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Lameen Souag

@lameensouag.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1.6K following 1.1K posts

Linguist, mainly focused on historical change and contact in northern Africa (Arabic, Berber, Songhay - and now Nilotic...)

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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 16h
Tfw you're looking for info on a small language of central Chad so remote all that's been published is short wordlists, and you find the speakers are putting up AI-generated tribal genealogy charts where the Arabic spellings contradict the Latin ones www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
A nice little Popperian moment today:) My analysis of Mubi verbs, based entirely on data from Jungraithmayr, predicted that verbs of the form BooCa and BeCDeF-e should be possible. J doesn't record any that I could find, but Prickett does, and they're conjugated exactly as expected.
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Charlie Stross @cstross.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Oh my: LibreOffice just made "no AI" one of their official features: blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/09...
blog.documentfoundation.org
Yes, no AI is now a feature - TDF Community Blog
One of the comments on the announcement of LibreOffice 26.8 was a simple question: “So, no AI is now a feature?” LibreOffice does not reject artificial intelligence out of hand, but an office suite us...
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Benoît de Courson @bdecourson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
🔺🔺 @gallicagram.bsky.social v3 !! 🔺🔺 Avec l'aide de l'incroyable Elias Echikr (désormais ingénieur sur le projet), on a ajouté 36 médias à jour, 3 chaînes d'infos en continu (merci Yann de Boisvilliers), une nouvelle syntaxe de fou. Oh et Cairn et MajinBook aussi www.gallicagram.com 🧵
gallicagram.com
Gallicagram
A lexicometrics app to explore word frequencies in diachronic corpora, with a focus on French press since 1789
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Mmis Umazigh @mmisumazigh.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
There are two names for the Dutch language in Tarifit, depending on the country the community is from: 1) tahuḷandect, used in the Netherlands 2) tafḷamant, used in Belgium
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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Online conference: Linguistics and Semitic Philology: Semitic Sibilants (via Zoom), November 6, 2026
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Maarten Kossmann @maartenkossmann.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Today at NACAL there was a fantastic talk by Massinissa Garaoun on pre-Hispanic toponomy in the Canary Islands. Based on extensive fieldwork, checking pronuniations and the topographical features the terms are connected to, he showed that there are many toponyms that are clearly...
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Safaitic @safaitic.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
NACAL 49 Paris begins today The final program can be found at this link: drive.google.com/file/d/1Pzgi... The abstract booklet is here: drive.google.com/file/d/1S5T8...
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Akkadian qaqqaru "ground", in turn, has probable cognates across Berber: e.g. Kabyle i-ɣəṛɣəṛ "floor", Tamasheq e-ɣărɣăr "regg, large flat area"
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There's a little case study in top-down lexical change for you...
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Alarife @alarife.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It seems that the Algerian word qardūn, meaning a hair band used to wrap a ponytail, is of Andalusi origin. @lameensouag.bsky.social
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Sampsa Holopainen @sampsaholopainen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This paper (by me, Terhi Honkola and Samuli Helama) on possible connections between the 4.2 ka climatic event and the early spread of the Uralic languages was published last week.
sciencedirect.com
Extreme events and the spread of Uralic languages
In this paper we present novel aspects concerning the possible connection between the 4.2 ka climatic event and the early spread of Uralic languages f…
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Rare to see such a clear example of "tribe" being used to mean "ethnicity" rather than "political unit defined by a supposedly shared patrilineal ancestor" (the usual sense in MENA studies) or "ethnic group considered primitive by the speaker" (arguably the usual sense in Western popular usage)
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A nice sketch of Hadza, a isolated language with clicks spoken in northern Tanzania journals.flvc.org/sal/article/...
journals.flvc.org
A sketch of Hadza grammar | Studies in African Linguistics
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andrew phillips @herfst.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
nn msy sꜣw ‘no one is born wise’ —Maxims of Ptaḥḥotep, Prisse Papyrus 5,6 (ca. 2000 BCE)
Egyptian text in Hieratic script on papyrus
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Johann-Mattis List @lingulist.de · 21/09/2026
First version of the newly created Database of Cross-Linguistic Partial Colexifications (CLIPS) has now been published online. Common work with Katja Bocklage, Thanasis Georgakopoulos, Robert Forkel, and myself clips.digling.org
Logo of the CLIPS database with a directed network combining three nodes.
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Darin Flynn @phono-logical.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
There are many reasons to value an endangered language like Oowekyala. One of its many points of interest to me as a phonologist is that it has a remarkable tolerance for vowellessness
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Friend shared this video of a man unveiling the library he hid when he fled Damascus in 2011. It’s incredible
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
English to be taught before French in Algerian primary schools (I can attest from experience that proficiency in English is far higher in Algeria than it was a couple of decades ago. But I expect it will be a while before that filters through to most institutions...)
