Table of Contents

1: Introduction: A Language and its Secrets
2: Old Arabic, Neo-Arabic, and Comparative Linguistics
3: Case and Proto Arabic
4: Al-Idgham al-Kabiyr and Case Endings
5: Pre-Diasporic Arabic in the Diaspora: A Statistical Approach to Arabic Language History
6: Nigerian Arabic and Reconstruction of the Imperfect Verb
7: Imala
8: Suffix Pronouns and Reconstruction
9: Summary and Epilogue
References

About the Author

Jonathan Owens is Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Advanced Study of Language, University of Maryland where he is on leave from his position as Professor of Arabic Linguistics at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. Starting his linguistics career with a SOAS PhD on Creole Arabic Nubi of East Africa, he has taught and conducted research at universities in Libya (Garyounis), Nigeria (Maiduguri), and Jordan (Yarmouk). HIs books include A Grammar of
Libyan Arabic, Harrassowitz, 1984, A Short Reference Grammar of Nigerian Arabic, Harrassowitz, 1993 and The Foundations of Grammar: an Introduction to Medieval Arabic Grammatical Theory, Benjamins,1988.

Reviews

...highly stimulating read for anyone with interest in the history of Arabic...It deserves a warm welcome.
*Clive Holes SOAS*