Dr Roberta Morano

Profile

I graduated from University of Naples "L'Orientale" in 2011 with a BA thesis specifically focused on Carl Reinhardt's work, under the supervision of Professor Riccardo Contini. My BA thesis analysed all the morphological and lexical features presented by the German linguist over a century ago. It also included a lexical glossary Omani Arabic-English, systematising the lexical material presented by Reinhardt in 1894.
I then obtained my MA degree at the same University in 2014, working on a MA thesis - under the supervision of Professor Riccardo Contini - entitled Glossary of Omani Arabic (in Italian). In this work I analysed studies of other scholars, who focused on different areas of Oman, comparing them with the main version of Carl Reinhardt (1894). Also in this thesis, I compiled a lexical glossary, including lexica from various vernaculars of Oman.

For my PhD I worked under the supervision of Professor Janet C.E. Watson and Dr Diane Nelson on a thesis entitled The Arabic dialect spoken in the al-'Awabi district, northern Oman.
The linguistic studies carried out so far in Oman are very few and located in specific areas of the country, while some others are totally unexplored. Moreover, all the studies providing most of the data for Omani dialectology date back to the end of nineteenth and the beginning of twentieth century. This lack is mainly due to the difficulty and sometimes the impossibility for researchers to reach some areas of the Sultanate – at least until the 1980s – both for political and social reasons. Carl Reinhardt’s work – Ein arabischer Dialekt gesprochen in ‘Oman und Zanzibar, dated 1894 – still plays a very important role in the linguistic and neo-Arabic dialectological field. He described the phonology, morphology and syntax of the Banu Kharus' vernacular, spoken in the area of Nizwa and Rustaq (northern Oman).

The aim of my research was to revive Reinhardt’s work by analysing the dialectal variety spoken nowadays in al-‘Awabi district of northern Oman. The thesis is an extensive phonological, morphological and syntactical description of this dialectal variety, and includes a deep analysis of the lexicon used throughout the district and in some other parts of Oman. I have been primarily interested in collecting local names of plants and animals, insects, kitchen utensils, diseases, and methods to cure them. Moreover, I have been focusing on the extensive use of foreign loanwords, especially from Persian, Swahili, Hindi/Urdu, Portuguese and English. The ultimate purpose was the realisation of a concise lexical glossary of all the lexical items found in the district.

I am currently holding the position of Oman Research Fellow at the Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin. 

Publications

Bettega, S. & Morano, R. 2022. Preface. Languages 7(1). Available here.

Morano, R. (2023). Persia and Oman: an historical and linguistic intersection. In: S. Rao Mehta & F. Al Rashdi (eds.), Language and Identity in the Arab World. Routledge Studies in Language and Identity. New York: Routledge, pp. 13-28

Morano, R. (2022). The use of genitive exponents in the al-ˁAwābī district (northern Oman). In: Klimiuk, M. (ed.), Semitic Dialects and Dialectology. Fieldwork, Community, Change. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, pp. 31-43. Available Open-Access.

Morano, R. (forthcoming, 2022). Diachronic variation in the Omani Arabic of the al-ˁAwābī district: from Carl Reinhardt (1894) to the present day. Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures series. OpenPublishers

Morano, R. 2020. Functions and uses of active and passive participial forms in al-ˁAwābī district vernacular of northern Oman. In: Alhawary, T.M. (ed.) Al-ˁArabiyya, The journal of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic. 53. Georgetown University Press, pp. 109-128.

Morano, R. et al. 2020. Editorial preface. Language@Leeds Working Papers, 1. [Online]. Available here.  

Morano, R. 2019. An Omani evolving lexicon: from Carl Reinhardt (1894) to present day. In: C. Miller, A. Barontini, M. Germanos et al. (eds.), Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics. Proceedings of the 12th AIDA conference, 30th May – 2nd June, Aix Marseille Université [Online] Marseille: Livres de l’IREMAM. Available online.

Morano, R. 2018. Review of Richard J. Davey, "Coastal Dhofari Arabic. A Sketch Grammar" in Journal of Semitic Studies 63/2, pp. 545-547.

Morano, R. 2017. "Carl Reinhardt's lexical data (1894): distinctive features and borrowings" in Linguistics Studies in the Arabian Gulf (QuadRi - Quaderni di RiCOGNIZIONI VII). Turin: University of Turin, pp. 187-195.

Morano, R. 2015. Review of Holes and De Jong's Ingham of Arabia: A Collection of Articles Presented as a Tribute to the Career of Bruce Ingham (2013), in QSA 10 (2015), pp. 262-264. 

Edited volumes/journals

Bettega, S. & Morano, R. (eds.) 2022. The Classification of Arabic Dialects: Traditional Approaches, New Proposals, and Methodological Problems. Languages. Special issue. Basel (Switzerland): MDPI [online]. Available here. 

