Chapter 3 Monolingual Dictionaries II Arabic Dictionaries

Introduction : What is monolingual Arabic dictionaries? What are the different kinds of information that Arabic monolingual dictionaries provide?

Chapter 3 This chapter is concerned with Arabic monolingual dictionaries. It explains how they differ from English dictionaries and how translators can make use of them.

Arabs started compiling dictionaries in the 8th century, centuries before westerners started compiling theirs. Traditional dictionaries are basically linguistic ones but most of them are also encyclopedic because they add a lot of nonlinguistic information. In this chapter, we are going to describe these dictionaries in terms of the features presented in the previous chapter.

I) the macrostructure: 1) Front matter: Arabic dictionaries differ in many respects on their macrostructure. The front matter may contain different and unexpected material depending on the interests of the compiler. Besides telling us about the method of compiling the dictionary. This part of the dictionary may contain an essay about the Qur'anic cryptic letters (with which some qur'anic suras begin, e.g. ( الم, عسق, كهيعص ), Or an essay about the mysterious powers of sounds, and how effective they are in curing some diseases or in changing people’s moods and lives.

But most often the front matter in these dictionaries do not offer the kind of information expected by modern readers such as guides to pronunciation, or how to use the dictionary or how to locate a specific type of information.

What is the original purpose of compiling these dictionaries? The original purpose of compiling these dictionaries, which is to preserve the language and protect its purity.

But modern Arabic dictionaries follow modern standards by providing pronunciation guides, lists of abbreviations, symbols, and labels used to indicate usage, grammatical categories, or any other kind of information. The ( ج ) for instance, stands for جمع (plural form), ( مع )for معرب (Arabized borrowed word), ( مو ) for مولد ) ), ( مج )for a word that has been approved by ) مجمع اللغة العربية the Academy of the Arabic Language).

Back matter: Arabic dictionaries may contain a back matter which includes a list of the quotations cited inside the dictionary or the names of persons or places referred to.

3) Alphabetization: Traditional dictionaries followed three systems: 1) The anagrammatical system ( النظام الصوتي أو المخرجي أوالتقليبات ) which was initiated by الخليل بن أحمد الفراهيدي It is a mathematical system devised for the purpose of making sure to include all the possible words in Arabic. The roots of the words are classified into : biliteral, triliteral, quadriliteral, and quinquiliteral.

The biliteral word can produce 2 transformations, e.g. ( دق - قد )and no more. The triliteral has 6 transformations because it has 3 letters multiplied by 2 which is the number of the transformations of the bilateral root, e.g ( عجم - عمج - معج - مجع - جعم - جمع )The quadriliteral has 24 transformations.

2) The rhyme system (( منهج القافية where words are arranged according to their last consonants. 3) The root system ( المنهج الهجائي التجريدي ) where words are arranged according to their roots and all the derivative forms are listed under one root. The roots are arranged alphabetically. Modern Arabic dictionaries follow the root system since it is more practical and easier to use. Most traditional dictionaries have been rearranged using this system.

4) Guide words: Arabic dictionaries do not use guide words.

II) The microstructure: 1) Entry: consists of a headword and all the information provided about this word. 2) Sub-entry: is a word or a phrase derived from the main entry and included within the main entry. Arabic dictionaries treat most derived words as sub-entries under one main entry because they follow the root system.

3) Headwords: Headwords: may be divided into 4 types: 1. the radical roots of nouns which can be subclassified into:: a) trilateral ( ثلاثي )like (( عنب b) quadrilateral ( رباعي ) like (( جندب c) quinquilateral ( خماسي )like (( سفرجل 2. the radical roots of verbs which can be subclassified into: a. trilateral, like (( أخذ b. quadrilateral, like ( دحرج )Further verbal roots can be derived from these two roots but they are not treated as separate entries. Rather they are discussed under these two basic roots such as ( تدحرج ) 3. bilateral roots exemplified by particles such as ( قد ) 4. Some commonly used foreign or borrowed words, such as( أندرورد )

One difficulty that may encounter the user when looking up a word is that you have to predict the root of the word searched for. Sometimes this task is not easy. For example, it is not easy to tell whether a word like أريحية can be found under راح or روح or ريح or does not have a root and therefore can be found in an independent entry. Another example is زنجبيل Can it be found under زجل or زاجل or زونزوى, زونكل ? زوجل, and many others are examples of words the roots of which are hard to predict. Another problem with ancient dictionaries is that they do not include modern words. They include the words of the Arabic spoken at the time of writing these dictionaries. Therefore, you cannot find words like هاتف and عولمة in them.

Exercises: Can you tell which of these two dictionaries is modern? How? Give two reasons.

