Rosina-Fawzia B. Al-Rawi

I mainly got this book for the phonology section, which was unfortunately short. It was a decent analysis with nothing earth-shattering or unorthodox in it. I disagreed with a few details, but for the most part Rawi’s analysis lines up with Holes’ reference grammar from the same year (1990).
Most of the substance of the book is about noun constructions, which I didn’t read.
It has a useful section of texts, carefully noting the age and location of the speaker. The speakers are all women (if I remember correctly) and several of them are older. The transcription at times appears to be somewhat broad or “morphophonological,” rather than purely phonetic.

I upgraded my review from four to five stars after I started looking through the lexicon. There is a lot of unique cultural material in here.… (meer)

I really, amazingly wanted to like this book. The first section is a little unbelievable, but a pleasant read, and who I am to say these weren't the author's experiences? I slogged through the so-called history section out of pure determination. Her 'history' was a self-serving collection of meaningless generalizations and unsubstantiated "facts".

I figured the section of exercises had to be worthwhile. Even if your history stinks, if you dance, how far wrong can you go in creating exercises for dancers? Right?

Wrong! This kind of pseudo-scientific semi-mystical crap is just not worth my time. Silly I could live with. Goofy I could live with. Blatantly false information (your spine is not actually ramrod straight unless you've been hideously injured) wrapped in pathetic attempts to ascribe all that is good and right in the world to an unbroken tradition of female dancing? I'm out. I'm done.

I'm sure this books speaks to someone. That someone is amazingly not me.… (meer)