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An Indian Contribution to the Study of Arabic Lexicography—The “Bulgha” of Muḥammad Ṣiḍḍīq Ḥasan Khan Bahādur (1832–1890)1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
We are at present witnessing a timely revival of interest in Arabic lexicography. The completion of Lane's Dictionary is planned by the International Congress of Orientalists. A small part of Noldecke's projected dictionary has been printed. J. Kraemer has drawn attention to Fischer's voluminous notes for a new dictionary of classical Arabic. All this fills a real need, but it contributes only incidentally to the study of Arabic lexicography. Indeed, the tendency is now to obtain material for dictionaries from Arabic literature direct, rather than from the old philological works. On the other hand, there are signs that the study of Arabic lexicography as an end in itself, rather than as a source of vocabulary, is gaining ground. There is the new Beirouth edition of the Lisān al 'Arab. Moreover, two theses on Arabic lexicography have recently been presented for higher degrees—that of L. Kopf to Jerusalem, and that of A. Darwish (dealing especially with al Khalīl ibn Aḥmad and the Kitāb al ‘Ain) to London. Still, there is a pressing need for more work in this field, which presents fascinating problems. For example, whence did the Arabs derive their lexicographical technique? What influence had Greek and Sanskrit models? What does European lexicography—a comparatively late growth—owe to the Arabs. These questions are not yet answered and they are not likely to be answered so long as Semiticists and Indo-European philologists work in isolation. Moreover, lexicography is hardly taken seriously as a science even now and little has been written on European lexicography.
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1956
References
page 165 note 2 Kopf, L., The Word Definitions in the Indigenous Arabic Lexicons, Jerusalem, 1953Google Scholar.
page 165 note 3 Mr. Darwish has had published in Cairo this year a general work on Arabic lexicography, Al Ma'ājim al ‘Arabīya.
page 167 note 1 The word lugha has several meanings. It may mean lexicography, philology, an expression, or current speech. I translate it here sometimes as “lexicography”, sometimes as “philology”—partly for variety and partly because some of the Arabic works on lugha are hardly lexicographical in the accepted English sense.
page 171 note 1 See Jeffery, A., The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurān, Oriental Institute, Baroda, 1938Google Scholar, for a full account of this subject.
page 173 note 1 For example, when bait means a house, it should have the plural buyūt: when it means a line in poetry the plural should be 'abyāt.
page 175 note 1 The first French Dictionary is said to date from 1539.
page 176 note 1 Khalil's arrangement is further complicated by the fact that he deals with biliteral, triliteral, and quadri- and quinquiliteral roots in separate chapters. Roots containing weak letters as radicals are also treated separately.
page 176 note 2 He is also credited with the discovery of the rules of Arabic poetical metres.
page 176 note 3 See Zetterstein, K. V., Aus dem Tahdib al lugha al Azhari's, Monde Oriental, vol. 14, 1920, 1–106Google Scholar.
page 176 note 4 See Krenkow, F., “The beginnings of Arabic Lexicography till the time of Jauhari, with special reference to the work of Ibn Duraid,” JRAS., Centenary Supplement, 1924, pp. 255–270Google Scholar.
page 177 note 1 I find it hard to believe that this arrangement was designed to help the poet in search of a rhyme.
page 178 note 1 With the possible exception of Chinese work.
page 180 note 1 I have not yet read Mr. Darwish's recently published work mentioned in footnote 3, p. 165 above, nor Mr. Kopf's thesis mentioned in footnote 2. But the Bulgha covers the whole field of lexicography, not just the dictionaries, and has also the valuable bibliography; so no invidious comparison is implied. A useful bibliography of the major works is contained in Kraemer, J.: “Studien zur altarabische Lexicographie nach Istanbouler und Berliner Handschriften,” Oriens, 6 (1953), 201–238CrossRefGoogle Scholar.