Arabic-L:LING:Arabic etymological dictionaries responses

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 06 Jan 2011
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dil at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: Arabic etymological dictionaries response
2) Subject: Arabic etymological dictionaries response

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1)
Date: 06 Jan 2011
From: Dan Parvaz <dparvaz at gmail.com>
Subject: Arabic etymological dictionaries response

Doesn't Lane's have etymological/cognate information in the entries?

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2)
Date: 06 Jan 2011
From: Thomas Milo <tmilo at decotype.com>
Subject: Arabic etymological dictionaries response

An Arabic etymological dictionary? There is no such thing. 

Etymology in the modern sense is a serious black hole in Oriental studies. There is nothing that systematically and exhaustively scrutinizes the obvious relationships of Arabic with related Semitic languages like Akkadian, Eblaitic, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Sabaic, Thamudic, Hebrew, Ethiopian etc. etc., nor with any of the surrounding major non-Semitic languages such as Sumerian, Latin, Greek, Egyptian, Persian ad Turkish.

There isn't even a Semitic etymological dictionary in the sense they exist for all major and many minor Indo-European languages.

There are etymological dictionaries of Hebrew like the "Etymological Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew: Based on the Commentaries of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch", but these are theological exegetical works without the concept of historical linguistics as it is understood today.

A major challenge and a splendid inspiration for a happy 2011!

t

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