State Library of Queensland & The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
11-13 September 2009

Brisbane RiverFire 2009: From the ‘Promised Land’ to the ‘Lucky Country’, Denial is Not a River in Egypt

The first international conference of FORAYS ('ventures') < FOUR As < AAAA < Australian Afro-Asiatic Association


An easy-to-fill REGISTRATION FORM for both conference and dinner is available below. Would you please download it, fill it and email it to m.barton@uq.edu.au as soon as possible.


‘I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right ***to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain***.’  (John Adams, 1735–1826, second president of the United States)

‘A Senegalese poet said “In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” We must learn about other cultures in order to understand, in order to love, and in order to preserve our common world heritage.’ (Cellist Yo Yo Ma, White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy, 28 November 2000)

‘Language is a guide to “social reality”. Though language is not ordinarily thought of as of essential interest to the students of social science, it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the “real world” is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.’ (Linguist Edward Sapir, Language, 1921)

‘Linguistic and social factors are closely interrelated in the development of language change. Explanations which are confined to one or the other aspect, no matter how well constructed, will fail to account for the rich body of regularities that can be observed in empirical studies of language behavior.’ (Uriel Weinreich, William Labov and Marvin Herzog, 1968)



PROGRAMME


• FRIDAY, 11 September 2009:


VENUE: Star Cruise Jetty, near the large white Ferris Wheel, near QPAC, South Bank (Brisbane):

**910-1400: South Bank to Moreton Bay Brisbane River Boat Trip (25 AUD payable in situ) – a 60 km return voyage past some of Brisbane’s prime real estate, historical Newstead House, Fort Lytton and the new extended Port of Brisbane. Morning Tea Included.


VENUE: The Breezeway Stage, Brisbane Writers Festival (BWF), State Library of Queensland, Cultural Centre, Stanley Place, South Bank (Brisbane):
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=State+Library+of+Que­ensland%2C+Brisbane%2C+Australia+4101

**1430: AWAAL REGISTRATION

**1530: OPENING CEREMONY:
• Welcome to Country by Acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the Land (by Michael Williams, Member of the Gooreng Gooreng Aboriginal Community, Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit);
• Greetings by Professor Paul Greenfield, Vice-Chancellor and President of The University of Queensland;
• Brief speeches by Professor Richard Fotheringham, Executive Dean, Faculty of Arts; Professor Alfredo Martínez-Expósito, Head, School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies; and Professor Fawwaz Mohammad Al-Rashed Al-Abed Al-Haq, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Al al-Bayt University, Mafraq, Jordan, representing AWAAL presenters.
• Singing, Playing and Dancing by Ermias Gebremariam, Awet Mlash, Nardos Zerihun, Senayt Mebrahtu, powerful tenor Raffaele Pierno, Heather Lee (soprano) and Kim Cunio, Australia's leading composer and interpreter of sacred traditional music.

Other attending guests will include:
• Professor Deborah Terry, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic);
• Professor Joanne Tompkins, Head, School of English, Media Studies and Art History;
• Professor Peter Cryle, Director, Centre for the History of European Discourses;
• Georgiana Poulter, Director, Institute of Modern Languages;
• Professor Ian Hunter, Australian Professorial Fellow;
• Professor David Trigger, Anthropologist;
• Nick Xynias AO BEM, Honorary President, Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland; and
• Professor Max Braendle, Executive Board Member of the Australian Council for Europe.

**1640: PANEL: Stop, Revive, Survive!: Lessons from the Middle East Applicable to the Revival of No-Longer Spoken Aboriginal Languages.

‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.’ (Nelson Mandela)

Panelists will include Eve Fesl, Aboriginal academic leader; Faith Baisden, coordinator of the Queensland Indigenous Languages Advisory Committee; Michael Williams, Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit; Amareswar Galla, leading expert in sustainable heritage development; and Ghil'ad Zuckermann, linguist.


