Mony Almalech (1992)

The study examines noun + noun constructions in contemporary Bulgarian where two nouns appear without an overt linking preposition or marker (so-called appositive or compound NP constructions). It treats the problem of how meaning and syntactic relations are assigned between the two noun members and asks which one of the two nouns is semantically dominant in Bulgarian, offering a systematic analysis of interpretation patterns and distributional properties.

Mony Almalech (1997)

It is a pioneering study of how colors function as a symbolic language in Balkan folk traditions. It focuses on the ritual use of colors in marriage and burial customs, tracing their mystical, religious, and cultural roots across Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, ex-Yugoslavia people, and Turkey. Color is treated as a Ritual Code. The book examines how colors serve as semiotic markers in Balkan folklore, especially in marriage and burial rituals. For example, white and red often symbolize purity and fertility, while black and dark tones mark mourning and transition. Almalech argues that the choice of colors in folk costumes and rituals is not arbitrary but rooted in mystical religious knowledge. Colors encode sacred meanings that guide social and spiritual life. The study spans multiple Balkan cultures showing both shared traditions and unique local variations. Colors are treated as a language system, with grammar and syntax, capable of expressing cultural identity, values, and cosmological beliefs. This book is among the earliest comprehensive works on the semiotics of color in Balkan folklore, establishing Almalech as a leading scholar in the field. This book demonstrates that colors are not merely aesthetic choices in Balkan folklore – they are cultural signs that carry deep symbolic weight. By decoding this language of colors, Almalech reveals how communities articulate identity, spirituality, and social order through visual codes embedded in ritual life. Demonstrates Interdisciplinary Reach bridging folklore studies, semiotics, anthropology, and religious studies, making it relevant for scholars across the humanities.

Mony Almalech(2001)

The book develops a sustained account of colour as a linguistic and semiotic phenomenon, treating color expressions not only as perceptual labels but as elements of natural language that require psycholinguistic and pragmatic analysis. It argues that colour terms function within both cognitive processing and communicative context, and it situates colour language at the intersection of semantics, usage, and cultural convention. The monograph anticipates and underpins Almalech’s continuing program on the semiotics of colour, including later comparative and Biblical‑linguistic treatments of colour terms and their cultural load in Bulgarian and neighboring traditions. Serves as a conceptual bridge between experimental/cognitive accounts of colour and culturally informed semiotic approaches. Key emphases and approaches are the psycholinguistic perspective of how speakers perceive, categorize, and retrieve colour terms during language processing; the Pragmatic perspective of how context, implicature, and communicative goals shape the use and interpretation of colour expressions and semiotic framing: colour treated as a semiotic resource with culturally mediated meanings rather than only a biological or purely perceptual phenomenon.

Mony Almalech (2002; reissued 2016,2017)

Μony Almalech’s Българско‑ивритски разговорник: Кратка практическа морфология на иврит (2002; reissued 2016, 2017) is a bilingual handbook that combines a concise practical grammar of Hebrew with a phrasebook of about 3,000 Bulgarian-Hebrew words and expressions. The short practical grammar of Hebrew is the first of its kind written by a Bulgarian linguist. It introduces the fundamentals of Hebrew morphology and syntax, highlighting contrasts with Bulgarian. It offers accessible explanations of Hebrew’s unique grammatical structures, word order, and morphology. Filled a gap in Bulgarian education by providing a systematic yet approachable introduction to Hebrew. The Разговорник reflects Almalech’s dual interest in practical language pedagogy and comparative cultural studies. Българско‑ивритски разговорник is both a learning aid and a cultural bridge, offering Bulgarian speakers a structured entry into Hebrew through grammar essentials and a rich phrasebank.

