''Kitāb al-ʿAyn'' () is the first
Arabic language
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
dictionary
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...
and one of the earliest known dictionaries of any language. It was compiled in the eighth century by
al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi
Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī (; 718 – 786 CE), known as al-Farāhīdī, or al-Khalīl, was an Arab philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra in ...
. The letter ''
ayn'' () of the dictionary's title is regarded as phonetically the deepest letter in the Arabic alphabet. In addition the word ''ayn'' carries the sense of 'a water source in the desert'. Its title "the source" alludes also to the author's interest in
etymology
Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
and tracing the meanings of words to their Arabic origins.
Al-Farahidi, who was from the
Basra School, chose an unusual arrangement that does not follow the alphabetical order familiar today as the standard dictionary format. Al-Farahidi devised a phonetic system that followed the pattern of pronunciation of the Arabic alphabet. According to this system the order begins with the deepest letter in the throat, the letter (
ayin
''Ayin'' (also ''ayn'' or ''ain''; transliterated ) is the sixteenth letter of the Semitic scripts, including Phoenician ''ʿayin'' 𐤏, Hebrew ''ʿayin'' , Aramaic ''ʿē'' 𐡏, Syriac ''ʿē'' ܥ, and Arabic ''ʿayn'' (where it is si ...
), and ends with the last letter pronounced by the lips, that being (
mim).
[Abit Yaşar Koçak, Handbook of Arabic Dictionaries, pg. 20. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 2002. ] Due to ayin's position as the innermost letter to emerge from the throat, he viewed its origins deep down in the throat as a sign that it was the first sound, the essential sound, the voice and a representation of the self.
[Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, ''The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual'', pg. 178. Cornell Studies in Political Economy. ]Ithaca, New York
Ithaca () is a city in and the county seat of Tompkins County, New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York (state), New York, Ithaca is the largest community in the Ithaca metrop ...
: Cornell University Press
The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University, an Ivy League university in Ithaca, New York. It is currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, maki ...
, 1993.
The original manuscript copy by al-Farahidi is believed to have survived up until the fourteenth century when it seems to have disappeared. However summarized copies by the
al-Andalus
Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...
lexicologist
Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi (d. 989), were circulating there by the tenth century.
Contents
Al-Farahidi introduces the dictionary with an outline of the phonetics of Arabic.
[Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Language, pg. 62. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001. Paperback edition. ] The format he adopted for the dictionary consisted of twenty-six books, a book for every letter, with weak letters combined as a single book; the number of chapters of each book accords with the number of radicals,
[ with the weak radicals being listed last. According to this system roots are treated anagrammatically, and all possible anagrams of radical arrangements given.][ The introduction to volume I contains the phonotactic rules of the Arabic root system, where consonants are classified according to properties of vocalisation, point of articulation, and common distributional characteristics.][ The intention is not the production of a complete lexicon of the Arabic language, but rather a lexicon of the root system from which expands the vast, almost limitless, vocabulary of the Arabic language.
Al-Farahidi groups consonants according to their vocalisation characteristics:
* From the ]throat
In vertebrate anatomy, the throat is the front part of the neck, internally positioned in front of the vertebrae. It contains the Human pharynx, pharynx and larynx. An important section of it is the epiglottis, separating the esophagus from the t ...
: Ayn, Hāʾ, Khāʾ, Ḥāʾ, Ghayn
The Arabic letter (, or ) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being , , , , ). It represents the sound or . In name and shape, it is a variant of ʻayn ...
* From the soft palate
The soft palate (also known as the velum, palatal velum, or muscular palate) is, in mammals, the soft biological tissue, tissue constituting the back of the roof of the mouth. The soft palate is part of the palate of the mouth; the other part is ...
: Kāf, Qāf
* From the palate
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sep ...
: Ṣād
Tsade (also spelled , , , , tzadi, sadhe, tzaddik) is the eighteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''ṣādē'' 𐤑, Hebrew ''ṣādī'' , Aramaic ''ṣāḏē'' 𐡑, Syriac ''ṣāḏē'' ܨ, Ge'ez ''ṣädäy'' ጸ, an ...
, Ḍād
() is the fifteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet, one of the six letters not in the twenty-two akin to the Phoenician alphabet (the others being , , , , ). In name and shape, it is a variant of . Its numerical value is 800 (see Abjad numerals ...
, Jīm
* From the teeth
A tooth (: teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, tear ...
and tip of the tongue: Shīn, Sīn, Zāy
* From the prepalate: Ṭāʾ
Teth, also written as or Tet, is the ninth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ''ṭēt'' 𐤈, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew, Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic
''ṭēṯ'' 𐡈, and Syriac alphabet, ...
, Tāʾ
Taw, tav, or taf is the twenty-second and last letter of the Semitic abjads, including Arabic ''tāʾ'' , Aramaic ''taw'' 𐡕, Hebrew ''tav'' , Phoenician ''tāw'' 𐤕, and Syriac ''taw'' ܬ. In Arabic, it also gives rise to the derived ...
