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A Contribution to Hebrew Lexicography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

A. Guillaume
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Extract

My attention was first focused on the relation of the labial F (P) to the aspirated dental mute when I was translating Ibn Ishaq's Biography of the Prophet Muhammad.There I came across the following statement made by his editor, Ibn Hisham, who died in the year of the Hijra 218, i.e. A.D. 834: ‘ The Arabs say taḥannuth and taḥannuf, meaning the Ḥanafī religion. They change the TH into F as, for example, when they say jadath and jadaf when they mean a grave.’ Though the word that gave rise to the editor's comment does not belong to the TH-F class the principle that TH and F interchange is sound and unassailable. The indefatigable Brockelmann noted this important observation and gave a list of early Arabian authorities for the usage, together with a number of references to dialects in which it existed, or still exists to-day, from which it is clear that the phenomenon is to be met with all over Arabia and in North Africa. Landberg had drawn attention to its prevalence in Hadramaut and ‘Umān, and had often met with it in al-Shahr and Dathīna.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , February 1954 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1954

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References

page 1 note 1 Ed. Wüstenfeld, p. 152.

page 1 note 2 This example is almost certainly wrong. Abū Dharr (ed. Brönnle, P., Cairo, 1911, p. 75Google Scholar) points out rightly that taḥannuth means the abandoning of evil, and that the fifth form of the verb often has the meaning of abandoning or discarding something; e.g. ta'aththama. Wright's, Cf.Arabic Grammar, 1, 37BGoogle Scholar. Taḥannafa is surely parallel with tanaṣṣara ‘ to become a Christian ’

page 1 note 3 Qrundriss, 1, 130.Google Scholar

page 1 note 4 Hadramaut, 538.Google Scholar

page 1 note 5 AJSL., 23, 250Google Scholar.

page 1 note 6 Haffher, A., Texte zur arabischen Lexicographic, Leipzig, 1905, 34Google Scholar.

page 2 note 1 An important article by Beeston, A. P. L. Dr. on tho phonology of the epigraphic South Arabian unvoiced sibilants, Transactions of the Philological Society, 1951, pp. 1–26Google Scholar, and the literature cited there indicate the complexity of the subject.

page 2 note 2 TheLexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros which is still in course of publication, edited by Professor Ludwig Koehler, has nothing new to offer on the subject with which this paper deals, and so I have ignored it.

page 2 note 3 At this stage of our knowledge of Semitic sibilants I regard the question as to what was the ‘ original ’ form as of little or no importance. In Iraq Fahūja is known to the local inhabitants as Thalūja. That one believes to be wrong; but one does not know which form of an unknown root containing now F and now TH was first spoken by the hypothetical primitive Semite whom those most deeply concerned claim to have been Adam.

page 4 note 1 ‘ year ’ (from changing seasons)!

page 4 note 2 Here there is complete correspondence in both meanings.

page 4 note 3 The connexion is forced and far-fetched in BDB. See Ibn al-Sikkīt's list for the interchange of F and TH in this root.

page 5 note 1 The improbability of is pointed out in BDB. On the etymology now proposed the connexion between something plundered from a conquered enemy and something paid by a vassal is self-evident.

page 6 note 1 (‘ayin for ghayiṇ) is a misprint. In the double meaning of an opening and a bar to passage is evident.

page 7 note 1 The interchange here is within Hebrew and Aramaic.

page 7 note 2 in Dathina in South Arabia, and in the desert south of Palestine, is a stone rolling-pin, a primitive form of handmill. See Landberg, Études de l'Arabie méridionale, 2, 625 ff., 1052Google Scholar; and Musil, , Arabia Petreea, 3, 145Google Scholar.

page 8 note 1 See further Dalman, G., Arbeit und Sitte in Palāstina, Gütersloh, 1933, 3, 218f., 271f.Google Scholar He favours a root hāraf, but comes to no definite conclusion as to the meaning of the noun.

page 8 note 2 Driver, Professor in Studies in Old Testament Prophecy, p. 60Google Scholar, may well be right in finding the Arabic parallel in

page 10 note 1 Kittel even thinks it worth while to retain the monstrous ‘ emendation ’ ‘satyra ’ !