Salmone’s dictionary a while back. Here are the first 17 of the 66 matches that I get for CuCāCiC. Let me know if you want the rest (or other patterns). I could email them I guess. 000
James Bejon @jamesbejon.bsky.social · 03/03/2025Hess’s collection of Najdi Bedouin names includes this interesting contraction and thus consonant cluster. Anyone know of similar examples? 120
