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Matthew Saunders

@digitalsemitist

PhD student in Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University studying comparative Semitics, Aramaic studies, Ugaritic studies, digital humanities.

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13.12.2024
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Latest posts by Matthew Saunders @digitalsemitist

A brilliant thread by my brilliant friend @bnuyaminim.bsky.social. But let's think about this circumstantial evidence a bit more. Are names really indicative of one's language or ethnicity (hard to pin that down actually)? This Nabataean from NW Arabia belongs to the clan of Banī Baʿlnatan...

14.11.2025 20:01 👍 25 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 0

Fantastic keynote lecture this evening at the Summer School in Languages and Linguistics at @unileiden.bsky.social.
Ahmad al-Jallad spoke about the decipherment of South Arabic inscription from Dhofar, which was all the rage in the media world-wide last week.

21.07.2025 19:43 👍 25 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 0
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no YOUR reconstruction of Aramaic nominal inflection is idiosyncratic and confusing

02.07.2025 09:32 👍 15 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
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Looking forward to participating in this conference: Studying Hebrew in Sixteenth-Century Strasbourg / L’hébraïsme chrétien à Strasbourg au XVIe siècle (Strasbourg, June 16-17)

08.06.2025 16:05 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
Journal of Near Eastern Studies | Vol 84, No 1

New issue of Journal of Near Eastern Studies Vol. 84, No. 1 (2025) www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jnes/202... @chicagojournals.bsky.social
@marshallcunningham.bsky.social @shanazaia.bsky.social

08.04.2025 16:01 👍 10 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
journal cover: S. Astvatsatsin Church, Areni, from the north. Photo by Bertramz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

journal cover: S. Astvatsatsin Church, Areni, from the north. Photo by Bertramz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

New issue of Near Eastern Archaeology Vol. 88, No. 1 (2025) www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/nea/2025...
@asor-research.bsky.social @chicagojournals.bsky.social @christinatsoup.bsky.social @zuzchovanec.bsky.social
@melucene.bsky.social

07.04.2025 18:26 👍 12 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 1
JHU-PTS Doctoral Symposium - Digital Semitics Online Library (DSOL) One week ago, I presented a lecture at the first annual Johns Hopkins-Princeton Theological Seminary Doctoral Symposium for Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Northwest Semitics. My lecture focused on Ara...

Very much enjoyed giving this lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary last week! The talk was on "Languages Beyond Borders: Principles of Aramaic-Based Code-Alternation in the Hebrew Bible"

m-saunders.com/jhu-pts-doct...

24.02.2025 01:38 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The order of the early NWS alphabet was, for some time, in flux, but I never thought about whether the placement of some words next to each other was coincidental, or as GKC suggests "certainly not accidental". E.g., yōd 'hand' and kāp̄ 'palm' are side-by-side, as are ˁayin 'eye' and pê 'mouth'.

14.01.2025 17:12 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Current Program – MALS

Learning the basics of Meroitic and Old Nubian through the Macquarie Ancient Languages School this week

Here’s how you write my name in ancient Meroitic cursive: 𐦨𐦵𐦮𐦡𐦥𐦡. In Meroitic hieroglyphs, it's 𐦉𐦚𐦒𐦁𐦅𐦁

Read right to left, this is transcribed ma+te+ha+e+wa+e

Learning ancient languages is fun!

06.01.2025 03:51 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
journal cover

journal cover

New issue of Aramaic Studies Vol. 22, No. 2 (2024) brill.com/view/journal... @degruyterbrill.bsky.social

20.12.2024 02:48 👍 18 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0

Just wrapped up my penultimate semester of coursework at JHU and finally catching up on social media. Excited to see Bluesky thriving—much more active and engaging than X/Twitter! Also thrilled to dive into my new dissertation project on the history of Aramaic. Big things ahead!

13.12.2024 15:36 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0