ARABIC-L: PEDA: More on English-Arabic Dictionaries

Mon Apr 5 20:25:31 UTC 1999

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabic-L: Mon 05 Apr 1999
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
[To post messages to the list, send them to arabic-l at byu.edu]
[To unsubscribe, send message to listserv at byu.edu with first line reading:
          unsubscribe arabic-l                                      ]

-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1) Subject: More on English-Arabic Dictionaries

-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date: 05 Apr 1999
From: qamus at itsnet.com (Tim Buckwalter)
Subject: More on English-Arabic Dictionaries

I started making a list of recommended English-Arabic dictionaries
currently available on the market and got a little bit carried away
describing each one! To make a long story short: for simple everyday use I
recommend the Concise Oxford (#1 below). If you want an unabridged
dictionary, get Theodory's recently-published work (1996, #6 below).

Here's the full list of English-Arabic dictionaries with all the gory details:

(1) The Concise Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary of Current Usage by N.S.
Doniach (Editor), Safa Khulusi; Info from amazon.com: $32.00; Hardcover -
461 pages (June 1982); Oxford Univ Press; ISBN: 0198643217 ; Dimensions (in
inches): 1.10 x 8.30 x 5.54

This dictionary is an abridgment of an earlier edition (1972, see item #2
below). The source is primarily British English. The treatment of Arabic is
very good for learners: it lists verbs in the Perfect and provides the
Imperfect stem vowel for form I, as well as the broken plural of nouns. For
some items (e.g., food) it given regional Arabic equivalents.

(2) The Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary of Current Usage by Oxford,
Clarendon Press, N. S. Doniach (Editor); Info from amazon.com: $95.00;
Hardcover - 1392 pages (July 1972); Oxford Univ Press; ISBN: 0198643128;
Dimensions (in inches): 1.96 x 9.54 x 6.58

This one is a bit dated. I can't believe it costs so much now--I think I
paid around $38 for my copy back in 1979. It has more rare English words,
idioms, and examples than the abridged version. It stands out as the only
modern dictionary in which all the Arabic was written by hand!

(3) Al-Mawrid by Munir Ba'albaki. Beirut: Dar al-'ilm lil-malayin, 19??.
About 1300 pp.

This dictionary has been around for ages. It is published annually as a new
"edition" with the year stamped prominently on the cover. It's written for
the Arab user in mind, not the learner of Arabic. If you can buy it in the
Middle East, where it's probably cheaper, do it. I looked for it at Amazon
and the International Book Centre (http://www.ibcbooks.com/) but couldn't
find it.

(4) Al-Mughni Al-Akbar: English-Arabic Dictionary by Hasan Said Al-Karmi.
ISBN: 0906527643; Binding: Hardback; Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1989.
About 1300 pp. 49.50 British pounds

I got the above info from Blackwell's (http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/).
It was also listed at Librairie du Liban
(http://www.librairie-du-liban.com.lb), including a "Plus" version, but
with no details provided. This dictionary is also intended for use by
native speakers of Arabic. Its coverage of phrases and idioms is fairly
comprehensive, although some of the made-up sentences are kind of funny. My
favorite one is "He kept on hitting him until he was *satisfied*": ...Hatta
ishtafaa. Mr. Al-Karmi was at the BBC Arabic Service for many years, where
he originate the famous "qawl `ala qawl" series. Unfortunately, the
printers messed up the order and numbering of some of the pages: to find
"once-over" and "tornado" you need to look two pages beyond the one where
they would normally be found. Maybe these pages are sorted and numbered
correctly in the "Plus" version?

(5) Al-Nibras by Hani Lubbadeh. Amman: Jordan, 1993. 1144 pp.

This is a very interesting work. The author often provides explanations of
word meanings in addition to translation equivalents, but these often
appear to be translated from a monolingual English dictionary. For example:
"shake 1) yahuzzu (al-mar'u shay'an maa wa-min 'amthilatihi al-`aSaa
wa-l-shajara 'aw al-ghuSn 'aw al-yad 'aw al-rijl...) [and that's about 15%
of the entire explanation for that entry]. There is some danger in this
approach because English collocations such as "shake a stick / tree /
branch / hand / leg" don't exactly map directly to hazza/yahuzzu al-`aSaa /
al-shajara, etc. His coverage is quite broad: you will see many English
words you never knew existed. Many of the sample English sentences for the
more common words are left untranslated.

(6) Al-Mounged English-Arabic by Constantin Theodory. Beirut: Librairie
Orientale [al-maktaba al-sharqiya], 1996. About 300FF (about $50). About
1150 pp.

Al-maktaba al-sharqiya has produced some of the handsomest Arabic
dictionaries around, and this one--their first English-Arabic in the famous
"Munjid" series--is no exception. Constantin(e) Theodory is the author of
the very useful "A Dictionary of Modern Technical Terms" (1959), which is
packed with idiomatic translations of technical terms and phrases (even
sentences and entire paragraphs), as well as excerpts from poetry and
literary prose. His technical background also shows in this general-purpose
Mounged dictionary, with entries such as "thermonic rectifier" and
"interlocutory motion." He doesn't neglect everyday speech, however, with
numerous idiomatic examples, all translated, such as: "there's a good boy!
'aHsant ya bunayya!" and "what is there for dinner? maa `indak
lil-`ashaa'?" He does an excellent job pointing out the semantic range of
diverse Arabic translation equivalents. For example, under "thick" he
lists: samiik (juukh, lawH); kathiif (ghaaba, Dabaab, sha`r); ghaliiZ j.
ghilaaZ (shafataan); kathth (liHya); 'ajashsh, khashin (Sawt); thakhiin
(Hasaa'); daamis (Zalaam). Unlike similar dictionaries published primarily
for native speakers of Arabic, this one does provide broken plurals.

I wasn't able to find an American distributor (esp. a website) for La
Librairie Orientale. I suspect that Theodory's dictionary will be published
in a useful abridged (wajiiz) edition (if it hasn't been already), in which
case I'd say it would be a very close call between that version and the
Concise Oxford.

Tim Buckwalter
http://www.itsnet.com/~qamus

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Arabic-L: 05 Apr 1999