Editing Awjila language (section)

==History of scholarship==

Because of the political issues in Libya, [[field work]] on Awjila has been limited. The earliest studies of the language were carried out by Müller in 1827,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://orientalberber.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/a-look-into-the-history-of-awjila/ |last= van Putten |first=Marijn |title=A Look into the History of Awjila |website=Oriental Berber |date=2012-05-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518234830/https://orientalberber.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/a-look-into-the-history-of-awjila/ |archive-date=2015-05-18}}</ref> however, his work is difficult to analyze because there were no standard conventions such as the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]] (IPA) for [[transcribing]] it at that time and because he failed to make distinctions for various sounds in Awjila (such the difference between as [[emphatic consonants|emphatic]], [[pharyngeal consonants]] and their non-emphatic counterparts).<ref name = "van Putten" /> Moritz von Beurmann also contributed a short word list but some forms contradict information found in later sources.<ref name = "van Putten"/> The latest field work was done by Umberto Paradisi in 1960, whose data (in the form of texts) have become the basis for all future studies of the language, particularly that of contemporary scholar Marijn van Putten who has taken up the study of Awjila and other Eastern Berber varieties.  Van Putten, who has published extensively on the language, relies heavily on the work of Paradisi and has used it to compile a dictionary and a grammar within his 2014 book ''A Grammar of Awjila Berber''.<ref name = "van Putten" />