Ola Wikander

Scholar of ancient languages, Reader in OT/HB Studies (Lund), August prize-nominated author. Hebraist, Ugaritologist, Semitist, moonlighting in Indo-European.

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

Updated list of my books, so far (thread)!

First:

Unburning Fame: Horses, Dragon, Beings of Smoke, and Other Indo-European Motifs in Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible (2017)

and

Drought, Death, and the Sun in Ugarit and Ancient Israel: A Philological and Comparative Study (2014)

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@Joshua_Meynell Oh, I'm flattered! Would love to read it!

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

Again, followers old and new: if you want to get a feel for the scholarly stuff I do, I think that these two articles will give you a good overview of what I am into:

https://t.co/8K6mfBWF5A

and

https://t.co/jgT7dgtfUE

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

Since I have now gained some new followers, a little intro to yours truly:
I am a scholar of Semitic languages, especially the Hebrew Bible and Ugaritic. My work is centered on
(1) inherited poetic motifs in Northwest Semitic (of which Hebrew and Ug. are parts), [...]

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@Sibawayhi No, there's nothing like Sîbawayh in Ugaritic. Akkadian scholars did invent grammatical terminology (for verbal aspects, for example) in their study of Sumerian, though. And, of course, the Indian Pāṇini stuff, which was way ahead of mostly anything.

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

Since I have now gained some new followers, a little intro to yours truly:
I am a scholar of Semitic languages, especially the Hebrew Bible and Ugaritic. My work is centered on
(1) inherited poetic motifs in Northwest Semitic (of which Hebrew and Ug. are parts), [...]

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@Sibawayhi Also, there is an ongoing "magical" discussion about the power of names, and such.

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@Sibawayhi Also, there are polylingual vocabulary lists (Ugaritic, Akkadian, Hurrian, Sumerian) which also kinda demands that.

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@Sibawayhi Humor, btw? You never know on Twitter...

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@Sibawayhi No? The name is Ugarit, and the language is Ugaritic.

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@patricelmen Faktiskt hetare än vissa andra – det ugaritiska alfabetet hade tre bokstäver för glottisklusil följd av /a/, /i/ och /u/. Det är mer än vad egyptiska har!

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

Ugaritic word of the day:
Npr ("start to fly, take flight").

Or in this case, restart a very old flight :)

[𝔐𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔠𝔞 𝔘𝔫𝔦𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔰𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔰 @Musica11235]

So I finished another fugue. Here it is. I experimented with orchestral arrangement à la Schönberg or Stokowski. Midi deceives but the brass section is more than likely far too sparsely orchestrated, something I'll mind in future orchestrations. In the end it's a personal study fugue not meant for performance but rather self-improvement in the form, which is also why it employs a more stylistically baroque subject.

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

I really love how 90's the cover is (shiny shiny!). And the book still does hold up! Sure, the language and libraries have changed, but not as much as, say, C++. I could get back into it pretty well.

Too bad my head is still mush from this horrible cold... But: gam zeh yaʿӑβōr!

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

(this joke presupposes not only knowing Swedish, but also a knowledge of the current and very farcical political situation over here... I'm not sure I even could explain it :-) )

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

Jag väntar på ett Totalpaket från Bokus.

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@coreyganim A better song:

https://t.co/uWWdQWGM3f

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@Graham_Mark_E Ah, cousin Jasper...

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

Ugaritic word of the day:
ḫrmṯt (/ḫarmêṯatu/, preseved syllabically as ḫa-ar-me-ša-tu) – "sickle".

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@a_a_viswanath Yeah, I beg your forgiveness. They just.. came at me (I had certainly not expected that post to be shared thousands of times...).

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

I have now deleted my viral thread on AI, partly bec. of the "was it AI or mistranslation" thing (the consensus still does seem to be that it was *both*). But mostly because I had to spend most of yesterday arguing with Nazis and AI-niks.

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

Hurrian word of the day:
Eman ("ten" – as I slept for ten hours; hopefully that will help repel the cold I'm currently living through).

[Ola Wikander @OlaWikander]

@a_a_viswanath To get me out, you mean?