April 26, 2024

Fallon Presents on Blin Speaker at Virginia Humanities Conference

Associate Professor of Linguistics Paul D. Fallon

Associate Professor of Linguistics Paul D. Fallon

Associate Professor of Linguistics Paul D. Fallon co-presented with Daniel Yacob of the Ge‘ez Frontier Foundation at the Virginia Humanities Conference on Friday, March 3, 2023. Their paper, “A Lighthouse of Language,” discussed the contributions of the late Tekie Alibekit, a native-speaker of Blin. Tekie helped analyze and develop the Cushitic language of Eritrea, and, with Yacob’s help, succeeded in computerizing letters necessary to write Blin in Ethiopic script, letters also adopted by other languages spoken in the Horn of Africa.