[Corpora-List] "Kafir" in English dictionaries and corpora

[Khurshid Ahmad]

What is an Islamic word? An Arabic word? A Persian word? An Urdu word? 
A Berber word? I have not come across words that belong to a religion: 
Hindu word? Christian word? Jewish word? More confoundingly Otto Lassen 
suggested that there are Islamic words?



On 06-03-2013 20:23, Otto Lassen wrote:
> Eric Atwell started a discussion 28.2 about how
>
> vocabulary related to Islam figures in British dictionaries
>
> and corpora. He found one word, "tajweed", which did not figure.
>
> But there are many islamic words in the dictionaries
>
> and many which are not in the dictionaries, so I wonder
>
> how the choice of including / excluding words is made
>
> and what are the effect of this choice on the users?
>
> I tried with another word, "kafir" (or “kaffir”), which
>
> means infidel, disbeliever, unbeliever.
>
> You find it in the online versions of Oxford English Dictionary
>
> and Collins English Dictionary but not in Longman
>
> Dicitionary of Contemporary English nor in British National Corpus.
>
> The encyclopedias (Britannica, Wikipedia) have it naturally.
>
> So why is "kafir" better represented than "tajweed"?
>
> A proposal for a solution could be that "kafir" is used in
>
> the Qur'an many times. In Shakir's translation there are
>
> 400 hits for disbeliev.. and unbeliev..... For every 3 pages
>
> 2 has them The contrast between believers and
>
> unbelievers is in that way basic for the Qur'an and
>
> for its influence on the readers. Unbelievers are described
>
> very negatively. The concept of "kafir" is part of the belief
>
> of the 5% muslims in England but must be known by
>
> everybody because it concerns all. Therefore the
>
> choice of "kafir" to the dictionaries. “Tajweed" tells only
>
> how to recite verses from the Qur’an.
>
> But this may not be the only explanation of the choice
>
> of including / excluding islamic words in dictionaries.
>
> Regards
>
> Otto Lassen

-- 

Webpage: www.cs.tcd.ie/khurshid.ahmad

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