Project description
Identifying substrate words in Palestinian Arabic
Many traditional agricultural tools and practices in Palestinian Arabic are referred to by Hebrew and Aramaic substrate words. Identifying them is not always easy. Challenges relate to the difficulty presented when the supplanting and the supplanted languages are genetically related. Also, linguists need to gain a deep understanding of the traditional agricultural world. The EU-funded HALSPA project will focus on the case of Palestinian Arabic that is genetically related to Hebrew and Aramaic. It will identify and visualise words in Palestinian Arabic from a linguistic and ethno-material perspective. Applying a multidisciplinary method and solid criteria, the project will present an Etymological Dictionary containing some 100 roots organised alphabetically and an Annotated Pictorial Atlas organised by basic semantic fields of substrate words.