Titel Critical Examination of some Arabic-German and Arabic-English Dictionaries Inaugural ...

227 Pages·2007·3.28 MB·English

Titel

Critical Examination of some Arabic-German and Arabic-English
Dictionaries

Inaugural-Dissertation

in der Philosophischen Fakultät II
(Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften)
der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg

vorgelegt von
Ahmed Jneid
aus
Aleppo/ Syrien

D29
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 6.11.2007
Dekanin: Universitätsprofessor Dr. Mechthild Habermann
Erstgutachter: Universitätsprofessor Dr. Franz Josef Hausmann
Zweitgutachter: Universitätsprofessor Dr. Wolfdietrich Fischer
Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................1
1 Terminology.......................................................................................................3
1.1 Macrostructure and microstructure........................................................................3
1.2 Active and passive bilingual dictionaries..............................................................3
1.3 Language pair........................................................................................................4
1.3.1 Word structure and parts of speech...............................................................7
2 Arabic- German lexicography.........................................................................9
2.1 Hans Wehr dictionary............................................................................................9
2.1.1 Editions..........................................................................................................9
2.1.2 Corpus..........................................................................................................11
2.1.3 Macrostructure.............................................................................................12
2.1.3.1 Problems of the root system....................................................................14
2.1.3.2 Range of vocabulary................................................................................17
2.1.4 Microstructure.............................................................................................19
2.1.4.1 Meaning discrimination...........................................................................20
2.1.4.2 Phonetic system.......................................................................................22
2.1.4.3 Grammatical information........................................................................23
2.1.5 Phraseology.................................................................................................24
2.1.5.1 Genitive combinations.............................................................................24
2.1.5.1.1 Range of genitive combinations..........................................................25
2.1.5.1.2 The arrangement and representation of genitive combinations...........25
2.1.5.2 Collocations.............................................................................................26
2.1.5.2.1 Verb-noun collocations.......................................................................26
2.1.5.2.2 Adjective-noun collocations................................................................29
2.1.5.2.3 Noun-adjective collocations................................................................29
2.1.5.3 Idioms......................................................................................................30
2.1.6 Conclusion...................................................................................................30
2.2 Langenscheidt Handwörterbuch..........................................................................32
2.2.1 Editions........................................................................................................32
2.2.2 Corpus..........................................................................................................33
2.2.3 Macrostructure.............................................................................................33
2.2.3.1 Advantages of the macrostructural arrangement.....................................34
2.2.3.2 Disadvantages of the macrostructural arrangement................................35
2.2.3.2.1 Disadvantages of the alphabetic arrangement.....................................35
2.2.3.2.2 Disadvantages of the root system........................................................36
2.2.3.3 Range of vocabulary................................................................................41
2.2.4 Microstructure.............................................................................................45
2.2.4.1 Microstructural similarities.....................................................................45
2.2.4.2 Microstructural differences......................................................................48
2.2.5 Lexicographic presentation of equivalents..................................................51
2.2.5.1 Ways of specifying equivalents...............................................................53
2.2.5.2 Usage labels.............................................................................................56
2.2.6 Pronunciation, orthography, grammar and morphology.............................57
2.2.6.1 Pronunciation and orthography...............................................................57
2.2.6.2 Morphology and grammar.......................................................................58
2.2.6.2.1 Morphological and grammar information...........................................58
2.2.6.2.2 Syntactic information..........................................................................59
2.2.6.2.3 Grammatical model.............................................................................60
2.2.6.2.4 Presentation of the information...........................................................61
2.2.7 Phraseology.................................................................................................62
2.2.7.1 Genitive combinations.............................................................................62
2.2.7.2 Collocations.............................................................................................65