Mony Almalech (2006)

A 176‑page monograph that explores the cultural, linguistic, and symbolic dimensions of color as a semiotic system. It situates color within folklore passage rituals of marriage and burial, showing how colors embody cultural codes and collective memory. He situates color within broader semiotic frameworks, comparing its role in literature and traditional passage rituals among many nations. The focus is on visual color as communicative system at folklore rituals of passage. It bridges folklore, ethnography, semiotics, and cultural anthropology, making it relevant for scholars across the humanities. This book is one of Almalech’s early major contributions to semiotics of color, laying the groundwork for later studies such as Advertisements: Signs of Femininity and Their Corresponding Color Meanings (2011) and his papers presented at the International Association for Semiotic Studies congresses. Published in Sofia, it reflects the strong tradition of semiotic research in Bulgaria and Almalech’s role as one of the leading figures in this field. Almalech’s Roots is not just about color theory – it’s about how colors speak. By treating colors as signs, he shows how they encode meaning across cultural rituals, and modern communication.

Mony Almalech (2006)

“Color in the Pentateuch” is the first book in the project Biblical Hermeneutics. It is a narrative intended for the Bulgarian reader, exploring what is lost and what remains of the sacred Hebrew text when translated into Bulgarian and other Indo-European languages. Although the author freely employs the rich theoretical apparatus of contemporary linguistics, his account of colors in the Bible conveys the impression not so much of a linguistic work, but much more of an insight and a peek into the inner logos that the Bible awakens in us. The work analyzes the cognitive similarities and differences arising from the structural features of Bulgarian and Hebrew.

Mony Almalech (2007; 2-nd ed. 2012)

The book offers a multidimensional exploration of the theme of color. It identifies the non-color meanings associated with colors – such as love, hatred, health, luck, and the male–female principle – across several domains: traditional weddings and funerals, literary works, the Bible, national flags, and advertising. Universal, regional, and national significations of colors are revealed. The volume is structured in three parts: Color in Folklore, Biblical Red, and Color in Advertising.

Mony Almalech (2010)

“Light in the Old Testament” is the second book by Mony Almalech within his project Biblical Hermeneutics. Through etymology, comparative linguistics, textual analysis, and contemporary scholarly theories and methods, the work investigates the role of color in the Bible. A widespread understanding holds that the Bible is the Word of God, radiating light. Almalech examines forty-five Hebrew roots denoting light and purity, underscoring the impossibility of rendering them adequately into Indo-European languages. For the reader, the linguistic worldview embedded in sacred Hebrew is unveiled, enabling a deeper decoding of the text’s meaning – often yielding entirely new interpretive phenomena. The study further integrates theological, physico-chemical, cultural, historiographical, and semiotic dimensions of the biblical text.

Several shorter versions of papers by the author summarize or derive from this monograph, e.g. papers in “Language and Semiotic Studies” published by the Soochow University Press and De Gruyter and the “Bulgarian Language” Journal published by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Mony Almalech (2011)

The book constitutes a semiotic investigation of the trademark, with particular emphasis on the semiotics of color in advertising. It examines how color choices function as signs within advertising texts and visual strategies, how they encode social roles (for example, femininity), and how they operate within consumer culture and marketing practice. The methodological approach combines semiotic and cultural‑studies analysis with illustrative examples drawn from advertising practice, treating color as a systemic sign rather than as a merely decorative or visual attribute.

The principal themes include the semantics and pragmatics of color in advertising; the structuring of color configurations and associative complexes; the role of color as a marker of identity and gender symbolism; and comparative observations on the functional roles of color across diverse advertising formats.

Numerous examples and illustrations are employed to analyze advertising campaigns and generic strategies, with attention to typical color codes associated with products, target audiences, and communicative messages. Together with Advertisements: Signs of Femininity and Their Corresponding Color Meanings (2011), the volume forms part of Almalech’s broader semiotic study of color in advertising as a symbolic system.

