The Economist's New Middle East Blog

The Economist has been around since 1843, and now they're joining the Middle East blogosphere with a Middle East blog known as Pomegranate.  Let me welcome them: more competition makes us all try harder, and I've always respected The Economist and those of their Middle East reporters I've met. The initial post is signed by "M.R., Cairo," which I'm assuming is Max Rodenbeck, whose wonderful book on Cairo led my list of essential books about that city a while back. Welcome, Pomegranate.

Happy Birthday to Jadaliyya at Two

One of the best online magazines on the Middle East, Jadaliyya,is celebrating its second birthday today. If you don't check it out regularly, now would be an excellent time to start.

A Belated Discovery: The Arabizi Blog, Dealing With Issues We Often Discuss Here

Readers are aware that I've posted a lot about the problems of diglossia in Arabic and the debate over the so-called "death of Arabic," usually proclaimed to be imminent. I'm a bit abashed, therefore, to admit that I've only just discovered a highly relevant blog, Arabizi, by Ph.D. candidate Fatma Said, which seems to have been around since 2010 but which I've been sadly unaware of until now. It spends a lot of time devoted to just those issues, among others related to Arabic as it is spoken and used (Arabizi is from Arabiyya and Inglizi, referring to the mixed jargon often heard ins some Arab circles). Don't miss the "Arab Linguistic Imperialism and the Decline of Arabic: Does Anyone Here Speak Arabic?," Parts One and Two, the most recent posts as I post this.

New Blog: Tunisian Literature (in English)

Via the great literary blog Arabic Literature (in English) we are informed of a new blog: Tunisian Literture (in English). run by Tunisian poet Ali Znaidi. It's not only a welcome addition to the limited number of Arabic literature blogs in English, but also a sign of the growing role of English in Tunisia, a country where French remains, overwhelmingly, the second language and the primary cultural language of the elite.

New Blog on ME Arms Control and Regional Security

There's a new blog in the Middle East blogosphere, and it looks like it's off to an impressive start. It's called Arms Control and Regional Security in the Middle East, and it's about, well, what do you think it's about with that title? It's run by Bilal Y. Saab and Chen Kane, both of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The initial articles are by the two of them but they also say they'll welcome outside contributors. Both are accomplished specialists in the field.

I will note that though many of you will be familiar with the work of Bilal Saab on security issues either in is present or his previous positions, if you drill down in his resume (there's a link on his blog profile to the fuller one, which is the one you need), you'll see that he was once (way back when, though I was there at the time) a researcher  at the Middle East Institute. He has since passed through several great universities on several continents, not to mention some major think tanks, but I'll nevertheless assert my profound conviction that MEI taught him all he knows. I hope he will be gentleman enough not to contradict me since I am plugging his blog. It's my story and I'm sticking with it.

It should be worthy of a bookmark, from the looks of early indicators.

Lameen Souag Starts a Blog on Algerian Darja (Colloquial Arabic)

I've linked several times to Lameen Souag's Jabal al-Lughat linguistics blog; Souag is the Algerian SOAS-trained language specialist who studies Berber and other Saharan/Sahelian languages and often discusses them in conjunction with Arabic. So who better to start a blog on the origins of Algerian darja (colloquial Algerian Arabic)? It's called   الأصول التاريخية للدارجة الجزائرية  (The historical sources of Algerian Darja) and is primarily in Arabic; only two posts so far. He explains at Jabal al-Lughat:

I've often talked about why it's not enough for developing countries to use English or French as a working language for research and leave the majority of their own citizens in the dark. So I'm putting my money where my mouth is (so to speak) and starting a blog in Arabic focused on dialect etymology, a subject rife with popular misconceptions: الأصول التاريخية للدارجة الجزائرية (Historical Origins of the Algerian Dialect). Some of this blog's readers may be interested.

Since diglossia and dialects are a frequent subject here, so may some of this blog's.

