Lebanese Place – Names

Description

LebanonPostcard presents the Book Lebanese Place – Names (Mount Lebanon and North Lebanon) A Typology of Regional Variation and Continuity. English by Elie Wardini, Hardcopy 720 pages – 24.5x19x4 cm. Librairie du Liban Publishers

About the book

The present volume is a comprehensive study of some 1724 Lebanese place-names in the districts of Mount Lebanon and North Lebanon. The aim has been to: a- establish a database of place-names based on fieldwork; b- present the etymologies of these names based on the latest findings in Semitic lexicography, onomastics and dialectology; and c- plot the results across the Lebanese territory.
The present volume presents a glimpse of Lebanon’s yesterday. An analysis of the place-names, focusing on language, geography and society, tends to confirm that language and religion shifts in Lebanon were gradual. Nearly 49% of the place-names are Arabic, 36% are Aramaic, while some 6% are Phoenician. The traditional dividing lines between religious groups are only slightly reflected in place-names. These groups seem to have had a similar sociocultural development. The landscape holds a central position in Lebanese place-names. Water, human occupation, religion, and the family also hold a prominent position.

About the Author

Born in Bickfaya, Lebanon, in 1961, Elie Wardini has specialized in Semitic languages at the University of Oslo. At present, he is a professor of Arabic at Stockholm University and head of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies.
The author’s main field of specialization and interest within Semitic languages is West Semitic comparative and diachronic philology. His main framework is within a sociolinguistic framework seeing Semitic languages as languages in contact among each other and other non-Semitic languages.
He has written on Neologisms in Modern Literary Syriac and has conducted extensive research on Lebanese place-names. In addition, the author is conducting in-depth research on Lebanese dialects. Within the framework of Pidgin studies, he is also studying the speech of immigrant communities in Lebanon, especially the Arabic spoken by members of the Armenian community and Sri Lankan guest workers.