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Endangered Languages Project @e-l-p.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Registration for the 2026 Language Documentation Learning Series is now open! This free, online 9-week course will cover the basics of language documentation: how to make good records of your language. No prior experience needed - we’ll start from the beginning! bit.ly/2026langdoc
Flyer with background photo of snowy mountains and text: Language
Documentation Learning Series
WEEK 1:
Language Endangerment and Documentation
Anna Belew
Endangered Languages
Project /University of Hawaii at Manoa
Friday, October 9, 2026 2:00 pm Hawaii (UTC-10)
https://bit.ly/2026langdoc

On the right is a photo of Anna Belew, at the bottom are logos of the Endangered Languages Project and Language Documentation Training Center
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Maarten Kossmann @maartenkossmann.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
As you all know, the Musulami were the important Gaetulian group to which Tacfarinas belonged. There may be one stela that commemorates a member of this group, RIL 808. It comes from the ruins of Sila in the region of Sigus, south of Constantine in Algeria, and looks like this ⬇️
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Intenudas @izmarasan.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The full proverb in Tamajeq says : Aṃaṇ iṃaṇ Ax isudar Iṣan alɣar Taba iṣǝkyak Water is life Milk is the means of survival Meat is shame Tobacco is a vice
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Intenudas @izmarasan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
A sahelian word > Meaning : Evil eye, curse #Tamajeq : Tagaršak #Zenaga : Tgaršəgt #Songhay : Garsaka #Fulani : Garsa But Tetserret has 'təḍ' which a calque on arabic العين
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Maarten Kossmann @maartenkossmann.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Another fantastic video by Massinissa Garaoun - now about how to make a poplar beehive in Kabylia Tagging @pmcghee.bsky.social for no specific reason youtu.be/OnuwRrzi9bw
youtu.be
Making of a Traditional Kabyle Poplar Beehive | Nabil Oukhaled & Massinissa Garaoun, April 2026
YouTube video by AFROBEE Project
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Hilde Gunnink @hildegunnink.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
This includes my project on the lost languages of Southern Africa! Thanks to @erc.europa.eu for the funding, and to @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social for almost 8 (!) years of postdoctoral funding that made this project possible. Very excited to get started!
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Hey, looks like tafult "egg" has a surviving reflex in Asla Berber! From Mustapha Bouzid: www.facebook.com/mustapha.bou... @maartenkossmann.bsky.social
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ariel @toomuchpiano.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
in Chefchaouen there is a small mosque on a hill, built by the Spanish in the style of a marabout’s tomb, so as to build solidarity with local kinship groups. the effort was unsuccessful: the mosque was never used regularly, and bears the derisive nickname Sīdi Wālu, or “Saint Nothing” in Darija
a picture of the medina of Chefchaouen from rather high up the hill, looking south
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
As seen below, "Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research" is rendered in Algerian Tamazight officialese as: aɣlif n uselmed unnig d unadi ussnan Contrast the Moroccan form: tamawast n usslmd anaflla d urzzu amassan Why so different?
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Linguist List @linguistlist.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
FYI: Metagram Seminar Series on Grammar Writing
dlvr.it
FYI: Metagram Seminar Series on Grammar Writing
The Metagram seminar is a monthly seminar on questions of grammaticography and metagrammaticography. The seminar takes place the second Tuesday of each month, Feb-May and Sept-Dec, in hybrid mode. Linguists who have written significant reference grammars are invited to discuss their grammaticographical practices and experiences. They are asked to address a list of topics, covering questions such as structuring schemes, influences, use of exemplification, integration of the corpus into the gramm
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Florent Kaddes @florentkaddes.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
À paraître aux @cnrseditions.bsky.social « Précis d’ethnomusicologie » par Simha Arom et Frank Alvarez-Péreyre : www.cnrseditions.fr/catalogue/ar...
Couverture du livre Présentation
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Benjamin Suchard @bnuyaminim.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Was going to write a blog post on what we know about where Proto-Semitic may have been spoken, but here's one from ten years ago that does a great job (details of linguistic classification aside).
daannijssen.com
Spread of the Semitic languages | Daan Nijssen - Ancient History Blog
The Semitic languages have dominated the Near East since the dawn of recorded history. Where did these Semitic languages originate and how did they spread?
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
In Algeria, it's common wisdom that family names were (mis)assigned by the French colonial government specifically to break up larger families; almost every family has their own anecdote about this. Just finished reading Brower's _The Colonization of Names_, and it turns out this is correct.
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Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 28/08/2026
My LLM cliché highlighter is up to 38 patterns now tools.simonwillison.net/llm-cliche-h...
Screenshot of a writing-analysis tool showing paragraphs of text with phrases highlighted in two shades of yellow, brown circular "3" badges, and a black tooltip overlaying the first line reading: "No X, no Y" chains · 3 "no" items. The visible text reads: We r[obscured by tooltip]nd up. No sign-ups, no downloads, no hassle (3) — just paste your text and start writing. Everything runs locally in your browser. The reviewer read the draft twice. Did not flinch, did not blink, did not reach for the red pen (3). That's the whole review, honestly. Don't call it a rewrite — call it a rescue. The improvement is real, and it's not subtle. That loss is worth naming. Sit with that for a moment. The gains were modest, but that's not nothing. You already know the answer, of course. Consistency is the entire game, and the punchline is that nobody wants to hear it. The entire pitch is one sentence long.