VENUE: Ahmets Restaurant, Shop 10, 164 Grey Street, South Bank (Brisbane):

*1830: CONFERENCE DINNER



• SATURDAY, 12 September 2009:


VENUE: Lecture Hall 207, Richards Building, Great Court, The University of Queensland, St Lucia (Brisbane):
http://www.uq.edu.au/maps/pdf/StLuciaMap.pdf

**930: Registration

**10-13: OVERVIEWS

CHAIR: Amareswar Galla
(1)  10-1030: Yvonne Treis: Overview of OMOTIC
(2)  1030-11: Abdel El-Hankari: Overview of BERBER

11-1130: Coffee Break

CHAIR: Jason Jacobs
(3)    1130-12: Yvonne Treis: Overview of CUSHITIC
(4)    12-1230: Baruch Podolsky: Overview of SEMITIC
(5)    1230-13: Verna Rieschild: Sociolinguistic Overview of ARABIC

**13-1415: Lunch Break

**1415-1715: THE AFRO-ASIATIC WORLD

Cameroon and Jordan: CHAIR: Georgiana Poulter
(6)    1415-1445: Prosper Djiafeua and Anne Le Guinio: Challenges and Solutions in Implementing National Languages in Educational Institutions: The Case of Cameroon.
(7)    1445-1515: Fawwaz Al-Abed Al-Haq and Amer Lahad Al-Masaeid: Islam and Language Planning in the Arab World: The Case of Jordan.

1515-1545: Coffee Break

From Hebrew to Israeli: CHAIR: Kim Cunio
(8)  1545-1615: David Kummerow: Anaphora and Deixis in Tiberian Hebrew: Semantically Mapping the Case for a Distance-Neutral Demonstrative.
(9)  1615-1645: Baruch Podolsky: Irregularities in Pronominal Suffixes in Modern Hebrew.
(10)  1645-1715: Ruvik Rosenthal: The Dilemma of Foreign Languages in Modern Hebrew.


VENUE: Outdoors, corner of Harcourt Street and Bowen Terrace, Fortitude Valley / New Farm (Brisbane):

**1830: QBE RIVERFIRE: Pyrotechnic and Musical Extravaganza – Fireworks and F-111 Aeroplanes ‘Dump and Burn’ Show



• SUNDAY, 13 September 2009:


VENUE: Lecture Hall 207, Richards Building, Great Court, The University of Queensland, St Lucia (Brisbane):

**9: Registration

**930-13: THE SEMITIC WORLD

Amharic and Arabic: CHAIR: Verna Rieschild
(11)    930-10: Girma Halefom and Tommi Leung: Conditional Agreement and Feature Matrix in Amharic.
(12)    10-1030: Hagit Borer and Sarah Ouwayda: Men and their Apples: Comments on Arabic Plurals.
(13)    1030-11: Thamir Al Barrag: Ordering Multiple Adjectives (on Hijazi Arabic, Australian English).

11-1130: Coffee Break

Arabic: CHAIR: Ilana Mushin
(14)    1130-12: Abdullah Bin Towairesh: Using Address Terms with Strangers in Riyadh.
(15)    12-1230: Sarah Ouwayda: Akala l-waladu tuffaHata akheehi - Semitic Construct State Nominals: A Relational Analysis.
(16)    1230-13: Mohammad Ali Al-Zahrani: Negative Particles in Hijazi Arabic.

**13-1430: Lunch Break

**1430-1730: THE SEMITIC WORLD

Holy Scriptures: CHAIR: Bruria Bergman
(17)    1430-15: Uri Zur: Pentateuch Verses through the Perspective of the Aramaic Translation Targum Onqelos.
(18)    15-1530: Ed Conrad: Looking at What the Prophets Saw (on Biblical Hebrew).
(19)    1530-16: Sandy Habib: The Concepts of Arabic Malak and English Angel: Are They the Same?

16-1630: Coffee Break

Arabic and Applied Linguistics: CHAIR: Michael Harrington
(20)    1630-17: Salih Alzahrani: Word Order and Agreement in Spoken Faify Arabic.
(21)    17-1730: Tariq Elyas: Post 9/11 Impact on English Language Curricula in Saudi Arabia: Trends and Reform.

