Arabic linguists and Digital humanists
The project’s core team is composed of six specialists in Arabic linguistics: the principal investigator (PI), two postdoctoral researchers specialized in linguistics and social anthropology, and four PhD candidates. An expert specialized in the history of the Bedouins will be taken on board after the first year. WIBARAB also benefits from the knowledge and work of Digital Humanities specialists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Four MA students mainly feed the database. The Vienna-based team is supported by research partners in the Arab countries.
Principal Investigator
Stephan Procházka
Principal investigator, holds the chair for Arabic Studies at the University of Vienna since 2006. Works on comparative and syntactic aspects as well as on historical linguistics. He is mainly responsible for WP-5 and WP-6, but also acts as a supervisor of the PhD theses (WP-1 and WP-2).
Postdoctoral Researchers
Ana Iriarte Díez
Postdoctoral Researcher in Linguistics. Ana works on language and dialect contact and historical linguistics and language change (WP5, WP6 – University of Vienna). She supervises the design and feeding of the WIBARAB database and conducts research on Bedouin Arabic dialects in Lebanon.
PhD Candidates
Antonella Torzullo
Prae-doc researcher, works on the description and analysis of the Arabic dialect of the Bani Ṣaxar tribe in Jordan (WP1 – University of Vienna)
Claudia Laaber
Prae-doc researcher, works on perceptions of Bedouin Arabic (WP2 – University of Vienna).
Terlan Djavadova
Prae-doc researcher, deals with the Bedouin dialects of the Zaer and Chouia in Morocco and their influence on the Moroccan Koiné (WP1 – University of Vienna).
Maria Rebecca Zarb
Prae-doc researcher, deals with the dialect of the Rašāyda bedouins namely in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (WP1 – University of Vienna).
Laura Stocker
Pre-doc researcher, specializing in Bedouin tribal communities in the modern Middle East, with a primary focus on post-Ottoman Syria, contributes to the project by addressing general questions about Bedouin history (WP3 – University of Vienna).
Master Students
Philipp Marc Hessabi
Project assistant, responsible for general administrative tasks.
philipp.marc.hessabi@univie.ac.at
Sara Fatihi
MA-student of general linguistics (University of Vienna), research assistant in the Bedouin dialects of the Chouia and Zaer (Morocco).
Digital Humanities Specialists (ACDH-CH)
Karlheinz Mörth
Project cooperation partner & head of the ACDH-CH unit, expert in the interface between linguistics and digital language resources doing research in the fields of virtual research environments and language-related standards (Austrian Academy of Sciences, ACDH-CH).
Veronika Engler
Researcher and DH-specialist, responsible for the Digital Humanities part of the project including coding and linguistic modelling of the data (Austrian Academy of Sciences, ACDH-CH).
Daniel Schopper
Senior advisor and head of working group Data; MS Teams and sharepoint admin (Austrian Academy of Sciences, ACDH-CH).
Omar Siam
Senior advisor and system administrator at ACDH-CH, works as a technical supervisor for the VICAV infrastructure (Austrian Academy of Sciences, ACDH-CH).
Kinga Sramó
DH specialist, responsible for the Digital Humanities part of the project, including coding, transforming linguistic data into visual representations, and considering data formats and standards application (Austrian Academy of Sciences, ACDH-CH).
International Collaboration Partners
Enam Al-Wer
Professor of Linguistics at the University of Essex, focussing on linguistic variation and change, dialect contact and new-dialect formation.
Kristen Brustad
Retired associate professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin. Research interests include Arabic dialects, syntax, language ideology and Arabic literary and linguistic history.
Inas Mahfouz
Associate professor of English at the American University of Kuwait, local associate of WIBARAB.
Stefano Manfredi
Researcher at CNRS, assistant director at SeDyL, focussing on contact linguistics, Creole languages, typological dialectology, Dadjo languages, language ideologies and politics in Sudan, and languages and social movements.
Fabio Gasparini
Researcher at the Department of Semitic Studies at FU Berlin, focussing on Modern South Arabian and Semitic languages in general from a comparative and typological perspective.
Thomas Leddy-Cecere
Scholar of language variation and language change at Bennington College, Vermont, focussing on interaction between speakers of related language varieties, ongoing studies of New England English and multiple dialects of modern Arabic.
Prof. Awad el Karim
Professor at Shendi University, Sudan, local associate of WIBARAB.
Former Members
Gisela Kitzler
Postdoctoral Researcher and Research Coordinator, works on language attitudes in Egypt (WP2, University of Vienna).
Gunda Kinzl
Prae-doc researcher and team member from October 2021-November 2022, did fieldwork with Rašāyda communities in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. (WP1 – University of Vienna).
Shada Bokir
Postdoctoral researcher, works on the History and Anthropology of tribes in the Middle East and North Africa. (WP3 – University of Vienna).
Johanna Doppelbauer
Prae-MA researcher, works on the conceptualization and implementation of the database as well as the collection of features of Bedouin-type Arabic from already published sources (WP4 – University of Vienna).
Stanley Kochem
Prae-MA researcher, works on the conceptualization and implementation of the database as well as the collection of features of Bedouin-type Arabic from already published sources (WP4 – University of Vienna).
Angelika Hechtl
Researcher and IT-specialist, responsible for the Digital Humanities part of the project including coding and linguistic modeling of the data (Austrian Academy of Sciences, ACDH-CH).
