A Dictionary of Medieaval Judaeo-Arabic Texts

[Yohanan Friedmann]

 		The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities

 		The Academy of the Hebrew Language



 		are pleased to announce the publication of



 		"A Dictionary of Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic Texts"

 					by


 				Joshua Blau



 	Jewish culture in the Arabic-speaking lands reached one of  its 
pinnacles in the first third of the second millennium CE.  Cultured Jews spoke 
Arabic as well as Hebrew, and it was in Judaeo-Arabic  that members of the 
Jewish elite wrote some of their most sophisticated prose works.
Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic texts are written in Middle Arabic,  which contains 
classical and later elements. The latter do not appear in standard dictionaries 
of Classical Arabic, and it is to these post-classical, neo-Arabic, and 
pseudo-correct  terms and expressions that Joshua Blau's Dictionary of 
Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic Texts is  primarily devoted. Blau's work thus takes its 
place alongside R. Dozy's  celebrated "Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes", 
and, indeed, the Middle Arabic elements he documents are to a great extent 
identical with Middle Arabic elements found in other Arabic writings of the 
period.
 	This first comprehensive dictionary of  Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic 
contains about 9000 entries. The lemmas are presented in both Arabic and Hebrew 
scripts,  and in order to make the Dictionary of some use to English-reading 
scholars of Middle Arabic,  they are translated into English as well as Hebrew.
 	The Dictionary  is based largely on the works of leading Jewish 
scholars of the period,  including Saadia Gaon, Judah Halevi, and Maimonides, 
but it also  refers to the Responsa literature, legal documents, and personal 
and  commercial letters. A special section is devoted to lexicographical 
literature.  The numerous examples appear in the original language and in 
Hebrew translation.


 	Professor Joshua Blau is a leading authority  on Judaeo-Arabic studies. 
He  is Professor Emeritus of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew 
University of Jerusalem,  a Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and 
Humanities, and former  President of the Academy of the Hebrew Language.  His 
publications include "A Grammar of Christian Arabic" (Louvain 1966-1967); 
"Studies in Middle-Arabic and its Judaeo-Arabic Variety" (Jerusalem 1988); "The 
Emergence and Linguistic Background of Judaeo-Arabic" (Jerusalem 1999); and "A 
Handbook of Early Middle Arabic" (Jerusalem 2002).

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2006. 820 pp. 21 × 27 cm. Cloth. $105

ISBN   965-208-171-X

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