In its unfamiliar role of minority language, Quebec English (QcE) is subject to discourse that characterises it as threatened and distinctive, purportedly due to intense contact and convergence with French. The popular and academic basis for these claims comes almost entirely from catalogues of ‘gallicisms’: incorporations from French held to be incomprehensible outside of the province. Based on variationist analysis of spontaneous speech, this chapter offers an empirical assessment of the impact of French on QcE, as instantiated in borrowing, code-switching and convergence. It shows not only that French-origin lexis is vanishingly rare in spoken usage, but that the morphosyntax likewise fails to bolster claims of influence from French at the grammatical level. These results suggest that the features qualified as peculiar to QcE are no different in nature from the regionalisms present in all varieties of English, and highlight the gulf between language ideology, sociolinguistic stereotypes and language use.

Neither New York City English (NYCE) nor Baltimore English (BE) have garnered much historical research, so there is little understanding of the origin and development of English in either region. In this chapter, we show that the settlement histories of NYC and Baltimore show that neither city fits Trudgill’s (2004) model of tabula rasa new dialect formation but suggest more complicated patterns of settlement and therefore English feature origins. For subsequent evolution, we discuss the impact of incoming migrants on the evolution of the dialects until the present day. As elsewhere in the United States, race and racialisation play prominent roles in separating out different co-territorial varieties and in stigmatisation and prestige. Besides historical analysis, we investigate these questions through archival materials, literary representations and lay observations. These sources, alongside later dialectological and variationist accounts, allow us to trace the origins of many features of the varieties. For instance, we find evidence that (i) r-lessness had emerged in NYCE by the end of the eighteenth century, (ii) a-prefixing occurred in NYCE until at least 1860, (iii) the wine–whine merger had begun in NYCE and BE by about 1840 and (iv) most features stereotypical of White working-class BE were in place by 1950.

Western Canada is emerging as a site of rich linguistic variation. Lexical differences are long acknowledged (e.g. bunny hug, jam buster), but distinctions in other grammatical sectors are less frequently reported. More recent work uncovering phonetic differences in key vowel sets, however, suggests that the West Coast (British Columbia) and the Prairies (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) are not monolithic. We review the predictions of settler colonialism in the context of westward expansion and the rhetoric of widespread dialectological homogeneity in the literature on Canadian English. Recent research reveals that synchronic variation is primarily ethnic (local) rather than strictly regional. We conclude by highlighting the pervasive effects of settler colonialism in dialectological outcomes, while also highlighting the gains to be made by exploring diversity within local varieties.

This chapter provides a bird’s-eye overview of the presence of English and English-related varieties in Jamaica from the capture of the island by the English in 1655 to the modern language situation. It argues that the genesis of Jamaican Creole (JC) must be located in the final decades of the seventeenth century, and that enslaved people from Surinam may have influenced the formation of JC. It discusses the relationship between JC and Maroon ‘Deep Language’ and considers the evidence for the impact of substrate languages. The Jamaican creole continuum can be seen as the continuation of early variation, and the diglossic relationship between Jamaican English (JE) and JC betrays the persistence of standard language attitudes which have their origins in the colonial period. Finally, developments such as the emergence of Rasta Talk and the shift to an American model for the ‘speaky-spokey’ register betray the perception of English among many JC speakers as a language which does not belong to them, despite the fact that it exists in the distinctly Jamaican form which has emerged over nearly four centuries.

Americans of Mexican or Central American heritage have developed a cluster of dialects that follow recognisable patterns of immigrant groups. These dialects exhibit diversity depending on the region of the United States where they are spoken, the relative concentrations of their speakers, the degree of historical discrimination, the presence of African American influence and other factors. They all share a background of Spanish interference features, but they have all undergone a process of winnowing those features and adopting others as they develop. Phonetic influences have been easier to document than morphosyntactic influences.

In some Abbasid palaces of Samarra, a distinct arrangement of halls, which so far have been identified as the throne hall, audience hall or reception hall block, is recognisable. This configuration comprises four longitudinal halls set at the four sides of a square chamber that is thought to have been covered by a dome. Each hall opens directly or through a portico onto a courtyard or a garden. Based primarily on archaeological findings from two palaces – Balkuwārā and the Caliphal Palace – Herzfeld proposed in the early twentieth century that the cruciform complex functioned as the throne hall, whereby the central chamber was used for private audiences and the semi-open halls (iwans) for public audiences. Herzfeld traced the architectural precedent for this arrangement to the early Abbasid palace of Abū Muslim (d. 137/755), the governor of Khorasan, which stood at Marv and was described by the fourth/tenth-century geographer al-Iṣṭakhrī. According to al-Iṣṭakhrī, the governmental palace (Dār al-ʾImāra) contained a domed chamber (qubba) ‘in which [Abū Muslim] used to sit. … The domed chamber (qubba) has four doors, each leading to an iwan, …, and in front of each iwan is a square courtyard (ṣaḥn).’ Herzfeld, followed by Creswell, further suggested that several palaces described in textual sources as having been built during second/seventh–third/eighth century in the Levant and Iraq and referred to as Qubbat al-Khadhrāʾ (translated as ‘The Green Dome’ or ‘The Dome of Heaven’), probably featured a similar arrangement of audience halls.

