Lameen Souag
@lameensouag.bsky.social
Linguist, mainly focused on historical change and contact in northern Africa (Arabic, Berber, Songhay - and now Nilotic...)
If you're going to add AI to a search engine, this is the only correct way to do it: a list of links with brief question-related annotations, not a prominent potentially-hallucinated "answer" at the top of the page.
scholar.google.com/scholar_labs...
scholar.google.com/scholar_labs...
November 21, 2025 at 1:24 PM
If you're going to add AI to a search engine, this is the only correct way to do it: a list of links with brief question-related annotations, not a prominent potentially-hallucinated "answer" at the top of the page.
scholar.google.com/scholar_labs...
scholar.google.com/scholar_labs...
Alur (Ukoko et al.) has an ideophone for "something white spread over a wide surface".
Does any other language lexicalise this rather particular meaning?
Does any other language lexicalise this rather particular meaning?
November 18, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Alur (Ukoko et al.) has an ideophone for "something white spread over a wide surface".
Does any other language lexicalise this rather particular meaning?
Does any other language lexicalise this rather particular meaning?
This article's reasoning is correct as far as it goes: knowledge mainly encoded in languages rarely used online will be even more underrepresented in GenAI systems than it already is in books and bureaucracies, and reducing transmission even further.
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/no...
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/no...
November 18, 2025 at 7:39 AM
This article's reasoning is correct as far as it goes: knowledge mainly encoded in languages rarely used online will be even more underrepresented in GenAI systems than it already is in books and bureaucracies, and reducing transmission even further.
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/no...
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/no...
November 14, 2025 at 4:28 PM
From a Songhay cultural group on Facebook:
"Today, Friday, let us put our siblings who are in Sudan, and all the land of Sudan - especially Al Fashir, in Darfur - in our prayers: may God hold their hand in the situation they are in..."
"Today, Friday, let us put our siblings who are in Sudan, and all the land of Sudan - especially Al Fashir, in Darfur - in our prayers: may God hold their hand in the situation they are in..."
November 1, 2025 at 7:44 AM
From a Songhay cultural group on Facebook:
"Today, Friday, let us put our siblings who are in Sudan, and all the land of Sudan - especially Al Fashir, in Darfur - in our prayers: may God hold their hand in the situation they are in..."
"Today, Friday, let us put our siblings who are in Sudan, and all the land of Sudan - especially Al Fashir, in Darfur - in our prayers: may God hold their hand in the situation they are in..."
Apparently our collective capabilities are so amazing that we can see spilled blood from space now, but still can't lift a hand to stop the killers.
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...
October 30, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Apparently our collective capabilities are so amazing that we can see spilled blood from space now, but still can't lift a hand to stop the killers.
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...
If a human claimed Bugeaud was being judged by "anachronistic standards", you'd bring out his contemporaries' words. With an LLM, one simply wonders how the prompt was phrased - "make sure to judge all colonial crimes positively"?
www.google.fr/books/editio...
www.google.co.uk/books/editio...
www.google.fr/books/editio...
www.google.co.uk/books/editio...
October 28, 2025 at 3:17 PM
If a human claimed Bugeaud was being judged by "anachronistic standards", you'd bring out his contemporaries' words. With an LLM, one simply wonders how the prompt was phrased - "make sure to judge all colonial crimes positively"?
www.google.fr/books/editio...
www.google.co.uk/books/editio...
www.google.fr/books/editio...
www.google.co.uk/books/editio...
-inventing new words (luli means "noon", not "pearl", "tooth" is asen, not as, akər is "steal" not "field", əkkər is "get up" not "to plow"...)
-randomly messing up paradigms
-randomly messing up paradigms
October 28, 2025 at 11:28 AM
-inventing new words (luli means "noon", not "pearl", "tooth" is asen, not as, akər is "steal" not "field", əkkər is "get up" not "to plow"...)
