Travel literature as a linguistic source: another look at Doughty's Najdi Arabic glossary

Some of the best 19th and early 20th cent. Western travel literature concerning Arabic-speaking countries contains valuable linguistic information, still to be evaluated in the light of the recent progress in Arabic dialectology and comparative Semitic linguistics. Charles Montague Doughty (1843-1926)'s massive Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888, 3d ed. 1921) is undoubtedly one of the richest depositories of - particularly lexical - data on late 19th cent. Bedouin Najdi Arabic: a selection of 20 words recorded in that great work is here discussed, by highlighting the progress in our interpretation with respect to M.J. de Goeje's important lexical index originally contributed to Doughty's book. Further lexical items and some sociolinguistic data on Central Arabia in the 1870s are dealt with in a more extensive article in Italian (2011).