The Typology of Number Borrowing in Berber

The question of which numbers are most easily borrowed, and in which contexts, has implications for an understanding both of historical change and language contact and of the extent to which the linguistic behaviour of numbers can be related to independent cognitive factors. In the Berber languages of North Africa, numbers are commonly clear-cut loanwords from Arabic; some languages retain as few as one or two non-Arabic number words, while others preserve a complete inventory. Closer examination reveals differences in intensity of borrowing even within single languages, depending on the numbers' functional usage. The languages in question are closely related to one another and are all influenced by mutually comprehensible varieties of Maghrebi Arabic, allowing what amounts to a controlled experiment, with extremely similar contact situations in different areas yielding a wide spectrum of possible outcomes. Careful examination of this spectrum allows us to set up a typology of numeral borrowing in Arabic-Berber contact, showing how linguistic, social, and cognitive factors all affect the process of number borrowing and how synonymy may emerge as an unstable transitional stage in the adoption of a new system

Ajami in West Africa

West Africans throughout the region have creatively adapted the Arabic script to write non-Arabic languages, a form of literacy known as Ajami which remains widespread today despite little or no government support. The variety of methods used to extend the Arabic script to fit other phonological systems are of particular interest: methods that appear unmotivated from a purely linguistic perspective can readily be explained as rational adaptations to the parallel educational system in which Ajami is typically learned, an issue often not taken into account in orthography planning

Grammatical Contact in the Sahara: Arabic, Berber, and Songhay in Tabelbala and Siwa

This thesis examines the effects of contact on the grammars of the languages of two Saharan oases, Siwa and Tabelbala. These share similar linguistic ecologies in many respects, and can be regarded as among the most extreme representatives of a language contact situation ongoing for centuries across the oases of the northern Sahara. This work identifies and argues for contact effects across a wide range of core morphology and syntax, using these both to shed new light on regional history and to test claims about the limits on, and expected outcomes of, contact. While reaffirming the ubiquity of pattern copying, the results encourage an expanded understanding of the role of material borrowing in grammatical contact, showing that the borrowing of functional morphemes and of paradigmatic sets of words or phrases containing them can lead to grammatical change. More generally, it confirms the uniformitarian principle that diachronic change arises through the long-term application of processes observable in synchronic language contact situations. The similarity of the sociolinguistic situations provides a close approximation to a natural controlled experiment, allowing us to pinpoint cases where differences in the original structure of the recipient language appear to have influenced its receptivity to external influence in those aspects of structure

Berber Etymologies in Maltese

 The extent of Berber lexical influence on Maltese remains unclear, and many of the published etymological proposals are problematic. This article evaluates the reliability of existing proposed Maltese etymologies involving Berber, excluding 50 but accepting 20, and proposes new Berber etymologies for another six Maltese words (bażina “overcooked, sticky food”, ċkejken “small”, daqquqa “cuckoo”, dis “dis-grass, sparto”, tmilla “female cuttlefish used as bait”), as well as a diminutive formation strategy using -a. Based on the results, it examines the distribution of the loans found, in the hope of casting light on the context of Arabic-Berber contact in Ifrīqiyah before the arrival of the Banū Hilāl

Vers une nouvelle génération de définition des exigences de sécurité fondée sur l'utilisation des ontologies

National audienceAu cours de ces dernières années, la sécurité des Systèmes d'Information (SI) est devenue une préoccupation importante, qui doit être prise en compte dans toutes les phases de développement du SI, y compris dans la phase initiale de l'ingénierie des exigences (IE). Des études récentes proposent quelques approches utiles pour la définition des exigences de sécurité. Cependant les analystes continuent de souffrir d'un manque important de connaissances sur la sécurité et sur le domaine d'activité des entreprises. Les ontologies sont connues pour être des sources riches de ces connaissances. Nous proposons, dans cette recherche, de mobiliser des ontologies dans le processus d'ingénierie des exigences. Nous voulons montrer que le recours à des ontologies pour supporter ce processus est un facteur clé de succès dans la définition d'exigences de sécurité de haute qualité

Towards a new generation of security requirements definition methodology using ontologies

International audienceIn recent years, security in Information Systems (IS) has become an important issue, and needs to be taken into account in all stages of IS development, including the early phase of Requirement Engineering (RE). Recent studies proposed some useful approaches for security requirements definition but analysts still suffer from a considerable lack of knowledge about security and domain field. Ontologies are known to be wide sources of knowledge. We propose in this research to include ontologies into the requirements engineering process. Ontologies are factors in achieving success in requirements elicitation of high quality

Archaic and innovative Islamic prayer names around the Sahara

International audienceBerber in the Sahara and southern Morocco, and several West African languages including Soninké, Mandinka, and Songhay, all refer to the five Islamic daily prayers using terms not derived from their usual Arabic names, and showing striking mutual similarities. These names’ motivation has not hitherto been explained. An examination of Islamic sources reveals that many correspond to terms attested within Arabic from an early period which have passed out of use elsewhere. Others, with a more limited distribution, reflect transfer from a time-keeping system widely attested among Berber-speaking oases of the northern Sahara. These results demonstrate that the variant prayer terminologies attested in the hadith reflect popular usages that were still commonplace at the time when North Africa was conquered, and underscore the conservatism of non-Arabic Islamic religious terminology in and around the Sahara

Okun’s Law, unemployment and informal employment: The impact of labour market policies in Algeria since 1997

The paper tackles the job creation issue with respect to the framework of labour market policies implemented in Algeria since the late 1990s, in particular in 1997 and 2008. First, the sharp decline in unemployment rate and high elasticity vis-à-vis the GDP growth rate question the relevance of Okun's law. Second, the quantitative impact in terms of job creation is assessed as regards three employment schemes: intermediation on the labour market, safety net job creation and the effect of entrepreneurship promotion upon employment within SMEs. Third, the interplay between rising informal employment and unemployment decline before and after 2008, is addressed thanks to a Difference-in-Difference (DiD) experiment testing informal wage employment as well as informal businesses. The overall impact of employment policy schemes proves weak upon both the unemployment rate and informal employment. Informal employment stands as a cheap substitute for formal employment.Keywords: Algeria; DiD; Informal employment; Labour market policies; Okun’s law; Unemployment

Cancer: Investigating the impact of the implementation platform on machine learning models

In the context of global cancer prevalence and the imperative need to improve diagnostic efficiency, scientists have turned to machine learning (ML) techniques to expedite diagnosis processes. Although previous research has shown promising results in developing predictive models for faster cancer diagnosis, discrepancies in outcomes have emerged, even when employing the same dataset. This study addresses a critical question: does the choice of development platform for ML models impact their performance in cancer diagnosis? Utilizing the publicly available Wisconsin Diagnostic Breast Cancer (WDBC) dataset from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) to train four ML algorithms on two distinct platforms: Python SciKit-Learn and Knime Analytics. The algorithms’ performance was rigorously assessed and compared, with both platforms operating under their default configurations. The findings of this study underscore an impact of platform selection on ML model performance, emphasizing the need for thoughtful consideration when choosing a platform for predictive models’ development. Such a decision bears significant implications for model efficacy and, ultimately, patient outcomes in the healthcare industry. The source code (Python and Knime) and data for this study are made fully available through a public GitHub repository