Watson, J.C.E., Lovett, J. & Morano, R. (eds.) (forthcoming, November 2022). Language and Ecology in Southern and Eastern Arabia. Bloomsbury Advances in Ecolinguistics. London: Bloomsbury.

Morano, R. (ed.) (forthcoming, 2023). Love and Conflict: Yemeni poetry on the front line. Studies in Arabic Linguistics. London: Routledge

Bulletin

Morano, R. 2021. The Fertile Coast. The Governorates. Al Batinah. Collection by the Anglo-Omani Society in London. Available here.

Grants

In 2022, I have been awarded the Oman Research Grant funded by the Sultan Qaboos High Centre for Culture and Science (Muscat, Oman) for a three-month visiting post at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin (€7,500). 

In 2019, I have been awarded the PGR Experience Fund for the organisation of the workshop “Hidden Voices of Arabia: Language Documentation in the Arabian Peninsula” (£500)

In 2015, I have been awarded the ‘University of Leeds 110 Anniversary Research Scholarship to fund my doctoral studies (2015-2018, £54,471).

Other Academic Activities

In 2020, I have organised together with the Arabic PGR Satellite the Arabic Linguistic Forum (ALiF), an international conference on Arabic linguistics which gathers scholars and experts in the field from Europe and elsewhere. The conference was held online due to Covid-19 pandemic with the help and support of MeetInLeeds. 

Responsibilities

• Lead Organiser of the Arabic Language@Leeds Satellite
• Member of the Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics editorial board

Research interests

My research interests lie at the intersection between language documentation, anthropology and ecolinguistics. 

During fieldwork I have developed an interest for the human-nature realtionship in Oman and southern Arabia, especially looking at the symbiotic relations that tribes in Oman still have with the sourrounding environment. In the past few years, I have documented vernacular plant names used for traditional cooking and healing methods, and I am now hoping to exapnd this research towards different regions of Oman. My new research interest in ecolinguistics is reflected in the recent preliminary talks I have given at the "Language and Nature in Southern Arabia" workshops at University of Leeds on climate, environmental change and their effects on indigenous languages. My papers on nature related lexicon have prompted invitations to contribute to scholarly volumes, including a piece on the intersection between history, environment and language concerning Persian and Arabic, to appear in May in an edited collection entitled Language and identity in the Arab world.

Conference Presentations

Persia and Oman: an historical and linguistic intersection at 4th International Conference on Language, Linguistics, Literature and Translation: Exploring Cultural Intersections, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat (Oman), 6th-8th February 2020

The use of genitive exponents in the al-ˁAwābī district (northern Oman) at “Semitic Dialectology: Community, Continuum and Change”, Universität Heidelberg (Germany), 1st-2nd July 2019

Remarks on the negative system in the Arabian Peninsula: the case of Omani /-ši/ at 47th North-Atlantic Conference on Afro-Asiatic Linguistics (NACAL), INALCO (Paris, France), 24th-26th June 2019

An Omani evolving lexicon: from Carl Reinhardt (1894) to nowadays at 12th Conference of the International Association of Arabic Dialectology (AIDA), Aix Marseille University (France), 30th May - 2nd June 2017

Foreign loanwords in Omani Arabic at 45th North-Atlantic Conference on Afro-Asiatic Linguistics (NACAL), University of Leiden (The Netherlands), 9th-11th June 2017

Carl Reinhardt's lexical data (1894): distinctive features and borrowings at Linguistics in the Gulf - University of Turin (Italy), 21 April 2016.

Invited Talks

“In the wake of the sailors: tackling the toponomastics of Omani coastal towns” (October 13, 2020). MSAL Online Workshop. 

“The threat of climate change on the languages of southern Arabia” (March 31, 2020). MSAL Online Workshop. 

“L’Oman attraverso i secoli: l’evoluzione linguistica del distretto di al-ˁAwābī” in the series “Seas of Change: Rethinking Entangled Renaissances” - Language contact and language variation in Oman, University of Turin (Italy), 30 March 2018.

Podcast

2019. “Alla scoperta della letteratura omanita: parliamo di Jokha al-Harthi” (Omani literature: the case of Jokha al-Harthi, in Italian). Pour Parler. [Podcast].

Qualifications

• PhD in Linguistics and Phonetics
• MA in Islamic Studies
• BA in Islamic Studies
• DITALS
• IELTS

Professional memberships

• Member of the Anglo-Omani Society

Student education

I have been Graduate Teaching Assistant for modules on General Linguistics, Phonetics, Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics and Language Acquisition in the AY 2017-2020.

Since 2016, I have acted as the leader organiser of the Arabic Language@Leeds Satellite.