Lexicography_A Comparative Study

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Lexicography

A Comparative Study

12/30/2009

Mohammad S. Zeidan

The university of Jordan


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ContentsPreface ..........................................................................................................

The dictionaries ..........................................................................................

About the Dictionaries: ...............................................................................

Presentation of the Dictionaries ..............................................................

Pronunciation and Grammar ...................................................................

Illustrative Examples ...............................................................................

Taboo words ............................................................................................Pictorial illustrations ................................................................................

Conclusion .....................................................................................................

Endnotes: ......................................................................................................


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PrefaceArabic monolingual dictionaries are not, by any means, receiving properattention and serious research in the contemporary lexicographical practiceor corpus studies that are supposed to take into consideration any linguisticdata available in the literature of a language. Classical monolingualdictionaries in Arabic are practically ignored, and gradually falling intooblivion, and this constitutes a threat to Standard Arabic, a variety of theArabic tongue that is widely believed to be a source of unity and a definerof identity in the Arabic community and culture. In addition to this, and

linguistically speaking, a loss of any language, a variety or sub-variety, is agreat loss for the human civilization, and it is the tasks of the linguists ingeneral and the speakers of that languages in specific, to protect thelanguage, record it, and revive it. It is really worth mentioning that Arabiclexicography has been instrumental in keeping a consistent "written" formof Arabic and has been very helpful in understanding it, keeping a link

between what can be called Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic.This prevented the development of Arabic dialects into independentlanguages.i

Although classical Arabic monolingual dictionaries made a breakthroughdevelopment at their times in the craft of lexicography, there is anincreasing demand nowadays to make use of the developments made in theWestern tradition in this industry, to make these classical dictionaries more

presentable and user-friendly to the contemporary users. A lot can be doneto get these dictionaries back to use again, like making abridged editions,incorporating user-guides, illustrations, and other techniques that are in usein modern dictionaries.

Discussing Arabic monolingual dictionaries is not an easy endeavor at all,especially by a novice practitioner in the field, whose main concern hasbeen about English monolingual dictionaries, but I will make my best toshed some lights into our unique linguistics tradition and to highlight theearly creativity that Arabic lexicographers had shown in this regard.

My go in this little research is to make a comparison from a contemporaryperspective between two dictionaries, one is classical and the other may beclassified as contemporary, though a classic for some; being first publishedin 1941. In this study I will tackle different matters, sometimes interrelated,


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such as the presentation of the dictionary, the grammatical informationcontained, illustrations, examples, and other issues that will be underdifferent headlines.

Each headline will have two parts: (A) Al Mukhtar (the first dictionary)and (B) Munjid (the second dictionary).

This stub study, I hope, is just a beginning of a more serious and expandedresearch that I'm really considering in the near future, on Classical Arabic,its lexicon and dictionaries, in which I will employ the modern practicesand notions in lexicography. This is quite important, and I am reallymotivated, especially for being exceptionally fortunate and privileged, tohave some encouraging professors such as professor Khanji, to whom I'm

deeply grateful.

M. S. Zeidan


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The dictionaries

A brief description

I will deal in this study with two well-known Arabic dictionaries, to which Iam deeply attached and from which I have been learning a great deal aboutthe wonders of the Arabic tongue and its incomparable grace. These twodictionaries are:

1)Mukhtar Al Sihah ( )

2)Munjid Al Tullab ( )

Mukhtar Al Sihah ( )

Mukhat Al Sihah (henceforward Al Mukhtar) can be described, to use alexicographer term, an abridged version of another dictionary which isknown as Al Sihah ( ). The latter was one of the oldestdictionaries in Arabic and one of the most comprehensive at that time (thedictionary was published in the 20th century in six volumes and included

more than 40 thousand entries). It was intended at the beginning to preservethe Arabic lexicon and to upkeep its purity and grace, just as SamuelJohnson endeavored to do in the 16th century, when he tried to "fix" thelanguage and hold it back from development (yet there are great differences

between these two lexicographers) ii. Al Sihah was a foundation of newschool in Arabic lexicography1 , that was very different from the earlierschools, like Al Khalil Al Farahidi ( ) School.iii

Considering the fact that language is ever developing, new words emerging,other words falling out of use, Al Razi (the compiler of Al Mukhtar, died in

660 AH 1262 AD) decided to abridge the dictionary of his predecessor (AlJawhari died in 453 AH, 1061 AD) in order to provide students and learnersof Arabic a more practical dictionary that includes the core of the necessaryArabic lexicon that can still be used in speech and writing at that time.

Al Razi work was phenomenal and revolutionary, and we will further seehow he made the practice of lexicography a dynamic and practical one.

1 There are four schools of lexicography in Arabic known by the namesof its founders. 1) Al Khalil School. 2) Abu Obaid School 3) Al Jawhari

School 4) Al Barmaki School.