2.2.7.2.1 Verb-noun collocations.......................................................................65
2.2.7.2.2 Adjective-noun collocations................................................................68
2.2.7.2.3 Noun-adjective collocations................................................................69
2.2.7.3 Idioms......................................................................................................70
2.2.7.3.1 Presentation of idioms.........................................................................70
2.2.7.3.2 Arrangement and range of idioms.......................................................71
2.2.8 Conclusion...................................................................................................72
3 Arabic-English lexicography..........................................................................74
3.1 Al-Mawrid: Arabic-English dictionary...............................................................74
3.1.1 Editions........................................................................................................74
3.1.2 Corpus..........................................................................................................74
3.1.3 Macrostructure.............................................................................................75
3.1.3.1 Range of vocabulary................................................................................75
3.1.4 Microstructure.............................................................................................77
3.1.5 Meaning discrimination...............................................................................79
3.1.6 Pronunciation, grammar and morphology...................................................80
3.1.6.1 Pronunciation...........................................................................................80
3.1.6.2 Morphological and grammar information...............................................80
3.1.6.3 Syntactic information..............................................................................81
3.1.7 Phraseology.................................................................................................82
3.1.7.1 Genitive combinations.............................................................................82
3.1.7.2 Collocations.............................................................................................83
3.1.7.2.1 Verb-noun collocations.......................................................................83
3.1.7.2.1.1 Range of verb-noun collocations................................................83
3.1.7.2.1.2 Arrangement of verb-noun collocations.....................................86
3.1.7.2.2 Adjective-noun collocations................................................................87
3.1.7.2.3 Noun-adjective collocations................................................................88
3.1.7.3 Idioms......................................................................................................88
3.1.8 Conclusion...................................................................................................90
4 Résumé.............................................................................................................92
5 Annex................................................................................................................95
5.1 Plural information in the HW and the LS............................................................95
5.2 Cross-reference system in the LS......................................................................175
Bibliography:........................................................................................................218
Introduction
Lexicography was an important and very highly esteemed branch of Arabic Scholarship in
the medieval Period. The main impulses for it have come from poetry and religion, both of
which played a large part in the cultural life of the Arabs. The latter was, however, the
decisive factor behind the compilation of dictionaries in the languages of other Islamic
peoples such as Persian and Turkish. For example, some works were primarily compiled
and designed to explain Arabic words used in those languages. The compilation of the first
bilingual Arabic Persian dictionary by al-Zama‰šari was to help non-Arab Muslims to
understand the Koran.1
The first confrontation between the Islamic world and Europe came after the Islamic
conquests in the 7th century. This brought the Islamic religion and Arabic language to the
attention of the world and made it part of the European experience. After the conquest of
the Iberian Peninsula (711 AD), the Arabs brought a lot of Greek medical and
philosophical writings with them which were unknown in the West. In this way, Europe
got in touch with a part of its heritage that it had lost in the fall of the Roman Empire. After
the fall of Toledo in 1085 AD these writings began to circulate in Latin translations of the
Arabic versions. These translations were carried out by a small group of translators, often
Jews. The turning point was when people in Islamic Spain started to show an interest in
learning Arabic. They needed Arabic in order to understand both the Islamic holy book and
the precious Greek writings. The first bilingual glossaries of the language: the Glossarium
latino-arabicum (12th century) and the Vocabulista in arabicum (13th century) appeared in this
environment. Later on, the interest in the study of Arabic was promoted by two factors:
namely the use of Arabic for polemical purpose, and its use for the study of the Hebrew
Bible. However, there have been scholars whose interest was primarily philological or
historical such as the Dutch scholar Erpenius (1584-1624). The latter’s successor in the
Chair of Arabic at the university of Leiden was Golius (1596-1667) who made the first real
dictionary of Arabic in the West (Lexicon Arabico-Latinum).2 Other figures contributed to
bilingual lexicography with Arabic such as Edward Castel (1608-1685), Georg Wilhelm
Freytag (1788-1861) and Edward Lane (1801- 1876).
The aim of this research is to give an overview of some bilingual dictionaries of Arabic-
German and Arabic-English. What kind of dictionaries are they and what are their