**1730-18: *PUBLICATION PLANS* AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
 

POSTERS

(22) Gabor Takacs: Overview of Egyptian.
(23) Ghil‘ad Zuckermann: Multiple Causation in Israeli, somewhat misleadingly a.k.a. ‘Modern Hebrew’.
(24) Tesfay Tewolde Yohannes: Phonological and Lexical Correspondences in Proto-Semitic, Egyptian and Ethio-Eritrean Semitic Languages.
(25) Alessandro Suzzi Valli: Common Lexicon in the Saharan Linguistic and Cultural Complex: Body Parts.
(26) Ariel Gutman: Between Semantic and Syntactic Valency: The Case of the Zakho Neo-Aramaic Preterite Construction.
(27) Bruria Bergman: Syllabic Melodic Structure, ever so unique to Hebrew-Aramaic, in a Japanese Obon song, as a probable Hebrew-Aramaic Narrative.
(28) Ephraim Nissan: Asia at Both Ends: An Introduction to
Etymythology, with a Response to Bergman.
(29) Khalid Alhommady: EFL Teachers’ and Students’ Perspectives on the Teaching of English Culture in a Saudi Teachers’ College.
(30) Andrzej Zaborski: On the Afro-Asiatic Family.
(31) Abdelaziz Allati: From Proto-Berber to Proto-Afro-Asiatic.
(32) Sergio Baldi and Rudolf Leger: Chadic Border Languages in the Middle Belt of Nigeria.
(33) Rudolf Leger: Overview of Chadic.


An easy-to-fill REGISTRATION FORM for both conference and dinner is available below. Would you please download it, fill it and email it to m.barton@uq.edu.au as soon as possible.


Selected papers will be published in a refereed volume in due course.


Respectfully, Ghil‘ad Zuckermann, gz@uq.edu.au


FURTHER INFORMATION

***WHAT***: An international first Australian Workshop on Afro-Asiatic Linguistics (AWAAL). All disciplines welcome. Papers – by established scholars and promising graduate students from all over the globe (e.g. Australia, Cameroon, Canada, Eritrea, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Poland, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States) – will analyse languages and cultures belonging to the Afro-Asiatic family, e.g. Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic, Omotic, Chadic and Semitic.

***WHERE***: (1) FRIDAY: State Library of Queensland, Cultural Centre, Stanley Place, South Bank (Brisbane); (2) SATURDAY-SUNDAY: Great Court, The University of Queensland, St Lucia (Brisbane); Queensland, Australia (Driving distance from Byron Bay, Montville, Noosa and Sunshine Coast, Fraser Island, Stradbroke Island, Surfers Paradise and Gold Coast...)

***WHY THERE***: The University of Queensland, an outstanding institution for higher learning belonging to the prestigious Group of Eight, has been home to prominent scholars and linguists such as Georges Perec, Eric Partridge and Rodney Huddleston.

***WHEN***: 11-13 September 2009. Start Time: Friday, 11 September 2009 at 9:10; End Time: Sunday, 13  September 2009 at 18:00.

***WHY THEN***: 
(1) On Saturday, 12 September 2009, in the evening, participants will have the opportunity of watching the spectacular QBE RIVERFIRE (see links below);
(2) The Brisbane Writers Festival (BWF) will take place on 9-13 September and AWAAL Opening Ceremony will take place at BWF;
(3) The Brisbane Festival will take place on 12 September - 3 October;
(4) This year booming and blooming Queensland celebrates 150 years of independence (from New South Wales);
(5) The University of Queensland will celebrate its Centenary in 2010;
(6) The weather in bustling and beautiful Brisbane – also known in Ashkenazic Hebrew as Bris bane (haBesorim) ‘covenant between (the parts)’ (see Genesis 15) – is superbly balmy, especially in April-October.

***WHO***:

The speakers will be:

