Maciej Klimiuk's The Arabic Dialect of Hama, Syria is a two-volume work that offers a linguistic account of the Arabic dialect once spoken in Hama, a city with a long historical and cultural tradition in Syria. The study can be seen as a form of ‘dialectological archaeology’, documenting a variety that has largely disappeared or changed significantly over time. It contributes to the documentation of a dialect that is no longer actively spoken in its original form, making it available for future research.
The first volume (Grammar) provides a detailed grammatical description of the Hama dialect, covering its phonetic, morphological and syntactic features. The second volume (Texts and Glossary) presents sixteen previously unpublished oral texts recorded in Hama. These are accompanied by a glossary intended to support readers in understanding the linguistic and cultural background of the dialect. This study is a resource for scholars working in Arabic and Semitic studies, oral literature or cultural research. It brings together new material and earlier sources collected by Bernhard Lewin and Enno Littmann and offers revised transcriptions and analyses of data that have received limited attention in previous research.