Eastern Mediterranean Linguistics

The Eastern Mediterranean Linguistics Committee was formed during the Mediterranean Syntax Meeting, which took place in Rhodes on 23-25 June 2005. It consists of five members representing a language of the area:

•         Arabic: Lina Choueiri (American University of Beirut)

•         Cypriot Greek: Kleanthes Grohmann (University of Cyprus)

•         Greek: Spyridoula Varlokosta (University of the Aegean)

•         Hebrew: Edit Doron (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

•         Turkish: Sumru Öszoy (Boğaziçi University)

During the business meeting it was decided that the main course of action of the Committee will be to inform linguists interested in the typology and structure of Eastern Mediterranean languages about the perspective of establishing an association/society for the study of these languages. It was agreed by all participants that such an association/society could:

•         maintain a website with information about its activities and future plan of action

•         create a forum for collaborations between institutions in the region

•         stimulate mutual exchanges and activities between research students and staff which can take the form of summer schools and perhaps cross-border postgraduate programs

•         organize a biannual linguistic event possibly including all levels of grammatical analysis of these languages.