-randomly messing up paradigms
-randomly messing up paradigms
Here we see the power of LLMs coming into full play:
-"hallucinating" VSO order, "supported" by two citations (one of me!) that say the opposite
-claiming it retains glottal stops (which existed in proto-Berber, but are lost in Siwi), and pharyngeals (which didn't)
-making up new phonemes /ɛ/, /ɔ/
-"hallucinating" VSO order, "supported" by two citations (one of me!) that say the opposite
-claiming it retains glottal stops (which existed in proto-Berber, but are lost in Siwi), and pharyngeals (which didn't)
-making up new phonemes /ɛ/, /ɔ/
October 28, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Here we see the power of LLMs coming into full play:
-"hallucinating" VSO order, "supported" by two citations (one of me!) that say the opposite
-claiming it retains glottal stops (which existed in proto-Berber, but are lost in Siwi), and pharyngeals (which didn't)
-making up new phonemes /ɛ/, /ɔ/
-"hallucinating" VSO order, "supported" by two citations (one of me!) that say the opposite
-claiming it retains glottal stops (which existed in proto-Berber, but are lost in Siwi), and pharyngeals (which didn't)
-making up new phonemes /ɛ/, /ɔ/
From a Dholuo dictionary.
The only place I can actually think of where this principle doesn't hold is some contemporary Anglo communities (going back at least to C. S. Lewis' time); any other candidates?
The only place I can actually think of where this principle doesn't hold is some contemporary Anglo communities (going back at least to C. S. Lewis' time); any other candidates?
October 28, 2025 at 9:37 AM
From a Dholuo dictionary.
The only place I can actually think of where this principle doesn't hold is some contemporary Anglo communities (going back at least to C. S. Lewis' time); any other candidates?
The only place I can actually think of where this principle doesn't hold is some contemporary Anglo communities (going back at least to C. S. Lewis' time); any other candidates?
Alur is the first language I've looked at seriously which has an inherited word for "gorilla":
bím "gorilla"
bím mɪ́lùl "forest gorilla"
bím mɪ́gɔ̀t "mountain gorilla"
It didn't always mean this, though; proto-Lwoo was spoken much further north, and its Anywa cognate, bīm, means "baboon".
(img: WP)
bím "gorilla"
bím mɪ́lùl "forest gorilla"
bím mɪ́gɔ̀t "mountain gorilla"
It didn't always mean this, though; proto-Lwoo was spoken much further north, and its Anywa cognate, bīm, means "baboon".
(img: WP)
October 21, 2025 at 6:30 AM
Alur is the first language I've looked at seriously which has an inherited word for "gorilla":
bím "gorilla"
bím mɪ́lùl "forest gorilla"
bím mɪ́gɔ̀t "mountain gorilla"
It didn't always mean this, though; proto-Lwoo was spoken much further north, and its Anywa cognate, bīm, means "baboon".
(img: WP)
bím "gorilla"
bím mɪ́lùl "forest gorilla"
bím mɪ́gɔ̀t "mountain gorilla"
It didn't always mean this, though; proto-Lwoo was spoken much further north, and its Anywa cognate, bīm, means "baboon".
(img: WP)
The verb from which it derives is pan-Lwoo, e.g. Anywa
October 18, 2025 at 2:29 PM
The verb from which it derives is pan-Lwoo, e.g. Anywa
Amusing Southern Lwoo cognate set of the day:
Dholuo: akara (n.) "trousers", (adv.) "spread apart"
Acholi: àkárákárà yòò (n.) "junction"
Alur: ákárà (n.) "fork, forking", àkárákárà (n.) "trident"
(images: WP)
Dholuo: akara (n.) "trousers", (adv.) "spread apart"
Acholi: àkárákárà yòò (n.) "junction"
Alur: ákárà (n.) "fork, forking", àkárákárà (n.) "trident"
(images: WP)
October 18, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Amusing Southern Lwoo cognate set of the day:
Dholuo: akara (n.) "trousers", (adv.) "spread apart"
Acholi: àkárákárà yòò (n.) "junction"
Alur: ákárà (n.) "fork, forking", àkárákárà (n.) "trident"
(images: WP)
Dholuo: akara (n.) "trousers", (adv.) "spread apart"
Acholi: àkárákárà yòò (n.) "junction"
Alur: ákárà (n.) "fork, forking", àkárákárà (n.) "trident"
(images: WP)
"One could say that cows derive their names from creatures in the world, but the reverse would be just as accurate: cows provide the patterns according to which the world is comprehensible."
mouse-magazine.com/issue-4/2022...
mouse-magazine.com/issue-4/2022...