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The edition I am using in this project is a modernized one. The editorprovides his own introduction to the dictionary with useful informationabout the original, unabridged dictionary, and the dictionary in hand. The

modernized edition is unique and popular among learners for its neatorganization, the useful footnotes. It also highlights the main entry in red.This edition was first published in 1999 in Lebanon, and it is the one I amusing.

Munjid Al Tullab ( )

It is, to be honest, a sheer, yet fortunate, coincidence, to choose thisdictionary to discuss in this paper, because I found a lot of similarities

between both of them and I will illuminate this in the coming pages.

Munjid Al Tullab (henceforward Munjid) has a similar story to Al Mukhtar.It is an abridged edition of another dictionary (Al Munjid)2 that was

published in 1908 by Rev. Luis Ma'louf. This dictionary is of greatimportance and one of the widely used dictionaries among students.

Nevertheless, Mr. Fuad Al Bustani (1904-1994), then president of theLebanon University, embarked on a project that aims at providing studentswith a condensed and more practical tool that could be carried away withthe wherever they go in and outside the campus.

The project was a great success, and the dictionary sold out and becamevery popular among students and academicians. The first edition of thedictionary appeared in 1941, the second in 1952 and the third in 1956. Thelast edition reproduced in 16 reprints.

2 Not to be confused with Munjid(i.e. Munjid Al Tullab).


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About the Dictionaries:A comparative study

Presentation of the Dictionaries1)Al Mukhtar

I have indicated earlier that the purpose of both dictionaries was greatlypedagogical, i.e. they were intended to serve the learners, native and non-native, and other students in different disciplines. This helped in keeping

the dictionary more presentable, user-friendly, avoiding the intricacies ofspecialized lexical and grammatical issues.

Al Razi was a fine writer and well-versed in Arabic literature. He wrote anexplanation of Al Maqamat, and other books in Sufi aspects of literature atthe time.

His preface and introduction of the dictionary was a great scholarly work initself, since he incorporated very basic and instrumental information aboutArabic lexicology that was intended to provide students with guidelines that

will help while using the dictionary.He provided the readers with an inclusive classification of the verbs inArabic according to its lexicological behavior. The categories were six, andthey are comprehensive of all Arabic tri-consonantal verbs, although hestates that there may be some exceptions and that if there is any verb thatdoes not fall in any of these categories but was heard from Arabs who arearbiters on usage, then it will be part of the Arabic lexicon. He alsoemphasizes that what is heard from Arabs is prioritized on the rules or thecategories set3.

He says: "whenever a word is heard (from a an accepted source, likeBedouins) then it should be prioritized on analogy with the words we have(in the lexicon)."

" , ".

The material contained in this dictionary was organized according to the

3 I understand from this that Arabic lexicographers were trying todescribe the language and keep the categories open for the words that

Arabs use.


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first letter of the tri-consonantal lexical root, easier for the users than otherdictionaries that arrange words according to the first and last letter of theword, as in Al Qamus Al Muhit ( ).


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2)The Munjid

The Munjid dictionary is not recommended for those who have problems intheir eyes, or for senior people who cannot read its very tiny font and eye-straining style, (I am not sure if there are better editions than the one Iuse!)4. Nevertheless, being suitable to be hold and carried to school, work orthe university, is a recognizable plus for the dictionary, especially forstudents and "bookish" people who like to hold the dictionary and skimthrough it.

The dictionary's preface is, as it should be, very informative. The writermentions some background information about the basis of the work, and thehistory of the unabridged dictionary on which he depended.

He clearly states the purpose of his dictionary, saying that it is "aimed atthose students who encounter in their studies less than half of the wordsincluded in the original, and use less than quarter of the words therein. It ismy intent to help these students and provide them with a smaller, clearer,and user-friendly dictionary, by eliminating the obsolete lexical items andincluding neologisms and loan words".5

Also, the writer says that he kept a lot of literary words that could be foundin the classical literature and pre-Islamic poetry. On the other hand, hestates the descriptive approach he adopts and that he tried to includeneologisms that gained currency among users of Arabic.

The dictionary has an elaborated user-guide that comes in 22 pages. Theguide illustrates some of the abbreviations used in the dictionary. It also

provides easy-to-follow rules regarding the use of the dictionary anddealing with the lexicological matters. It also gives important grammaticalinformation, like words classes, gerund, and plural form in Arabic.

This, I think, is very important for the dictionary user, because these rulesare not easily retrieved, and one must read them more than one time, to

4 I have found the 10th edition of this dictionary. They should call areprint because there is no difference between the one I am using andthe new "edition".5 " , , ,

". , , ,


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better understand the lexicological nature of Arabic.


