Vidro, N; (2014) ‘How medieval Jews studied Classical Arabic grammar: a Kufan primer from the Cairo Genizah’. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam , 41 pp. 173-244.

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Abstract

Medieval Jews in Islamic lands spoke and wrote Arabic. Immersed in the Muslim culture, they appropriated knowledge in many areas that was developed by Muslim scholars on the basis of Greek knowledge. But did Jews have an interest in Arabic linguistics, the discipline devoted to the very language that they spoke and wrote? Although Jewish grammarians were clearly familiar with works on Arabic grammar and borrowed concepts, terminology and entire book passages from Muslim linguists, knowledge of Arabic grammatical theory does not seem to have been widespread among Jewish intellectuals. Indeed, in the introduction to his main work Kitāb al-lumaʿ (first half of the 11th century), the preeminent Hebrew grammarian, Yona Ibn Janāḥ complained that Jews “conversant and skilled” in Arabic grammar were few. Moreover, book lists discovered in the Cairo Genizah mention Muslim books in many disciplines, such as medicine, philosophy and sciences; as well as belles-lettres, and pietistic Muslim literature, but do not include grammatical works that can be clearly identified as grammars of Arabic. To this day, very few Judaeo-Arabic grammars of Classical Arabic have been identified, and only one has been published.

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