(1) Yvonne Treis (overview of OMOTIC and CUSHITIC; Ometo/Baskeet, East Cushitic/Kambaata),
(2) Abdel El-Hankari (overview of BERBER),
(3) Baruch Podolsky (overview of SEMITIC, Modern Hebrew)
(4) Verna Rieschild (sociolinguistic overview of ARABIC: Modern Standard, Classical, vernaculars),
(5) Hagit Borer (Arabic),
(6) Ruvik Rosenthal (Israeli),
(7) Sarah Ouwayda (Arabic, Lebanese Arabic),
(8) Fawwaz Al-Abed Al-Haq (language planning in Jordan),
(9) Amer Lahad Al-Masaeid (language planning in Jordan),
(10) Ed Conrad (Biblical Hebrew),
(11) Tommi Leung (Amharic),
(12) Girma Halefom (Amharic),
(13) Sandy Habib (Arabic),
(14) Uri Zur (Aramaic, Hebrew),
(15) Tariq Elyas (Arabic),
(16) Thamir Al Barrag (Hijazi Arabic),
(17) Abdullah Bin Towairesh (Saudi Arabic),
(18) Mohammad Ali Al-Zahrani (Hijazi Arabic),
(19) Salih Jamaan Alzahrani (Faify Arabic),
(20) Prosper Djiafeua (Afro-Asiatic languages spoken in Cameroon),
(21) Anne Le Guinio (languages spoken in Cameroon),
(22) David Kummerow (Tiberian Hebrew),
(23) Eve Fesl (Aboriginal language revival),
(24) Faith Baisden (Aboriginal Language Revival),
(25) Michael Williams (Aboriginal Language Revival),
(26) Amareswar Galla (sustainable heritage development), and
(27) Ghil‘ad Zuckermann (chairing a panel on lessons from the Middle East applicable to the revival of no-longer spoken Aboriginal languages).

The poster presenters will be:

(28) Gábor Takács (Egyptian),
(29) Abdelaziz Allati (Berber, Akkadian, Proto-Afro-Asiatic).
(30) Tesfay Tewolde Yohannes (Proto-Semitic, Egyptian, Ethio-Eritrean),
(31) Alessandro Suzzi Valli (Saharan),
(32) Ariel Gutman (Neo-Aramaic),
(33) Bruria Bergman (Hebrew, Aramaic),
(34) Ephraim Nissan (Hebrew, Aramaic),
(35) Khalid Alhommady (Saudi Arabia)
(36) Andrzej Zaborski (Afro-Asiatic),
(37) Rudolf Leger (overview of CHADIC),
(38) Sergio Baldi (Chadic, Nigeria), and
(39) Ghil‘ad Zuckermann (Israeli, a.k.a. ‘Modern Hebrew’).

The chairs will be:

(40) Amareswar Galla,
(41) Jason Jacobs,
(42) Georgiana Poulter,
(43) Kim Cunio,
(44) Verna Rieschild,
(45) Bruria Bergman,
(46) Ilana Mushin, and
(47) Michael Harrington.


***HOW***: AWAAL presentations will be divided into several parts, in the following order: Panel, Overviews, The Afro-Asiatic World and the Semitic World. Posters will be distributed separately.

***FURTHER DETAILS***: Please contact Ghil'ad Zuckermann, <gz@uq.edu.au>, http://www.zuckermann.org/

***RELEVANT LINKS***:

UQ
St Lucia Campus Map: http://www.uq.edu.au/maps/pdf/StLuciaMap.pdf
The University of Queensland: http://www.uq.edu.au/
School of English, Media Studies and Art History: http://www.emsah.uq.edu.au/
School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/
Institute of Modern Languages: http://www.iml.uq.edu.au/
School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics: http://www.uq.edu.au/hprc/
UQ Researchers: http://www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/index.html
UQ Experts: http://www.uq.edu.au/uqexperts/

BRISBANE QBE RIVERFIRE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzsMjhze1Ow&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-_i5jQVWz8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRg4RZBqXhw
http://www.riverfestival.com.au/index.php?page=FAQs

GREAT COURT
http://people.hws.edu/mitchell/cards01/GreatCourt.html

BRISBANE WRITERS FESTIVAL
http://www.brisbanewritersfestival.com.au/

BRISBANE FESTIVAL
http://www.brisbanefestival.com.au

CHEAP FLIGHTS
To Australia: http://www.airasia.com/site/au/en/home.jsp
In Australia: http://www.webjet.com.au/flights/

DANGER!!!!!!!!!!: Some academics who visited Australia did not want to return to their home university.

Further particulars: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=54566669862­


LINKS TO RELEVANT PAPERS (SUBMISSIONS WELCOME):

* PANEL: FRIDAY, 11 September, 16:30: Stop, Revive, Survive!: Lessons from the Middle East Applicable to the Revival of No-Longer Spoken Aboriginal Languages: Zuckermann, Ghil‘ad 2009, “Aboriginal Languages Deserve to be Revived”, The Australian Higher Education, p. 33. (26 August 2009): http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25980525-­25192,00.html

* PAPER (14): SUNDAY, 13 September, 1130-12: Abdullah Bin Towairesh: Using Address Terms with Strangers in Riyadh:
http://uqabdullah.wordpress.com/

* POSTER (23) Ghil‘ad Zuckermann: Multiple Causation in Israeli, somewhat misleadingly a.k.a. ‘Modern Hebrew’:
http://www.zuckermann.org/pdf/Hybridity_versus_Revivability.­pdf

=====================================


An article about AWAAL:

UQ celebrates Afro-Asiatic languages

By Penny Robinson

For linguist Ghil‘ad Zuckermann, languages are much more than a means of communication – they are a passion.