1 John A. Haywood (1960) Arabic Lexicography: Its History, and its place in the general History of
Lexicography (Leiden: E. J. Brill), p.116.
2 Kees Versteegh (1997) The Arabic Language (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press), p.5.
distinctive features? What are the types of user situations connected with these
dictionaries? What is the dictionary’s target user group, his needs and competence? What
are the arrangement patterns in these dictionaries or how is the material distributed in the
macro and microstructure? What are the problems in these dictionaries and how could they
be improved? Did the compilers establish relevant text corpora?
However, there are some restrictions to the scope of this research which are necessary so
that it will remain manageable. First, the emphasis will be on general bilingual dictionaries
widely used at departments of oriental studies at universities or higher institutions of
education. Second, specialized and multilingual dictionaries will be excluded from this
work. Third, it is not the aim of this work to examine the history of Arabic bilingual
dictionaries. That is to say that this research is not to be seen as a historical study tracking
every dictionary in these two pairs of languages. The focus will be on the present situation
of this bilingual dictionary in its basics. The main source of information about these
dictionaries is the dictionaries themselves i.e. the front, middle and back matter. The
lexicographers usually provide information in the introduction about their concepts and the
arrangement of the dictionary. They talk about the resources for the vocabulary, about the
criteria for the selection of the lemmata, and about the linguistic assumptions they make.
Moreover, the lexicographers do tell about the conditions and objectives of their
lexicographic works as well as the course of work.

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1 Terminology
To avoid any misunderstanding and to give clarity and unity to the work, there is a need to
define some terms in a way which will serve the purpose of this work.
1.1 Macrostructure and microstructure
These are the basic terms used for the structure of information in dictionaries. This will
enable us to study and analyse and discover their distinctive features.
The macrostructure of a dictionary is the “ordered set of all lemmata.”3 The term ‘lemma’
will be used throughout the work because it implies no assumptions about content or
lexicological status. Moreover, the term ‘paradigm’ will be used in some cases to refer to
the lemma of entries containing different verb forms.
Microstructure is “an order structure made up of classes of items which have the same
function.”4 It is a way of showing how various information categories are arranged within
entries so that the user will be able to find the information in a systematic way. It provides
detailed information about the lemma, with comments on its formal and semantic
properties such as equivalents, spelling, pronunciation, grammar, orthography, and
information about phraseology. Dictionaries vary in the amount of information they
provide, and in the presentation of this information in the entry. Users need to have
sufficient reference skills to follow the intricacies of the microstructure. Moreover, they
may need explicit guidance and instruction to find and extract the required information.
1.2 Active and passive bilingual dictionaries
The active passive typology is the most important issue in the making of bilingual
dictionaries. The Russian linguist Ščerba was the first to draw the attention to the necessity
of user oriented typology though he did not use the terms passive and active dictionaries.
One of Ščerba’s six contrasts is the contrast between a defining dictionary (e.g. a
monolingual dictionary) and a translation dictionary (such as a bilingual or multi-lingual
dictionary).5 The distinction is between those dictionaries which explain foreign words and
those which help one to translate something into a foreign language. In other words, the