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Pronunciation and Grammar

A)The Indication of Pronunciation

Since Arabic spelling depends to a great extent on diacritics, and theInternational Phonetic Alphabet has not been in use at the time ofcompilation of these two dictionaries, there is no indication of the exact

pronunciation of the lexical items. This is not necessarily a shortcoming in

Arabic monolingual dictionaries, especially because Arabic spelling is farmore consistent and clearer than the English spelling.

But a clear emphasis is placed on giving the right diacritics, because anymistaken diacritic may distort the meaning and the lexicological pattern ofthe word.

There is clear difference between the two dictionaries regarding diacritics.While printing machines made it easier to write and compile dictionaries ina very efficient and times consuming manner, authors before this were very

concerned about being clear, so they, in addition to putting the diacritic,state the suitable diacritic in writing. So in Al Mukhtar one encounter a verylarge number of definitions that indicate the proper diacritics, and this isvery prudent of him. (Better safe than sorry!)

B)Grammatical information

A)Al Mukhtar

Al Razi provided a lot of grammatical information in his dictionary, andthis can be easily noted even through leafing throughout the dictionary. Itcould be considered a remarkable feature of Al Mukhtar; yet, grammaticalinformation was not based on a systematic plan or a study of the needs ofthe readers.

He could in certain circumstances remark on certain usages that areincorrect in standard Arabic, as in this example:


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: ) ) .

. , .

Some may argue that this is prescriptive, and I would agree with this if thehistorical records indicate that this word was commonly used by the publicat the time. If the public were using this word commonly in their speech, orwriters used in their writings, then Al Razi would have said something else,as in this example:

: ,

, and this is in order to describe the informal usage. At least, one wouldapologetically say, that Al Razi indicated the fact that that word is used in asub-dialect in Arabic, while he could have ignored it altogether, or said:"Never use this word", as some of the English dictionaries do in thedefinitions of obscene or racist words. Another example that could bear a

prescriptive interpretation the word () as follows:

: ....

This on the lexical level, and on the sentence level there is this example:

: ) ...........() (

But this is a common practice in all dictionaries that try to educated learnerson he proper and accepted usage of the languages, as the following examplefrom Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE) shows6:

6 This table was taken from the E-copy of the 4th

edition of LDOCE.


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When there are differences in grammar between two or more Arabicdialects, Al Razi would indicate this and give examples from the HolyQuran, Hadith, or poetry, as in this example:

, ) ) :

() () () ( )

: .

( ) )7) ) ( .

Certain grammatical articles were well discussed and plainly explained inthe Mukhtar by providing examples: such as this article:

:

7, , , . :

: . ,

( ) . , , :


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." " : ," " : ,." " : ( )

It is really worth noting here that there are a lot of what we can call here"one-letter-article" in Arabic morphology, like the letter (), which hasdifference uses, the letter ( ) () ,() ,( ) and (). These articles areexplained and elaborated at the beginning of each one in the dictionary. I'llgive here one example from more examples can be found in the Appendix.

)):: .

: . .... , :

. () .

: .

The last grammatical example was really well described and really usefuland it is really worthwhile to look at:

: , :.

: : .

B)The Munjid

There was, on the other hand, no clear emphasis on grammar in the body ofthis dictionary, except when defining certain adverbs and prepositions, e.g.

, :.

Notice that there are no illustrative examples, although learners are notfamiliar with such morphological rules, i.e. ( ).


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Nevertheless, the compiler of this dictionary could be clearer on otherinstances, as we can observe from the following example:

: . : . : .

- : 2

: : .3 -

By way of contrasting between the two previous examples we see the lackof consistency and the absence of a theory in this work. Another point that Ihave observed in the second example is the nature of the examples given.For instance: a sentence like ( ), is not appropriate in adictionary for learners8, and the point could have been done by usinganother verb. A lexicographer is an active cultural agent and he\she should

be conscious and attendant to such issues.

Good grammatical examples were observed in the beginning of eachsection, i.e. each alphabetical letter. This is because some letters havefunctions in Arabic Syntax and Morphology, such as the indefinite article inEnglish which has 16 functions in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary

English. Notice the following example: - :

:

-: ...( )

-( ) ()

- 9

.() () ( )

The lexicographer here doesn't mention a very important feature of thisarticle, which is the fact that it is one of the affixes in Arabic morphology10.

8 See the first paragraph, page 6 .9

()10


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On the other hand, this was mentioned in Al Mukhtar, and the function ofthe letter was explained in a more detailed manner.

.... ().

Seven functions of the letter (see the appendix), in contrast with only threefunction in Munjid. This is also a result of the lack of clear theory in thework of the Arabic Lexicographer, since there is no explanation for thedifference in the amount of information given for difference articles. Beingsuccinct and to the point in definitions and the grammatical illustrationsdoes not by any means imply that a lexicographer is allowed to cut vitalinformation and deprive the learner from having a complete understanding

of the language he is learning.