October 14, 2025 at 6:02 AM
"One could say that cows derive their names from creatures in the world, but the reverse would be just as accurate: cows provide the patterns according to which the world is comprehensible."
mouse-magazine.com/issue-4/2022...
mouse-magazine.com/issue-4/2022...
Labiodental borrowed as interdental:
Taino > Spanish guayaba > English guava > Arabic juwāfa > Anywa (South Sudan/Ethiopia):
Taino > Spanish guayaba > English guava > Arabic juwāfa > Anywa (South Sudan/Ethiopia):
October 13, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Labiodental borrowed as interdental:
Taino > Spanish guayaba > English guava > Arabic juwāfa > Anywa (South Sudan/Ethiopia):
Taino > Spanish guayaba > English guava > Arabic juwāfa > Anywa (South Sudan/Ethiopia):
Dunno anything about Oslo politics, but the Palestinian civil society call for BDS goes back at least to 2005. Its specific demands were as follows.
October 11, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Dunno anything about Oslo politics, but the Palestinian civil society call for BDS goes back at least to 2005. Its specific demands were as follows.
Domari would need some in-depth etymological work, but something along those lines probably happened there.
October 10, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Domari would need some in-depth etymological work, but something along those lines probably happened there.
Just because you and your spouse have come up with a home language policy doesn't mean your kids will agree to it!
(Melgani 2025, "Bilingual development, translanguaging practices, and discursive co-construction of ethnic identity in Algerian Chaoui families" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... )
(Melgani 2025, "Bilingual development, translanguaging practices, and discursive co-construction of ethnic identity in Algerian Chaoui families" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... )
October 10, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Just because you and your spouse have come up with a home language policy doesn't mean your kids will agree to it!
(Melgani 2025, "Bilingual development, translanguaging practices, and discursive co-construction of ethnic identity in Algerian Chaoui families" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... )
(Melgani 2025, "Bilingual development, translanguaging practices, and discursive co-construction of ethnic identity in Algerian Chaoui families" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... )
This Owen, the provincial governor, was apparently so cruel as to give his own superiors pause. Plagiarism seems to be the least of it.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=udS...
books.google.co.uk/books?id=udS...
October 7, 2025 at 8:44 AM
This Owen, the provincial governor, was apparently so cruel as to give his own superiors pause. Plagiarism seems to be the least of it.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=udS...
books.google.co.uk/books?id=udS...
Looking through grammars of Bari (South Sudan), and disappointed to realise that Owen 1908 ("Bari Grammar and Vocabulary") is almost entirely plagiarised without acknowledgement from Mitteruntzner 1867 ("Die Sprache der Bari in Central-Afrika"). At least Owen calls himself "editor", not "author"...
October 7, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Looking through grammars of Bari (South Sudan), and disappointed to realise that Owen 1908 ("Bari Grammar and Vocabulary") is almost entirely plagiarised without acknowledgement from Mitteruntzner 1867 ("Die Sprache der Bari in Central-Afrika"). At least Owen calls himself "editor", not "author"...
The really annoying bit of that essay (apart from the fact that Inuktitut does in fact have more than 2 roots for "snow", and that it makes more sense to count lexemes than roots) is the part where he explicitly dismisses variation in the lexicalization of semantic fields as unworthy of attention.
October 3, 2025 at 6:39 AM
The really annoying bit of that essay (apart from the fact that Inuktitut does in fact have more than 2 roots for "snow", and that it makes more sense to count lexemes than roots) is the part where he explicitly dismisses variation in the lexicalization of semantic fields as unworthy of attention.
In Dellys (Souag 2005):
October 2, 2025 at 5:48 AM
In Dellys (Souag 2005):
Taunting reduplication in Dholuo, according to Gregersen 1971
September 29, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Taunting reduplication in Dholuo, according to Gregersen 1971
"And the wizard said 'May it not rain'" is another handy phrase.
September 25, 2025 at 12:57 PM
"And the wizard said 'May it not rain'" is another handy phrase.
Marking case only on the first conjunct... very familiar from Berber, but in Dinka the case marker isn't even initial
(below: Nebel 1948)
(below: Nebel 1948)
September 25, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Marking case only on the first conjunct... very familiar from Berber, but in Dinka the case marker isn't even initial
(below: Nebel 1948)
(below: Nebel 1948)