, Dāl
* From the gums
The gums or gingiva (: gingivae) consist of the mucosal tissue that lies over the mandible and maxilla inside the mouth. Gum health and disease can have an effect on general health.
Structure
The gums are part of the soft tissue lining of the ...
: Ẓāʾ, Thāʾ, Ḏāl
' (, also transcribed as ') is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being , , , , ). It is related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪙, and South Arabia ...
* From the apex of the tongue: Lām, Nūn
Nun is the fourteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''nūn'' 𐤍, Hebrew ''nūn'' , Aramaic ''nūn'' 𐡍, Syriac ''nūn'' ܢ, and Arabic ''nūn'' (in abjadi order). Its numerical value is 50. It is the third letter ...
, Rāʾ
* From the lips: Fāʾ, Bāʾ, Mīm
* From the palate
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sep ...
with the emission of air: Yāʾ, Wāw
Waw ( "hook") is the sixth letter of the Semitic abjads, including
Phoenician ''wāw'' 𐤅,
Aramaic ''waw'' 𐡅,
Hebrew ''vav'' ,
Syriac ''waw'' ܘ
and Arabic ''wāw'' (sixth in abjadi order; 27th in modern Arabic order). It is al ...
, ʾAlif, Hamza
The hamza ( ') () is an Arabic script character that, in the Arabic alphabet, denotes a glottal stop and, in non-Arabic languages, indicates a diphthong, vowel, or other features, depending on the language. Derived from the letter '' ʿayn'' ( ...
h
History
Al-Farahidi's manuscript, originally held in a library of the Tahirid dynasty, was returned to Basra
Basra () is a port city in Iraq, southern Iraq. It is the capital of the eponymous Basra Governorate, as well as the List of largest cities of Iraq, third largest city in Iraq overall, behind Baghdad and Mosul. Located near the Iran–Iraq bor ...
in 862, or 863CE, seventy years after his death, when a northeast Persian bookseller sold it for fifty dinars. Some few copies were made available for commercial sale, although the work remained rare through much of the Middle Ages and despite being in circulation in al-Andalus
Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...
in 914/915CE, it was not until its discovery by the Iraqi priest and friar Anastase-Marie al-Karmali in 1914 that it was reintroduced into the West.[John A. Haywood, Arabic, pg. 22.] In the modern era, the book has been printed by Maktabah Al Hilal, having been reviewed by Dr. Mahdi al Makhzūmi and Dr. Ibrāhim Al Samirā'ì in eight volumes. The dictionary (alphabetically arranged) is available in Arabic in a four volume edition published in 2003 by Dar al-Kitab al-'Alamiyya () and available online.
All subsequent lexicographic works in Arabic are based on al-Farahidi's dictionary, and it is said that al-Farahidi's ''Kitab al-Ayn'' did for lexicography what his student Sibawayh's ''al-Kitab'' () did for grammar.[ Historically, a handful of rival Arab lexicographers questioned the attribution of the book to al-Farahidi, though modern scholarship has attributed this to jealousy in the part of later linguists who have found themselves in al-Farahidi's shadow. The work caused later controversy as well. Ibn Duraid, who wrote the second comprehensive Arabic dictionary ever, was accused by his contemporary Niftawayh of simply plagiarizing al-Farahidi's work.][M.G. Carter, "Arabic Lexicography." Taken from ''Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period'', pg. 112. Eds. M. J. L. Young, J. D. Latham and R. B. Serjeant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ]
Methodology
Al-Farahidi tried to rationalize the empirical practice of lexicography in ''al-Ayn'', explicitly referring to the calculation of arrangements and combinations in order to exhaustively enumerate all words in Arabic.["Combinational analysis, numerical analysis, Diophantine analysis and number theory." Taken from ''Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, Volume 2: Mathematics and the Physical Sciences'', pg. 378. Ed. Roshdi Rasheed. London: Routledge, 1996. ] According to al-Farahidi's theory, what is known as the Arabic language is merely the phonetically realized part of the entire possible language. The various combinations of roots are reckoned by al-Farahidi by the arrangement r to r with 1 < r ≤ 5, which is the possible language; the possible language, however, is limited by the rules of phonological compatibility among the phonemes of the roots. By applying this limit to the possible language, al-Farahidi theorized that the actual language could be extracted and thus the lexis of Arabic could be recorded.[
Al-Farahidi began his extraction of the actual language from the possible language based on the phonological limit by calculating the nonrepetitive number of combinations of Arabic roots, taken as r to r with r = 2 - 5. He then took that along with the number of permutations for each r group; he finally calculated Arn = r! (nr) with n being the number of letters in the Semitic alphabet. Al-Farahidi's theory and calculation are now found in the writings of most lexicographers.][
]
External links
Searchable online version
Citations
{{Reflist
8th-century Arabic-language books
Arabic dictionariestrrty
Arabic etymology
History of the Arabic language