A Greek and Arabic Lexicon (GALex). Materials for a Dictionary of the Medieval Translations from Greek into Arabic. Fascicle 9

The GALex project is a major one, the first fascicle of which appeared in 1992. That twenty years later only nine fascicles have been published may seem surprising, especially in an era of computers. But it has to be stressed that this is an analytical lexicon giving minute attention to the semantic, morphological and syntactical distinctions of every word. Hence it does more than list simple word correspondences as would a computer database, or parallel passages, as is the case in Manfred Ullmann’s Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts. Not that this latter is without value—on the contrary, it clearly has its merits and is used in the elaboration of the GALex. But it does not permit the treatment of complex issues related inter alia to the fact that the complexity and sophistication of the language in Greek rest for the most part on its morphology and wealth of ‘service’ vocabulary (both of which are immediately visible), whereas in classical Arabic they depend much more on syntax and style and on the extremely variegated use of a very limited number of particles (which are rather hidden virtues). This has been rightly stressed by Dimitri Gutas and well illustrated in two recent publications, i.e., ‘Arabic Particles and Graeco–Arabic Translations: On the Use of GALex I’ in A. Akasoy and W. Raven (eds.), Islamic Thought in the Middle Ages: Studies in Text, Transmission and Translation in Honour of Hans Daiber (IPTS 75), Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2008, 557–63; and ‘Some Morphological Functions of Arabic bi-. On the Use of GALex II’ in B. Gruendler, with the assistance of M. Cooperson (ed.), Classical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms. Festschrift for Wolfhart Heinrichs on His 65th Birthday Presented by His Students and Colleagues. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2008, 62–7. A quick look at the very first term of the present fascicle, i.e. badanun straightaway reveals not only the great variety of Greek words it translates, but also the careful way in which different cases are distinguished by the authors and explained, mainly on semantic grounds, but not without further precisions such as ‘amplification’ or ‘synecdoche’. Significantly, three cases are distinguished with respect to its translating of the Greek adjective somatikos: absolutely as genitive complement (l-badani); by use of the preposition li- (li-l-badani)—which clearly has here a morphological value; and in a semantic sense by an etymologically inspired expression (mansūbun ilā l-badani). To distinguish correctly all the involved cases clearly requires detailed analysis of all or at least many passages in which a given term occurs. One can only admire the great care with which this work is actually done in the present project, which takes into account as many translations as possible. The corpus consulted always extends, and also this time an additional list of sources is added. But given the complexity of the work, the presence of a few mistakes, or at least questionable cases, is almost normal. With due prudence (I have not the expertise of the authors), I present the following list

Ancient Greek · Arabic · Archaeology · Lexicon · Linguistics · Sphinx · Style (visual arts) · Syntax · Vocabulary · Classics · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Philosophy