MitgliedJoshBerer

Over the past few years as I’ve studied the languages of the Middle East, I’ve managed to find some cool books about the various languages spoken there. I’m missing a few languages, though.

In addition to that, when my mother was in college she too studied the languages of the Middle East, and so a lot of the following are books she found along the way, and are thus sufficiently old to garner a great deal of my respect.

If I were ever fortunate enough to find myself with a steady job and enough disposable income to indulge in something, I think I’d collect old books on languages.

I currently live in Istanbul, having moved here after a year of work for the Regional Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Villages, an organization representing the 76,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel who live in 45 villages which do not show up on any maps, or receive basic services from the Israeli government, such as water, electricity, roads, or sewage. I also taught English in several of the villages. I returned to Israel/Palestine in September 2008 after six months in Los Angeles, where I worked at a cheese store, and then a rare book dealer’s warehouse.

Prior to those six months, I spent another six months in Sana’a, Yemen, where I studied Arabic language and literature and taught English to Yemenis at a private language institute. I graduated from the University of Washington in June of 2007 with a degree in Near Eastern Languages. While my focus was in Arabic, Hebrew and Turkish also played roles. I managed, somehow, to go to 5 universities in 4 years, (Hebrew U in Jerusalem, Bard College in NY, Bogazici Universitesi in Istanbul, UW, University of Jordan, back to UW)

I am starting a PhD in Central Asian Languages and a Masters in Library at Indiana University in June of 2010. My focus will likely be endangered Turkic languages of Eurasia.