Education

2020–2025: PhD student in the direct track in the Hebrew Language Department, University of Haifa, supervised by Prof. Tamar Zewi and Dr. Ohad Cohen, Grammatical Changes and Grammaticalization Processes in Semitic Languages

2018–2020: MA (cum laude, as part of the direct track) in Hebrew Language, University of Haifa, supervised by Prof. Tamar Zewi and Dr. Ohad Cohen

2016–2018: BA (summa cum laude) in Hebrew Language and Philosophy, University of Haifa. Exchange student at the University of Texas at Austin

 

Professional Experience

2017–2025: Research assistant to Prof. Yehudit Henshke on the "Mother Tongue Project," documenting and editing Jewish dialects of various languages

2024–2025: Research assistant to Prof. Tamar Zewi on the project "Early Genizah Fragments of Saadya Gaon’s Translation of the Pentateuch: Codices and Scribes," funded by the Israel Science Foundation

2016–2023: Research assistant to Prof. Yael Maschler on the projects "University of Haifa Corpus of Spoken Hebrew" and "The Emergent Grammar of Clause-Combining from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective—a Contribution to Pragmatic Typology," funded by the Israel Science Foundation

2021–2022: Member of the Haifa Grad Team at the University of Haifa under the academic head of the program, Prof. Michal Biron. Members are selected based on their academic achievements.

Honors and Awards

2025-2027: Minerva postdoctoral scholarship for the project “The Palestinian Arabic Language Variety of Masāfer Yaṭṭa - Narrowing the Gap between Synchronic and Diachronic Semitic Linguistics”

2019–2023: University of Haifa president’s scholarship for direct PhD track students

2021: Aharon Dolgopolsky scholarship in comparative linguistics, courtesy of his widow, Mrs. Tsippi Fleischer

2021: Jacob Mansour scholarship in the field of Semitic linguistics

2017: Certificate of Excellence in Philosophy Studies, University of Haifa

2015: Certificate of Excellence from the University of Texas at Austin and membership in the Honors Society

Conferences / Talks

"Documenting the Arabic Dialect of Masāfer Yaṭṭa: Motivation, Practice and Preliminary Findings." Lecture at the Colloquium of the Hebrew Language Department, University of Haifa, December 2024

"Kāmōhū and Kəmōtō in Modern Hebrew." Paper presented at the Research, Study and Creativity conference, Oranim College, July 2024

"Documenting the Arabic Dialect of Masāfer Yaṭṭa Following October 7th." Paper presented at the 22nd Convention of the Israeli Association for the Study of Language and Society, University of Haifa, June 2024

"Kāmōhū and Kəmōtō in Modern Hebrew: Distribution and Etymology." Paper accepted to the AILA 49th convention (The convention was eventually canceled), Oranim College, October 2023.

"Kāmōhū and Kəmōtō: the Etymology of the -t- Morpheme in Comparative Prepositions in West-Semitic Languages." Paper presented at Bikurei Meḥkar (Research Debuts) conference, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, May 2023

• 2022–2024: Hebrew Vocalization B, The Department of Hebrew Language, Oranim College

• 2021–2024: Morphology of Biblical Hebrew, The Department of Hebrew Language, Oranim College

• 2022: Yemenite Judeo-Arabic, teaching assistant, Mother Tongue Project and the Dahan Center
• Fall 2018–2019: Hebrew Vocalization A, The Department of Hebrew Language, University of Haifa
• Spring 2018: Hebrew Vocalization B, teaching assistant, The Department of Hebrew Language, University of Haifa

Research areas: Comparative Semitic Linguistics, Arabic dialectology, Phoenician. 

Current Project: The Palestinian Arabic Language Variety of Masāfer Yaṭṭa - Narrowing the Gap between Synchronic and Diachronic Semitic Linguistics – Minerva Stiftung

Residents of Masāfer Yaṭṭa originate from a distinct social group within the city of Yaṭṭa, located in the southern Hebron Hills. Historically, some residents of Yaṭṭa migrated seasonally from the city to the surrounding areas on its southern outskirts (i.e., Masāfer Yaṭṭa) in search of pasture, living as semi-nomadic cave-dwellers. In recent decades, with the termination of seasonal migration, Masāfer Yaṭṭa has become permanently settled, with domiciles still consisting primarily of natural caves.

Given the primary distinction in Palestinian dialectology between sedentary and nomadic dialects, this language variety is of special importance as its speakers are at an unusual intersection of the two social groups. This special status of Masāfer Yaṭṭa and its relative isolation from modern influences suggest that its language variety will exhibit unique linguistic features.

This study will consist of two main parts. First, it will provide a partial synchronic description of this language variety. Then it will employ a diachronic approach, comparing some of the unique linguistic features to relevant phenomena in other Semitic languages and dialects. This comparison will be used to hypothesize the features’ origin and the processes leading to their different manifestations.

• Carmel Fofliger, Ophir, Ohad Cohen and Tamar Zewi. [forthcoming]. "The Predicative Infinitive Construct in Phoenician and Punic." Folia Orientalia.

• Ophir Carmel Fofliger. 2023. "Oblique Pronoun Remnants on Comparative Prepositions in West Semitic." Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 49 (2): 11–32.

• Maschler, Yael, Hilla Polak-Yitzhaki, Galit Aghion, Ophir Fofliger, Nikolaus Wildner, Yotam Michael Ben Moshe, Rotem Lagil, Saar Shira, Anna Inbar and Yuval Geva. 2023. The Haifa Multimodal Corpus of Spoken Hebrew. Haifa: University of Haifa.

• Maschler, Yael, Hilla Polak-Yitzhaki, Stav Fishman, Carmit Miller Shapiro, Netanel Goretsky, Galit Aghion and Ophir Fofliger. 2022. The Haifa Corpus of Spoken Hebrew. Haifa: University of Haifa. https://sites.google.com/humanities.haifa.ac.il/corpus