Associate Professor Zuckermann – who is based at UQ’s School of English, Media Studies and Art History but will soon move to the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies – was instrumental in organising Australia’s inaugural conference on Afro-Asiatic languages, held over three days in September.

Coinciding with the Brisbane Writers Festival, the first Australian Workshop on Afro-Asiatic Linguistics (AWAAL) was a celebration of scholarship and multiculturalism, bringing together outstanding scholars and promising graduates from 18 countries, and featuring singers and dancers from all over the world.

“Despite having hundreds of thousands of Australians of Afro-Asiatic heritage – and although there are hundreds of millions Afro-Asiatic speakers all over the globe – the Lucky Country has not had a tradition of research activities on these languages and societies,” Dr Zuckermann said.

“So I decided to establish the Australian Afro-Asiatic Association and to organise the first AWAAL with the hope that it become a tradition.”

Formerly known as Hamito-Semitic, the Afro-Asiatic family comprises languages spoken in northern Africa and southwest Asia, including the Semitic, Chadic, Cushitic, Berber, Omotic, and ancient Egyptian languages.

According to 2006 statistics, in Australia there are 243,662 speakers of Arabic, 36,517 Maltese speakers, 23,526 Assyrian speakers, 7559 Israeli speakers, 6647 Somali speakers, 2852 Amharic speakers, 1655 Tigrinya speakers and 997 speakers of Oromo.

In one debate panel, Dr Zuckermann, who was born in Israel, explored how lessons from the Middle East were applicable to the revival, maintenance and empowerment of Aboriginal languages.

“Everything is possible and attempts to revive no-longer-spoken tongues should be supported and championed,” Dr Zuckermann said.

“I hear again and again 'Native Title' but where is the 'native tongue title'? Is land more important than langue and (cultural) lens?”

“That said, we should be realistic: any revival of a 'sleeping beauty' – or 'walking dead' – is unlikely without cross-fertilisation from the revivalists’ mother tongue(s).”

One of AWAAL presenters, Professor Fawwaz Al-Abed Al-Haq, Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Al al-Bayt University, Jordan, described AWAAL as an “unprecedented milestone conference”.

“I left my heart in Brisbane,” Professor Al-Abed Al-Haq said upon returning to Jordan.

UQ PhD candidate Abdel El-Hankari, who is researching Berber linguistics, said the event was praised by the participants as “highly successful”.

“Many prominent scholars asked if such an event could be held on a regular basis. Some professors who first visited Australia had an extremely positive impression about UQ, the city and its people,” Mr El-Hankari said.


Media: Associate Professor Ghil‘ad Zuckermann (07 3365 1445, 0423 901 808, gz@uq.edu.au) or Penny Robinson at UQ Communications (07 3365 9723, penny.robinson@uq.edu.au)





בין המשתתפים (באותיות עבריות): רוביק רוזנטל, ברוך פודולסקי, אורי צור, חגית בורר, גלעד צוקרמן, אפרים ניסן, אריאל גוטמן, סנדי חביב, פוואז אל-עבד אל-חק, אד קונרד (אדגר קונרד), קים קוניו, הת'ר לי, רפאלה פיירנו, פול גרינפילד (נשיא אוניברסיטת קווינסלנד, בריסביין, אוסטרליה), ריצ'ארד פות'רינגהם (דיקן הפקולטה למדעי הרוח), אלפרדו מרטינז אקספוסיטו, ג'ואן טומפקינס, פיטר קרייל, ג'ורג'יאנה פולטר, איבון טרייס, אבדל אל-הנקרי, ורנה רית'שילד, איאן האנטר, דייוויד טריגר, אמאר גאלה, אנדרי זבורסקי, ברוריה ברגמן ז"ל