Dr Mila Neishtadt

I completed my undergraduate studies at Tel Aviv University (BA; MA – summa cum laude). My MA thesis focused on the Arab medieval grammatical tradition, which brought me further into the field of Semitic linguistics. I have been awarded a PhD from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2019), where under the supervision of Prof. Simon Hopkins I focused on the linguistic continuum of the Holy Land, namely – the substrate effect of Hebrew and Aramaic in the vocabulary of Palestinian colloquial Arabic. Prior to joining SOAS, I taught Advanced Modern Hebrew at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge (2019-2020).

I am looking forward to broadening my academic research by engaging in Semitic linguistics, diachronic and synchronic contacts between Semitic languages, and contact-induced language change. Additional fields of my interests include Arabic dialectology, Semitic philology and lexicography, Palestinian ethnography, and the vocabulary of traditional agricultural realia in Semitic languages. 

Publications

Peer-reviewed Journals

Neishtadt, Mila. 2020. “The Contribution of Palestinian Colloquial Arabic to the Identification of Two Rabbinic Hebrew Words דמדמון and קיטנים”, Lešonenu 82/4, pp. 371-395. [In Hebrew]

Book Chapters

Neishtadt, Mila. 2015. “The Lexical Component in the Aramaic Substrate of Palestinian Arabic”, in Aaron M. Butts (ed.), Studies in Semitic Language Contact (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics; Leiden, Brill), pp. 280-310.

Semitic Languages and Linguistics, Semitic Languages in Contact, Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew, Modern Hebrew, Aramaic Linguistics, Arabic Linguistics and Dialectology, Palestinian Arabic, Middle Eastern Traditional Agriculture, Palestinian Ethnography