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Sāmapriyavasuḣ @avzaagzonunaada.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
He’s also the only one among those posting on the etymology of “Ontario” that got it correct. Otherwise, I keep seeing “Wyandot” or “Iroquois”, but no, it is Wendat (Huron). ontarïioʼ /ǫtariyoʼ/ (*i)-ontar-ïio-ʼ ɴᴇᴜ.sɢ.ᴀɢᴛ-lake-grand-sᴛᴀᴛ ‘it is a grand lake’ In Wyandot, that’d be ǫtarižoʼ.
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Marijn van Putten @phdnix.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
In 2025 @bnuyaminim.bsky.social and me taught a course on Comparative Semitics at the Leiden Summer School. After some cleaning up, we've decided to upload the syllabus and release it under a CC license for you and yours to peruse through. doi.org/10.17613/b4z...
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New Lines Magazine @newlinesmag.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
In 2021, catastrophic flooding in South Sudan’s Unity State drove millions from their homes and submerged dozens of oil wells. Now those living around the toxic marshes are seeing the effects in hospitals and maternity wards. f.mtr.cool/4n9zsr6jf5
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Joey Lovestrand @joeylovestrand.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
My recent presentation exploring the function(s) of "cognate complements" or "verb doubling" in a corpus of Barayin (Chadic) from the Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zhv...
youtube.com
Cognate complements in Barayin (Chadic) | Workshop on verb doubling in Chadic languages (CALL 2026)
YouTube video by Joey Lovestrand
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Caroline Rowland @carorowland.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I will do a 🧵 later when I have time but in the meantime, here is Abdel's 1st paper 👏 - how Tashelhiyt Berber caregivers "completely neutralise certain consonant contrasts in IDS, rendering them indistinguishable to the infant" 😲
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Apparently, Germaine Tillion wrote a note in Chaoui describing the person who had betrayed her Resistance cell to the Nazis and disguised it as part of her field notes. www.inumiden.com/germaine-til...
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Darja notes 2026 lughat.blogspot.com/2026/08/darj...
lughat.blogspot.com
Darja notes 2026
Back from holiday; this year's miscellaneous observations on Darja follow. Gemination of intervocalic p in loans seems intuitive enough, b...
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Tired of Sartre's cliché about how "Hell is other people"? Try this Kabyle proverb instead, which might be loosely rendered as: "To Hell with Paradise if I have to be all alone in it!"
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Appalling to think that the university John Hunwick taught at might find itself without an African Studies program; hope the rumours are unfounded. Have a look at their Ajami collection: dc.library.northwestern.edu/collections/...
dc.library.northwestern.edu
Arabic Manuscripts from West Africa
This rare collection of manuscripts dates back to the 19th and 20th centuries and come from mainly northern Nigeria (Kano in particular) but also includes items from Ghana, Senegal and Mali. Mostly ha...
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
The Tifinagh line on this sign is a good illustration of the perils of relying too much on French: Drif for Ḍrif, Sayd for Sɛid, Belkasem for Belqasem, Muḥamed for Muḥemmed - and, most irritatingly, Dellis for Delles. If your own speaker intuition doesn't help, at least check against the Arabic!
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
A rare sighting of the occasionally proposed but never formally adopted Neo-Tifinagh letter for /v/
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
The root S/š-Ṭ-Ḥ in Algerian Arabic - and in Kabyle lughat.blogspot.com/2026/08/ss-t...
lughat.blogspot.com
S/š-Ṭ-Ḥ in Algerian Arabic
On holiday in Algeria, I've been going frequently to some coastal rocks called əṣ-Ṣṭuħ الصطوح, from the plural of ṣṭəħ صطح "flat terr...
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Dr Neil Alexander Walker (𐐝𐐰𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑉) @nawalker.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
The little dictionary I made for the Chhé’ee Fókaa is now up on the Tribe’s website: www.saltpomo.org/our-mission-1
saltpomo.org
Our Language — Chhé'ee Fókaa Band of Northeastern Pomo
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Amazigh Languages @amazighlanguages.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Aɣil n uksum, la crête de la viande, rituel des #Babors ✨ Découvrez la majesté des montagnes des Ait Segoual dans cette nouvelle vidéo de la playlist “Tasaḥlit” ! ▶️ youtu.be/GEinVIski_0 Vous aussi, transmettez-nous vos vidéos, nous les diffuserons sur la chaîne @AmazighLanguages ! ⵣ🌟 tinemmirin ☀️ⵣ
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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Heard a new dialect interrogative today: ləmmaš لمّاش "why?" < a cognate of Classical li-mā "for-what", but with the more recent āš "what" added on at the end. Can't think of another example of piling interrogatives of the same meaning on top of each other like that in any language offhand.
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Dónal Hassett @donalh.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Looking at something else in the archives but came across this map documenting the revolt against conscription and French rule in the Aurès région of Algeria in late 1916. It was brutally repressed by the French, mainly using West African troops.
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