John Huehnergard

Introduction: Contact Among Genetically Related Languages

The study of language contact has blossomed in the last several decades, especially since the publication of Uriel Weinreich’s ground-breaking Languages in Contact 60 years ago (Weinreich, 1953). Linguists have come to see contact as one of the most important mechanisms of language change, with some going so far as to suggest that contact is the principal catalyst for change (e.g., Dixon, 1997). While the extent to which language contact should be given primacy in models of language change is debated (see, e.g., Bowern, 2010 for discussion), there is no question that the effects of contact are of critical importance to our understanding of language change and relationship, and that they provide intriguing insights into past interactions among peoples. The relevance of contact has been recognized by linguists for well over a century—the German linguist Hugo Schuchardt famously declared in the 1880s that there is no language completely free of foreign influence (Schuchardt, 1884).1 However, the scientific study of language contact gained its most solid foundation considerably later, with the publication of Weinreich’s (1953) seminal book; this work treated contact-induced change systematically according to the grammatical categories involved (lexicon, phonology, morphology, syntax, etc.) and the probability of transference within them, i.e., movement of features

Arabic in Its Semitic Context

During the Enlightenment, some thinkers pondered the original language of humanity, and decided that it must have been Hebrew.1 With the advent of historical linguistics in the 19th century, Hebrew was, in a way, dethroned by Arabic. On the one hand, the simple vowel system of classical Arabic, on the other hand, its rich consonantal inventory, huge vocabulary, complex system of tenses and moods, and seemingly complete system of derived verbs made Arabic seem, to 19th-century European scholars, to be the most archaic and conservative of all Semitic languages; indeed, the earliest comparative studies almost treat Arabic as though it were, in fact, Proto-Semitic.2 But of course Arabic is not Proto-Semitic. The phonology of classical Arabic is indeed very conservative, but there are other, more conservative Semitic

The Biblical Prohibition Against Tattooing

AbstractLev 19:28 prohibits tattooing, but no reason for the prohibition is given. Since it appears in a context of pagan mourning practices (Lev 19:27,28) it is assumed that the reason for the prohibition lay in its association with such mourning practices. In this paper we explore the broader context of the law in biblical times, and how it was understood in subsequent rabbinic times. We propose that in the biblical period the prohibition was associated with the marking of slaves, and that in the subsequent rabbinic period it was associated with paganism.

Texts and Fragments

The Ur III tablet presented here is in the Dr. Bernard Boyd Memorial Collection of the Museum of World Cultures of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Prof. Gerald Shinn, acting director and curator of the museum, has kindly permitted publication of the text. The tablet is complete, light brown, and measures 3.6X3.9X1.2 cm. The seal on the reverse is barely visible; it seems to depict a standing figure facing a seated figure. The lower edge and left side of the tablet are uninscribed. Date: Amar-Sin 7.