On Tuesday May 9th, 2012, His Excellency Dr. Hamid Al-Bayati, Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative to the
United Nations made his visit to the Assyrian Universal Alliance
Foundation in Chicago, Illinois.
The delegation also visited the Ashurbanipal Library. His Excellency was accompanied by Mr. Williaam Ishaya Odisho,
Deputy Permanent Representative, Mr. Bobie Youkhanna and Mr. Yonadam
Youkhanna who arranged this
meeting.
Hon. Homer Ashurian, the AUAF Executive director and His Excellency at
the AUA Foundation.
Dr. Hamid Al-Bayati and Mr. Ashurian shake hands at the
ashurbanipal Library.
a memorable
event for Assyrian community in Chicago.
Geoffrey Khan Professor
of Semitic Philology
at the University of Cambridge
Geoffrey Khan received his Ph.D.
from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London
(1984) for a thesis entitledExtraposition
and Pronominal Agreement in Semitic Languages. From
1983 until 1993 he was employed as a researcher on the
Cairo Genizah manuscripts in the Taylor-Schechter
Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library.
In 1993 he was appointed to a teaching post at the
University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Asian and Middle
Eastern Studies. He has held the position of Professor
of Semitic Philology in Cambridge since 2002. His
research in the field of Hebrew has concentrated on
linguistic studies of the pre-Modern phases the
language. His Ph.D. thesis (published asStudies
in Semitic Syntax1988)
contained an analysis of the syntax of Biblical,
Qumranic and Rabbinic Hebrew. Much of his later research
has related to the reading traditions of Biblical Hebrew
and the medieval traditions of Hebrew grammatical
thought and Biblical exegesis, with particular attention
to Karaite sources (e.g.Karaite
Bible Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah1990,The
Early Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought2000,Early
Karaite Grammatical Texts2000,Exegesis
and Grammar in Medieval Karaite Texts(ed.)
2001,The
Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought in its
Classical Form(2003).
His current research projects in the field of Hebrew
include two volumes relating to Karaite texts, an
edition of texts on the Tiberian reading tradition of
Hebrew (various versions ofHidāyat
al-Qāri) and a linguistic analysis of Karaite
Hebrew Bible manuscripts in Arabic transcription (Karaite
Bible Manuscripts in Arabic Transcription). He has
been commissioned by Oxford University Press to write a
grammar of Biblical Hebrew based on theGesenius-Kautzsch
Hebrew Grammar. Apart from these specialist
studies, he has a general interest in the Hebrew
language of all periods. He is currently working as the
editor-in-chief of theEncyclopedia
of Hebrew Language and Linguistics(5
volumes, Brill, in progress), which will include
approximately 1,000 articles on all periods and aspects
of the Hebrew language.
He also has research interests in Aramaic and Arabic. His Aramaic
research concentrates on the Neo-Aramaic dialects, especially the
North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects. His publications include grammars of
the dialects of villages of Qaraqosh and Barwar and of the Jewish
dialects of Arbel, Sulemaniyya, Ḥalabja, Urmi and Sanandaj. He is
currently working on a grammar of the Assyrian Christian dialect of Urmi.
Since 2004 he has directed a research team who have created the
North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Database (nena.ames.cam.ac.uk),
funded by the AHRC (2004-2009), the Newton Trust and the Golden Web
Foundation. His Arabic research concentrates on early Arabic documents.
He has published collections of Arabic papyri and Arabic Genizah
documents. He is currently working on the following projects in this
field: a corpus of Arabic documents from Nubia datable to the Fatimid
period excavated at Qasr Ibrim by the Egypt Exploration Society and an
introductory handbook for the study of early Arabic documents from the
Umayyad to Ayyubid periods.
He was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1998 and Honorary Fellow
of the Academy of the Hebrew Language in 2011. He was awarded the
Lidzbarski Gold Medal for Semitic philology by the Deutsche
Morgenländische Gesellschaft in 2004.
Geoffrey Khan has supervised Ph.D. students in the fields of Hebrew
linguistics, Aramaic linguistics, Karaite studies, Judaeo-Arabic texts,
and medieval Arabic Bible translations.
