Books by "Jonathan P. Decter"
2 books found
Arabic is one of the world's largest languages, spoken natively by nearly 300 million people. By strength of numbers alone Arabic is one of our most important languages, studied by scholars across many different academic fields and cultural settings. It is, however, a complex language rooted in its own tradition of scholarship, constituted of varieties each imbued with unique cultural values and characteristic linguistic properties. Understanding its linguistics holistically is therefore a challenge. The Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics is a comprehensive, one-volume guide that deals with all major research domains which have been developed within Arabic linguistics. Chapters are written by leading experts in the field, who both present state-of-the-art overviews and develop their own critical perspectives. The Handbook begins with Arabic in its Semitic setting and ends with the modern dialects; it ranges across the traditional--the classical Arabic grammatical and lexicographical traditions--to the contemporary--Arabic sociolinguistics, Creole varieties and codeswitching, psycholinguistics, and Arabic as a second language - while situating Arabic within current phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexicological theory. An essential reference work for anyone working within Arabic linguistics, the book brings together different approaches and scholarly traditions, and provides analysis of current trends and directions for future research.
A "groundbreaking" portrait of the migration and resettlement of Spain's Jewish community after 1492, and how the Sephardic identity emerged ( American Historical Review). Honorable Mention, Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History presented by the Association for Jewish Studies On August 3, 1492, the same day that Columbus set sail from Spain, the long and glorious history of that nation's Jewish community officially came to a close. The expulsion of Europe's last major Jewish community ended more than a thousand years of unparalleled prosperity, cultural vitality, and intellectual productivity. Yet, the crisis of 1492 also gave rise to a dynamic and resilient diaspora society spanning East and West. After Expulsion traces the various paths of migration and resettlement of Sephardic Jews and Conversos over the course of the tumultuous sixteenth century. Pivotally, the volume argues that the exiles did not become "Sephardic Jews" overnight. Only in the second and third generation did these disparate groups coalesce and adopt a "Sephardic Jewish" identity. This is a new and fascinating portrait of Jewish society in transition from the medieval to the early modern period—a portrait that challenges many longstanding assumptions about the differences between Europe and the Middle East. "A rich and compelling history . . . With its intense focus on one century, Ray's book makes a distant time and trauma painfully vivid and immediate to the reader." ― Jewish Currents Magazine