Lameen Souag's New Book on Egyptian Siwi Berber

Egypt has only one language in the Berber language family spoken within its borders: Siwi, spoken in the Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert. Algerian linguist Lameen Souag, whose linguistics blog Jabal al-Lughat is wonderful but far too rarely updated, has announced the publication of his new study: Berber and Arabic in Siwa (Egypt): A Study in Linguistic Contact.

He outlines the contents at the link, and the publisher's announcement is here. It's almost 300 pages (but also almost 50 Euros). He comments:

Based on part of my doctoral thesis [at SOAS] but significantly expanded, this book:

• proposes a classification of Siwi within Berber, and a corresponding probable account of where this Berber variety originated;
• describes the grammar of Siwi, in greater detail than any previous work;
• establishes how, and how much, long-term contact with Arabic has affected its grammar;
• examines the dialectal affiliations of Arabic loans in Siwi, providing further evidence that this contact involved very different varieties at different periods;
• provides a number of fully glossed Siwi texts of different genres, illustrating Siwi grammar and casting light on Siwi culture.

Some interesting-sounding stuff here for anyone interested in Berber, in contact borrowing among languages, or minority populations in the Arab world. I know Lameen only through commenting on each other's blogs, but bravo.