3 Franz Josef Hausmann/ H. E. Wiegand (1989) “Components Parts and Structures of General Monolingual
Dictionaries: A survey,“ in: Wörterbücher. Dictionaries. Dictionnaires. Ein internationales Handbuch zur
Lexikographie, ed. Hausmann et al. p.328.
4 Ibid., p.344.
5 Werner Wolski, (ed.) (1982) Aspekte der sowjetrussischen Lexikographie: Übersetzungen, Abstracts,
Bibliographie Angaben. Tübingen.
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distinction is between dictionaries designed for text reception (decoding) and those
designed for text production (encoding).
This active-passive principle has a considerable influence on the macro- and
microstructure of the dictionary as well as on the metalanguage of the dictionary. The
dictionary’s function, i.e. monofunctional or bifunctional influences the selection of the
lexicon in the dictionary, the shape of the entry, the division of distinct senses of a word or
phrase, the choice of the language of the glosses and the amount of information to be given
to make up for the loss of meaning resulting from the differences between languages and
the question of equivalency. For example, an Arabic German dictionary designed for the
native speakers of one of those two languages should look different from that designed for
the native speakers of the other language. A passive Arabic German dictionary for German
users should provide maximum of grammatical and phonetic information on the Arabic
foreign side and less on the native equivalent side. An active Arabic German dictionary for
Arabs should give more information on the German foreign side and less on the Arabic
native side. Moreover, a passive dictionary, unlike an active one, can dispense with
grammatical and idiosyncratic constructions insofar as they are transparent to the target-
language users. However, in a bifunctional active-passive dictionary there should be a
priority for the demand on the active dictionary over those of passive dictionary.6
1.3 Language pair
The making of bilingual dictionaries depends to a great extent on the language pair. Are
these languages culturally different or do they have a common origin? What is the
direction of the translation? Are there any special problems related to one of the two
languages?
Contrary to German and English which are Indo-European, Arabic is one of the Semitic
languages spoken in many countries from the Middle East to Morocco. Many of the
problems peculiar to Arabic lexicography have their roots in the tangled socio-linguistic
phenomena of the well known diglossia between classical Arabic usually called fuœ‡Þ and
the vernacular, usually called ‘Þmmáya. These two varieties divide among themselves the
domains of speaking and writing. The standard language which people learn when they go
to school is used for written speech and for formal spoken speech and it is almost uniform

6 Hans P. Kromann et al. (1991) “Grammatical Constructions in the Bilingual Dictionary,” in: Hausmann et
al. (eds) Wörterbücher. Dictionaries. Dictionnaires. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Lexikographie, p.
2772.
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throughout the Arab world. The spoken form or the colloquial language includes numerous
spoken dialects, some of which are mutually unintelligible. This diglossia has several
immediate consequences for the author of an Arabic dictionary.
Firstly, the lexicographer has to make up his/her mind whether to make a dictionary for the
written form or the spoken form of Arabic. If the lexicographer chooses the spoken form,
the question is which dialect will be dealt with or concentrated on.
Secondly, it is usually argued that the Arabic lexicon is less standardized than other
European languages. This assumption should be relativized, especially if we consider the
richness of the language, which many Arab writers like to take advantage of. Moreover, it
could be seen that in the last two decades a kind of normalized journalistic style has
evolved for reporting of news or discussing matters of political and topical interests in the
mass media. This uniform style reaches large sections of the population in the Arab world
on a daily basis.
Thirdly, many authors like to use archaic words, quotations from the Koran and from
classical literature to achieve an aesthetic or rhetoric effect, although these no longer form
part of the living lexicon. This could pose a problem for the reader who may encounter
them in the middle of a newspaper article as well as for the lexicographer who will not be
able to distinguish between the living and obsolete usage. However, it could be said that
this is going out of fashion and there is a trend in more recent literature towards a more
uniform and readably style.
Fourthly, many orientalists dealing with Arabic complain about the absence of good
monolingual dictionaries in Arabic, or at least ones which are as good as those of European
languages. This criticism could be questioned because a bilingual dictionary should not be
based upon a monolingual one. Moreover, it could be said that this criticism is more or less
unjustified because Arabic lexicography has produced a huge number of classical
dictionaries and glossaries such as al-Mu‡áó by Ibn ‘AbbÞd, aœ-Ïi‡Þ‡ by al-Àawhará, al-
‘UbÞb by as-Si‚‚Þni, LisÞn al-‘arab by Ibn Man÷ãr, al- QÞmãs al-Mu‡áó by al-FairãzabÞdá
and TÞ‚ al-‘Arãs by al-MurtaæÞ z-Zabádá.
Although these classical dictionaries suffer from a number of problems, they could be still
considered as a huge reservoir of classical Arabic lexicon. In addition to classical
dictionaries, there are many dictionaries of modern standard Arabic which depend heavily
on the Arabic lexicographical tradition. For example, Buórus al-BustÞná compiled his Mu‡áó
al-Mu‡áó in the nineteenth century in Lebanon, and it is still available in modern printings
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