Arabic Sources of Isaac Ben Barun's Book of Comparisons between the Hebrew and Arabic Languages.

• Author: Kaye, Alan S.
• Position: Book review

Arabic Sources of Isaac Ben Barun's Book of Comparisons between the Hebrew and Arabic Languages. By DAN BECKER. Hebrew Language and Related Subjects, vol. 12. Tel Aviv: CHAIM ROSENBERG SCHOOL FOR JEWISH STUDIES, TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY, 2005. Pp. viii + 227. (Hebrew). $35.

This work, edited by Aron Dotan, is a most welcome addition to the scholarly literature on medieval Hebrew and Arabic grammarians. First of all, it should be noted that the author is no stranger to this field, having published Arabic Sources of Rabbi Jonah Ibn Janah's Grammar (1998; in Hebrew; Rabbi Jonah's full Arabic name is 'Abu al-Walid Marwan Ibn Janah), which clearly revealed the many Arabic sources used by that well-known grammarian, especially the Kitab al-luma'i fi nnahw (The Book of the Brilliancies in Grammar) by Ibn Jinni. As the author explains in the English preface: "It so happened that while searching for the Arabic sources of the definition of 'apposition' in Kitab al-luma', I found that the definition was clearly copied from Al-Zajjaji's Al-Jumal ..." (p. 5). Becker goes on to suggest that the main source of the grammatical comparisons in Ibn Barun's Kitab almuwazanati bayna Ilu[gamma]ati l'ibraniyyati wal'arabiyya (The Book of Comparison between the Hebrew and Arabic Languages) was Al-Zubaydi's Muxtasar al-'ayn, a study of the famous dictionary by Al-Khalil Ibn 'Ahmad (Sibawayhi's teacher), the Kitab al-'ayn (The Book of [the Letter] 'ayn).

Little is known about the life of the Spanish Jew whose full name is 'Abu 'Ibrahim 'Ishaq Ibn Barun (10th-11th century; the dates of his birth and death are unknown) other than that he was young when he wrote his magnum opus (he probably authored other treatises, but none has survived). Pinchas Wechter (1900-1952), who wrote a detailed study of the Kitab al-muwazana accompanied by an English translation (Ibn Barun's Arabic Works on Hebrew Grammar and Lexicography [Philadelphia, 1964]), notes that the "influence exerted by the Book of Comparison upon Ibn Barun's successors was by no means commensurate with its scientific worth and usefulness" (p. 15). It should be noted, however, that his work demonstrates that comparative linguistics is many centuries older than the alleged beginning--the famous 1786 pronouncement about the similarity among Greek, Latin, Persian, and Sanskrit by Sir William Jones to the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal.

Manuscripts of Ibn Barun's Kitab al-muwazana were first discovered by the Russian...