The Caribbean is a vast geopolitical region that stretches for a span of 2,754,000 square kilometers and includes approximately 7,000 island land masses. Linguistically speaking, the Caribbean hosts an extraordinarily wide variety of languages and dialects. The sheer magnitude of inhabited islands and the accompanying geographical and social variation within each island locale sets the Anglophone Caribbean apart for other insular areas of the English-speaking world such as Ireland or the South Atlantic. English is the third most widely spoken language in the Caribbean, following Spanish and French. It is the official language of twelve Caribbean as well as of the seven British Overseas Territories in the region. This chapter provides an overview of the sociolinguistic histories and features of the English varieties of the Caribbean region and demonstrates that there are significant traits that serve to define the region. Additionally, it demonstrates that there are differences between the speech of the European-identifying and African-identifying populations of the Caribbean.

Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art is a venture that offers readers easy access to the most up-to-date research across the whole range of Islamic art. Building on the long and distinguished tradition of Edinburgh University Press in publishing books on the Islamic world, it is a forum for studies that, while closely focused, also open wide horizons. Books in the series, for example, concentrate in an accessible way, and in accessible, clear, plain English, on the art of a single century, dynasty or geographical area; on the meaning of works of art; on a given medium in a restricted time frame; or on analyses of key works in their wider contexts. A balance is maintained as far as possible between successive titles, so that various parts of the Islamic world and various media and approaches are represented.

Books in the series are academic monographs of intellectual distinction that mark a significant advance in the field. While they are naturally aimed at an advanced and graduate academic audience, a complementary target readership is the worldwide community of specialists in Islamic art – professionals who work in universities, research institutes, auction houses and museums – as well as that elusive character, the interested general reader.

This chapter presents an overview of dialectology that sheds light on the diachronic development of American English varieties. Key projects in US dialect study are considered in light of their historic roots, perspectives and goals; data collection methods; target populations; sampling methods; and linguistic features of focus. Also examined are various types of dialect maps, as well as the use of historic sources that have proven to be useful in tracing the history of dialect forms. The contribution of social dialectological studies is discussed as well, since in-depth surveys across social space have been shown to add to the understanding of how dialect forms develop and diffuse across time and geographic space. The chapter concludes with a discussion of developments in twenty-first-century American dialectology. Throughout, the chapter illustrates how different methods and data sources can be fruitfully brought together to solve the difficult problem of retracing historic pathways for inherently ephemeral spoken language forms.

Looking at the deserted remnants of the palace gardens at Samarra today, it is perhaps too easy to forget that these grounds once featured vast and elaborate waterworks. Indeed, there are numerous references to large pools, basins, fountains and water channels in contemporary descriptions of gardens and courtyard gardens of the Abbasid palaces in Lower Mesopotamia. However, like the gardens themselves, the water features have rarely been subject to archaeological investigations. The fragmentary evidence is primarily drawn from aerial photographs and archaeological surveys conducted in the early twentieth century, particularly those pertaining to the Caliphal Palace of Samarra. These sources, while sparse, still offer vital clues regarding the abundance of water and its indispensable role in shaping the design of these gardens. By combining this limited material evidence with abundant textual sources, this chapter presents a picture of the diverse water features that once adorned these gardens. It seeks to illuminate their critical role in both garden design and the everyday life at court, offering a comprehensive understanding of how water was intricately interwoven into the fabric of these built environments.

Birkas

Textual sources indicate that a prominent feature of Abbasid palace gardens was a large pool, referred to as a birka. The definitions of birka offered by contemporary philologists help us to understand some of its formal features. The Buyid vizier and lexicographer Ibn ʿAbbād (d. 385/995)1 defined birka as a structure ‘similar to a basin (ḥawḍ) dug into the ground’.2 Kitāb al-ʿAyn (compiled about 184/800 in Lower Mesopotamia) offered a more detailed definition, describing birka as a structure ‘similar to a basin (ḥawḍ), which is dug into the ground and does not have raised sides (aʿḍād: pl. of ʿiḍd) above the ground's surface’.