Kitab al-'Ayn

Kitāb al-ʿAyn
Authoral-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi
Original titleكتاب العين
LanguageArabic
GenreDictionary
Publication date
8th century

Kitāb al-ʿAyn (Arabic: كتاب العين) is the first Arabic language dictionary and one of the earliest known dictionaries of any language.[1][2][3][4] It was compiled in the eighth century by al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi. The letter ayn (ع) of the dictionary's title is regarded as phonetically the deepest letter in the Arabic alphabet. In addition the word ayn carries the sense of 'a water source in the desert'. Its title "the source" alludes also to the author's interest in etymology and tracing the meanings of words to their Arabic origins.

Al-Farahidi, who was from the Basra School, chose an unusual arrangement that does not follow the alphabetical order familiar today as the standard dictionary format. Al-Farahidi devised a phonetic system that followed the pattern of pronunciation of the Arabic alphabet. According to this system the order begins with the deepest letter in the throat, the letter ﻉ (ayin), and ends with the last letter pronounced by the lips, that being م (mim).[5][6] Due to ayin's position as the innermost letter to emerge from the throat, he viewed its origins deep down in the throat as a sign that it was the first sound, the essential sound, the voice and a representation of the self.[7]

The original manuscript copy by al-Farahidi is believed to have survived up until the fourteenth century when it seems to have disappeared. However summarized copies by the al-Andalus lexicologist Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi (d. 989), were circulating there by the tenth century.[8]

  1. ^ Introduction to Arabesques: Selections of Biography and Poetry from Classical Arabic Literature, pg. 13. Ed. Ibrahim A. Mumayiz. Volume 2 of WATA-publications: World Arab Translators Association. Philadelphia: Garant Publishers, 2006. ISBN 9789044118889
  2. ^ Bernard K. Freamon, "Definitions and Concepts of Slave Ownership in Islamic Law." Taken from The Legal Understanding of Slavery: From the Historical to the Contemporary, pg. 46. Ed. Jean Allain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. ISBN 9780199660469
  3. ^ A. Cilardo, "Preliminary Notes on the Meaning of the Qur'anic Term Kalala." Taken from Law, Christianity and Modernism in Islamic Society: Proceedings of the Eighteenth Congress of the Union Européenne Des Arabisants Et Islamisants Held at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, pg. 3. Peeters Publishers, 1998. ISBN 9789068319798
  4. ^ Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Linguistic Tradition, pg. 4. Part of the Landmarks in Linguistic Thought series, vol. 3. London: Routledge, 1997. ISBN 9780415157575
  5. ^ Muhammad Hasan Bakalla, "Ancient Arab and Muslim Phoneticians: An Appraisal of Their Contrubition to Phonetics." Taken from Current Issues in the Phonetic Sciences: Proceedings of the IPS-77 Congress, Miami Beach, Florida, 17–19 December 1977, Part 1, pg. 4. Eds. Harry Francis Hollien and Patricia Hollien. Volume 9 of Current Issues in Linguistic Theory Series. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 1979. ISBN 9789027209108
  6. ^ Abit Yaşar Koçak, Handbook of Arabic Dictionaries, pg. 20. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 2002. ISBN 9783899300215
  7. ^ Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual, pg. 178. Cornell Studies in Political Economy. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1993. ISBN 9780801427640
  8. ^ E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936, Volume 4, p. 888.