Illustrative ExamplesThis section discusses the frequency of illustrative examples in bothdictionaries. Examples include phrases, multi-word units idioms, and real-life examples. The last category, i.e. real-life or natural example, is notliterary natural, unless it is a quotation, as a verse from thr Quran or asentence in a Hadith. Otherwise, the examples are created by the author

because there is no corpus from which he can pick examples.

A)Al Mukhtar

A lot of examples were provided in this dictionary. A concentrated portionwas from Hadith, other sources of course are the Quran, poetry, and speechof the Arabs. Other examples, as I have noted above are written by thecompiler of the dictionary, since his work is not corpus-based.

The following table will illuminate part of the examples used in thedictionary:

Multi-word units Idioms Real-life examples or Quotations /

. :) :

( : .

) :11)

.... :

:


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.

: ,

- :

) (

: :()

) ) : " : :"

:

:

:2 ( :

( ) ( ) - " : , ."

:

) " : (

:

: : ( )

: :

". "

:

" " :

This table gives a "taste" of the sort of information found in Al Mukhar, andone can see how useful leafing through the pages of this dictionary is inenriching one's vocabulary and phrases in Arabic.

B)The Munjid

This dictionary is not very true to its name. Al Munjid means the guide, thehelper, the assistant, but it is really not. Illustrative examples were limitedin scope in Munjid dictionary, except at the beginning of some sections, likeletter (), where some examples were given to clarify the grammaticalfeatures of this preposition12.

11 This is an obvious example on how Al Razi gives background andcultural information that are important to understand the sense of theword.

12 See the section on grammatical information in this dictionary.


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-

: :

:

:

: :

:

:

Nevertheless, you can stumble upon some examples here and there, onlywhen you strain your eyes looking for an example or an idiom. The

following table contains some of these very few illustrative examples:

Example Category

Idiom Illustrative sentence

Idiom

" " Illustrative example (from the Quran)

( ) Idiom

( ) Illustrative sentence

( ) , Idiom

: idiom

Taboo wordsYou can never find a taboo word in Al Mukhtar, not a single word. Even

the sexual organs of men and women were not mentioned, even the


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euphemized words that allude to these parts of the body. The same is inMunjid dictionary where you cannot find a single taboo word nor the sexual

part in the human body. This is expected, since it is in the nature of Arabic

(both standard and conversational), to be euphemistic and avoid sexualexplicitness. iv


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Pictorial illustrationsAlthough the Munjid prides itself on being replete with pictorial examplesand illustrations, it has failed to serve the students properly. The overuse ofthis technique was sometimes counterproductive.

There are 100 full-page pictorial illustrations in this dictionary covering awide variety of topics such as human races, transportations, insects,aviation, animals, architecture, tools, and jewelry, just to mention a few.These pictures are not clear since they are black-and-white drawings, and

they usually lack proper order.

I am confident that there wasn't any clear theory that guides the selection ofthe pictures or the distribution thereof throughout the dictionary; hence theresults were not encouraging.

I have included some examples of these pictorial illustrations in theappendix.


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ConclusionIn one of the lectures in this course, a kind professor was invited to discusssome ideas about lexicography and to air his deep concerns about itv. He

began his lecture by two assumptions:

-We live by words, don't we?

-We need dictionaries. Who doesn't?!

Our Arabic monolingual lexica are "linguistic treasuries, with long and

colorful histories". If spending time with a monolingual dictionary ofanother language "will make you realize that speakers of other languagessee things differently, that their words shape, organize, and make sense ofthe world in unfamiliar ways."13, then naturally our experience with ournative and traditional lexicon will change a lot in our attitudes towardsourselves and others. It will shape our identities, usually unconsciously, andwill make one's national language a part and parcel of his ideological make-up.

Lexicography in the Arab world is not on the right track currently, and it

requires hard labor and sincere efforts to 'make its presence felt' amongother linguistic disciplines in our universities.

I would like to extend my thanks to professor Rajai al Khanji for hiscontinuous encouragement and patience throughout the semester.

13 This quotation is taken from "Loving Lexica", an article by Adam

Serfass.


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Endnotes:


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i For more information, see: Heywood A., John, Arabic Lexicography, 1965.ii Steiner, Roger, Lexicology and Lexicography (a course book), pp.10-11iii For more information about Arabic Lexicography schools see: ,:

,,,1984iv See Farghal, Muhammad, Euphemism in Arabic: A Gricean Interpretation, AnthropologicalLinguistics, 1995.

v He is Dr. Turki bin Khalid, professor of linguistics at the University of Jordan.

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Lexicography_A Comparative Study