Mony Almalech (2011)

The book is part of his broader hermeneutic project on biblical semiotics, especially the interplay of language, symbolism, and cultural archetypes. The book examines different Hebrew words for donkey in the Old Testament, showing how each carries distinct symbolic weight. Kings traditionally chose strong animals (horses, elephants, camels) for ceremonies, yet biblical figures like David and Solomon are linked to donkeys (David’s “royal she-mule,” Solomon’s “wild donkey”.  Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on “the foal of a she-ass” is analyzed as a deliberate symbolic act, contrasting worldly power with humility and peace. Almalech applies linguistic and semiotic tools to uncover how donkeys function as signs of peace, wisdom, humility, and sometimes sexuality in biblical narratives. Written in English, the book makes Almalech’s hermeneutic insights accessible to international readers, extending his earlier Bulgarian-language studies. By publishing in English, Almalech opens his research to a wider scholarly and lay audience interested in biblical symbolism. The donkey in biblical texts is not a trivial detail—it is a loaded cultural symbol. Almalech’s book shows how this humble animal embodies paradoxes of kingship, messianic identity, and divine wisdom. His semiotic decoding helps readers see the Bible not just as text, but as a system of signs where even animals carry profound meaning. 

Mony Almalech (2013)

The book examines the archangels as they appear in the Hebrew original of the Old Testament, arguing that Hebrew archangelic names encode a Hebrew worldview (cultural–semantic “picture of the world”) that resists straightforward translation into Indo‑European languages. The study combines linguistic analysis of the Hebrew names with culturological evidence from Bible studies, Judaism, comparative citations and examples from Old and New Testament and illustrates functions of archangels in the destinies of prophets, apostles, kings, tribes, and peoples. The core claim is that Hebrew proper names of archangels function as an internally coherent code that reveals their nature, characteristics, and functions; these meanings are best recovered by close philological and semiotic analysis of the Hebrew forms rather than by translation into Indo‑European conceptual grids.

Commercial listings and library/catalog entries are available on Bulgarian bookseller sites and academic press pages.

Mony Almalech (2014)

It is the third book by Mony Almalech in his project Biblical Hermeneutics, grounded in Hebrew, the Indo-European languages, and the semiotics of color. The book investigates the semantics and semiotics of the color red as it functions in the Hebrew Bible, treating red not as an isolated lexical item but as a system of cultural codes that carries ritual, symbolic, and narrative meaning across texts. God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, “the priest after the order of Melchizedek,” and “the angel of His presence who saves” are inscribed in both the Old and New Testaments not only through the textual fabric itself, but also through diverse red codes, e.g. how red-signifiers cluster into culturally meaningful “codes” (ritual blood, garments, nebulae of prophetic imagery, etc.).

Mony Almalech (2015)

“The Queen of Sheba, Lilith, and the Raven” constitutes the third installment in a series devoted to singular biblical personae. In this volume, Mony Almalech leads us into the black informational realms of Scripture, demonstrating that blackness is not invariably a cipher of mourning, lamentation, or death. Rather, it discloses a spectrum of meanings and symbolic resonances. The work further explores the manifold and distinctive attributes of Solomon, together with the presence and significance of Black people both within the biblical text and in the post-biblical epoch. Scholarly voices and humanistic analyses converge here, offering interpretations of the three figures as refracted through the lenses of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Mony Almalech (2017)

“Darkness in the Old Testament” appeared ten years after the first major book devoted to the colors of the Bible – The Colors in the Pentateuch (2006). Prof. Almalech treats black/darkness not simply as isolated lexical items but as a culturally organized semiotic unit that functions across the Hebrew Bible. He argues that the Hebrew roots, lexical collocations, and figurative extensions that cluster around the notion of black form a coherent “cultural unit” whose symbolic, ritual, and worldview significance becomes visible through a linguo‑semiotic reading of the Hebrew text. Textual case studies showing the role of darkness/black in narrative, prophetic, and ritual contexts. Remarks on translation and how Indo‑European colour categories can obscure Hebrew semiotic organization. However, the foundation of the entire undertaking lies in comparative linguistics – though some linguists argue that Almalech’s books are concerned with translation theory. Others protest that they are not comparative linguistics at all, but rather semiotics. The book connects to Almalech’s broader research program on colour units in the Old Testament and related publications on color semiotics.