Baalbaki (Ramzi), The Arabic Lexicographical Tradition. From the 2nd/8th to the 12th/18th Century, Leiden, Brill, ("Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East, Volume: 107"), 2024, 500 p. ISBN 978-90-04-27397-9

Author

Ramzi Baalbaki, Ph.D. (1978), University of London, is the Margaret Weyerhaeuser Jewett Professor of Arabic at the American University of Beirut. He is also the Chair of the Academic Council of the Doha Arabic Historical Dictionary project. He has published extensively both in English and Arabic on the history of the Arabic grammatical and lexicographical traditions.

Presentation

A comprehensive and methodologically sophisticated history of Arabic lexicography, this book fills a serious gap in modern scholarship. Besides meticulously examining the factors that led to the emergence of lexicographical writing as of the second/eighth century, the work comprises detailed discussions of the aims, range, and approaches of the most important writings and writers of lexica specialized in specific topics and multi thematic thesauri, and the lexica arranged according to roots. The organisation of the book and the lists of works cited in the various genres make it easy for the reader to find his way through an enormous amount of material. From a broader perspective, the book highlights the relationship between Arabic lexicography and other areas of linguistic study, grammar in particular, and the centrality of Qurʾan and poetry to lexicographical writing.