4. Orthographic information. Orthographic information: Variant spellings of some words are pointed out if they happen to be spelled differently.

5. Morphological information. Morphological information: This kind of information includes four aspects in Arabic dictionaries: word root, morphological paradigm or pattern (( الوزن الصرفي word inflections, and derivational forms. Usually the entry begin with root and under each root, the lexicographer includes all its possible derivations:

A word’s homographs (words that look the same but pronounced differently) are also included. Information pertaining to the word inflections is also included. The dictionary may tell you how a word is made plural or feminine. The morphological pattern is also sometimes stated as an aid showing the reader how to pronounce the word.

Exercises: 1) What is the plural form of the noun سطر 2) What is the singular form of أساطير 3) What is the morphological pattern of: أساطير 4) What is the present form of سيطر 5) What is the root of أسطورة – سيطر - تسيطر 6) What derivative forms can be extracted from سطر ?

6. Phonological information. This kind of information includes any means of guiding the user to the right pronunciation of the word. this may be through vowelization (using special diacritic marks) such as السطر or stating explicitly how a word is pronounced like جعل : الجعالة : يروى بكسر الجيم وضمها. الجعلة بالفتح... و الجعالة بالكسر...

7) Syntactic information: Sometimes he mentions what part of speech a word is, or how it functions in a sentence:

8) Etymological information: Sometimes the origin of the word is pointed out if it is borrowed from another language.

9) Semantic information Semantic information relates to the following aspects: a) Meaning: one or many senses or definitions are provided for any word, but unlike English dictionaries, they are not numbered. b) Synonyms and antonyms. Word synonyms or antonyms are presented to help clarify its meanings. c) Collocations, idioms, and expressions: Arabic dictionaries indicate the words which collocate with the headword, or the idioms or expressions in which the headword appears.

10) Pragmatic information A lot of information is given about how a word or an expression is used and whether it is current, rare, obsolete, or anomalous.

11) Helping aids: Helping aids: includes the following: a) Examples: Arabic dictionaries abound with illustrative examples taken from different sources: qur'anic verses, prophetic hadiths, poetry, and everyday Arabic. One entry can include tens of examples along with their explanations. By these examples, three types of context are provided: i. the linguistic context when he mentions a verse, a prophetic tradition or a line of poetry that contains the entry word. ii. the social context such as:

iii. the causal context such as:

b) Illustrations and Graphics. This type is lacking in both ancient and modern dictionaries. c) Cross-reference: A lot of repetition is observed in ancient dictionaries because they do not use cross reference techniques.

12) Encyclopedic information: So much encyclopedic information is provided in many ancient dictionaries: historical events, stories, biographical names, geographical names, measures, and so on. But modern dictionaries tend to stick to linguistic information only.

The types of Arabic dictionaries: Linguistic dictionaries معاجم الألفاظ (1) General dictionaries: (2) Specialized dictionaries a) Semantic relations dictionaries (( معاجم المعاني b) Dictionaries of idioms and collocations: c) Dictionaries of loan words and neologisms ( معاجم المولد والدخيل ) d) Dictionaries of terminology:

e) Dictionaries of common mistakes:

Translators and Arabic dictionaries: A translator may need an Arabic dictionary to know the current as well as the older meaning(s) of a word. But the problem is that almost all dictionaries attach more importance to the older meanings. For instance, as Dr. Inani says, if you look up a word like رضخ you'll never find the modern meaning of خضع in any old dictionary; but you will easily find the meanings of ( شمق - الشمقمق - اشمعل )because of the line of verse (( شمق - الشمقمق - اشمعل

A translator may need to check whether a word exists in the language or not or has the right form. Here it is recommended to consult dictionaries of common errors in the Arabic language. A translator would definitely need to consult an Arabic dictionary when translating any old Arabic text that belongs to ancient eras like poetry or when translating religious texts. An example of this is the following prophetic Hadith:

In this Hadith, two words would most probably bewilder any translator, like what you can see in the four translations provided. عتل and جواظ are problematic because they are no longer used in modern Arabic. Here, traditional Arabic dictionaries may help in deciding the meanings of these words.

Exercises: 1) Examine the entries in Dictionary 2 then state what kind of information you can elicit from the following statements: [give the general terms and the specific ones]

2) Translate the following sentences: وجدوا ماء زعاقا تزوجت رجلا كوثرا 3) What is the relationship between the two words سملّع and هملّع ? 4) What part of speech is the word اسْمَهرّ ? 5) Give three derivative forms from the root سمهر. 6) Which one of the following translations is considered the best translation for بلد سمهدر : a far country, a wide country, or a flat country

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