Janet C. E. Watson is currently an Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews and a Visiting Researcher at Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat. She was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2013. Her current research areas are on Modern South Arabian, and the language–nature relationship. Her main research interests lie in the documentation of Modern South Arabian languages and modern Arabic dialects, with particular focus on phonetic and theoretical phonological and morphological approaches to language varieties spoken within the southwestern Arabian Peninsula. Her publications include The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic (2007), The Structure of Mehri (2012), A Comparative Cultural Glossary across the Modern South Arabian Language Family (with M. Morris, D. Eades et al., 2019) and Language and Ecology in Southern and Eastern Arabia (co edited with J. C. Lovett and R. Morano, 2023). She is co director of the Centre for Endangered Languages, Cultures and Ecosystems (CELCE).
Miranda J. Morris is an independent researcher whose interests focus on the Modern South Arabian Languages, Soḳoṭri, Hobyōt, Bǝṭaḥrēt, Śḥerɛ̄t, Mehri and Ḥarsūsi, and the traditional cultures of those who speak them. She has lived and worked with MSAL-speaking communities in Southern Arabia and the Soqotra Archipelago over several decades, and has worked on a variety of projects, with the Darwin Initiative, UK; the Global Environment Facility; the European Union; and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Her publications include Plants of Dhofar, the Southern Region of Oman: Traditional, Economic and Medicinal Uses (with A. G. Miller, 1988); Oman Adorned: A Portrait in Silver (with P. Shelton, 1997); Ethnoflora of the Soqotra Archipelago (with A. G. Miller, 2004); A Comparative Cultural Glossary across the Modern South Arabian Language Family (with J. C. E. Watson, D. Eades et al., 2019); The Oral Art of Soqotra: A Collection of Island Voices (with Ṭ. S. Di-Kišin, 3 volumes, 2021), and Ethnographic Texts in the Baṭḥari Language of Oman (2024). With Fabio Gasparini, she is currently completing A Grammar of the Bəṭaḥrēt Language of Oman for publication by Harrassowitz.
Erik Anonby is Professor of Linguistics and French at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He has spent extensive periods of fieldwork in partnership with language communities in Arabia, north-central Africa, and Iran. His interdisciplinary research fo cuses on the importance of linguistic diversity in individual human experience and collective heritage. His publications in clude A Grammar of Mambay (2011), Adaptive Multilinguals: Lan guage on Larak Island (with P. Yousefian, 2011), and Bakhtiari Studies (with A. Asadi, 2 volumes, 2014, 2018). He is co director of the Endangered Knowledge and Technology (ELK Tech) research group at Carleton University, and an active con tributor to Janet C. E. Watson’s research group on Language and Nature in Arabia at Centre for Endangered Languages, Cul tures and Ecosystems (CELCE).