And at least a few of you may well find his other links of interest:

I've written up a finding first posted here - Songhay words in El-Jadida, Morocco - as part of a recently submitted article on sub-Saharan loanwords into North African Arabic. (There aren't many, but more than you might think: one of them, شطة šaṭṭa "Cayenne pepper" from Hausa cìttā, has even made it into Modern Standard Arabic via Egyptian dialect, and another, كابوية kābūya "pumpkin" from Hausa kàbēwā̀, is quite widespread in Algeria.)

MNAMON have posted a video of my talk about Libyco-Berber at Pisa - if you can stand the poor delivery, the content may be interesting. Among other things, I discuss the question of where LB fits into the Berber family tree.

He's amply demonstrated his linguistic qualification to blog on Algerian darja. It should be interesting, especially if he can post frequently.

"Egyptian Student Abroad" Blog

I wanted to call to your attention the Egyptian Student Abroad blog/website, which has essays and articles by (can you guess it?), Egyptian students abroad (mostly in the US and Canada from what I've seen). It addresses many of the sorts of issues I've addressed here and is of course Egyptian-oriented. I should also note that the Editor, Adel El-Adawy, is a graduate student at The American University here in DC, and is also interning as a Research Assistant with us here at the Middle East Institute this semester.

A New Blog from Cairo

Qifa Nabki (whose blog is marking its third anniversary: mabruk) calls attention to a new blog from Cairo by a colleague of his, Send Down the Basket. The blogger, Margaret Litvin, is a Boston University Arabic professor living in Cairo for only a semester, but she's lived there before and has a good eye for topics of political and cultural interest. Qifa blogs about it here; and also flagged it to me in an e-mail, and after taking a look at it, I concur. It's a worthy addition; I wish she'd be staying longer.

Mark Katz Has a Blog of His Travel Writing

Prof. Mark Katz of George Mason University is well known around these parts as a specialist on Russian relations with the Middle East. Now he's launched a blog not for his political commentary but of travel writing he's done through the years, with tabs for Oman, Iran, Russia and Yemen. I thought I'd call your attention to it.

Key Blog on Yemen: Waq al-Waq

An important blog on Yemen is Waq al-Waq. Well-informed and expert. Read it. One or two posts lean to the let-the-Saudis-do-it idea, which I've suggested is unwise, but otherwise, there's a lot to learn here. I'm also blogrolling it.

New Blog from Damascus

There's a relatively new blog I became aware of over the past few days, Dispatch from Damascus, by a blogger using the name Al-Farabi. Not, presumably, a reincarnation of the medieval polymath and faylasuf, since he/she is identified as an American living in Damascus, and while there's some dispute about the other Al-Farabi's place of birth, it pretty clearly wasn't America. The early posts look promising, and I've added it to the Blogroll.

Actually, Al-Farabi in a comment on my post last night expressed an interest in hearing me comment on the apparent revival of the Turkish mediation between Israel and Syria. I'll give it some thought, but Al-Farabi's own post on the subject is worth looking at in the meantime.

Expanding the Blogroll

Recently both Arabic Media Shack and The Arabist have noted a relatively new blog from Cairo, The Boursa Exchange. It seems a rather eclectic blog with interest in Arabic language issues, politics, music and other things. I've added it to the Blogroll, along with Menassat and some other sites I've linked to recently, notably Bikya Masr and Iskandarani Misri. I'll continue to expand the blogroll as I can.

Blogroll Debuts at Last

Rather belatedly, I'm starting a blogroll down on the lower right, and will probably add a links list to major Middle Eastern news sites as well. If your blog isn't on it yet, please don't be upset; I'll be adding almost daily, I suspect, for some time to come.

I'm starting with the political blogs, dealing with current events and policy, since I suspect that's where my heaviest readership comes from, but I'll be adding blogs on culture, language, etc. as we go along: perhaps in separate blogrolls. News links and other resources will be added in due time. I may start a separate list for country-specific sites if the list gets too long.

UPDATE: I note that blogs beginning with "The" are alphabetized under "T", and that my first blog in a non-Roman alphabet alphabetized after everything else. At the moment I think that will have to be the default order as the blogroll gets longer.