Voice of Arabic Network
Search

Wallace M. Erwin

والاس إروين

Notable figure 1921–2011 · Source: Yahya Murad, Muʿjam asmaʾ al-mustashriqin (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2004), p. 187 · Second source: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, authority record: Erwin, Wallace M. (1921-2011)

Field: Phonetics and dialects

Affiliation

Georgetown professor; reference grammar of Iraqi Arabic

Biography

He grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and graduated from Princeton, then studied Arabic dialects at Georgetown University, where he took his doctorate with a thesis on the grammar of Iraqi Arabic (1964). He taught Arabic at Georgetown and chaired its department, and in the research programme founded by Richard Harrell to describe three Arabic dialects he was responsible for Iraqi. He wrote A Short Reference Grammar of Iraqi Arabic (1963) and A Basic Course in Iraqi Arabic (1969), and with Peter Abboud worked on textbooks of Modern Standard Arabic.