So here goes:
One of my mom's university students emailed me (because I studied linguistics) to ask for some good sources on the history of languages in Palestine. Given that "Palestine" is a rather ambiguously defined land mass, especially over the course of history, and that I've never studied its languages in particular anyway, I don't really have any good suggestions. I plan to tell her to go to the university library and look up books with keywords like "historical linguistics," "sociolinguistics," "Semitic languages," and the names of individual languages spoken there through the ages (Aramaic, Syriac, etc.). But if anyone knows of any particular writers or books or articles that would provide a good background on the subject, do tell!
Thank you.