Sibawayh
| Full name | Sibawayh |
|---|---|
| Born | ca. 760 |
| Died | ca. 796[1] |
| Era | Medieval era |
| Region | Muslim scholar |
| Main interests | Arabic language |
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Influenced
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Abū Bishr ʻAmr ibn ʻUthmān ibn Qanbar Al-Bishrī (Arabic: أبو بشر عمرو بن عثمان بن قنبر), commonly known as Sībawayh (Sibuyeh in Persian, سيبويه Sībawayh in Arabic, سیبویه), was an influential linguist and grammarian of the Arabic language. He was of Persian origin born ca. 760 in the town of Bayza (ancient Nesayak) in the Fars province of Iran.
He died in Shiraz, in Fars, around 180 AH (796–797).
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[edit] Debates
In Baghdad, the Abbasid vizier Yahya ibn Khalid held a debate on Bedouin Arabic usage between Sibawayh, representing the Basra school, and Kisa'i, the leading figure in the rival school of Kufa. Sibawayh emerged from this contest totally dejected.[3]
Sībawayh is said to have left Iraq and retired to Shīrāz after the debate.
[edit] Legacy
Sibawayh, a non-Arab, was the first to write on Arabic grammar and in passing the first one to explain Arabic grammar from a non-Arab perspective. Much of the impetus for this work came from the desire for non-Arab Muslims to understand the Qur'an properly and thoroughly; the Qur'an, which is composed in a poetic language that even native Arabic speakers must study with great care in order to comprehend thoroughly[citation needed], is even more difficult for those who, like Sibawayh[citation needed], did not grow up speaking Arabic. Furthermore he also constructed the first Arabic dictionary. Additionally, because Arabic does not necessarily mark all pronounced vowel sounds, as the erroneous Arab misreading Sibawayh of what obviously should be interpreted as Sibuyeh illustrates, it is possible to misread a text aloud (See Short vowels in Arabic); such difficulty was particularly troublesome for Muslims, who regard the Qur'an as the literal word of God to man and as such should never be mispronounced or misread.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Mit-Ejmes
- ^ a b c d e f Sībawayh, ʻAmr ibn ʻUthmān (1988), Hārūn, ʻAbd al-Salām Muḥammad, ed., Al-Kitāb Kitāb Sībawayh Abī Bishr ʻAmr ibn ʻUthmān ibn Qanbar, Introduction (3rd ed.), Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, pp. 7–12
- ^ Touati, Houari; Cochrane, Lydia G. (2010). Islam and Travel in the Middle Ages. University of Chicago Press. p. 51. ISBN 0226808777.
[edit] Bibliography
- de Sacy, Silvestre. Anthologie grammaticale arabe. Paris 1829.
- Derenbourg, H. (ed.) Le livre de Sibawaihi. 2 vols. Paris 1881-1889. [reprinted: New York: Hildesheim 1970].
- Jahn, Gustav. Sībawaihis Buch über die Grammatik übersetzt und erklärt. Berlin 1895-1900. [reprinted: Hildesheim 1969].
- Schaade, A. Sībawaihi’s Lautlehre. Leiden 1911.
- ʻAbd al-Salām Hārūn, M. (ed.) Kitāb Sibawayhi. 5 vols. Cairo 1966-1977.
- Owens, J. The Foundations of Grammar: An introduction to Medieval Arabic Grammatical Theory. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company 1988. ISBN 90-272-4528-2.
- Al-Nassir, A.A. Sibawayh the Phonologist.London and New York: Keegan Paul International 1993. ISBN 0-7103-0356-4.
- Edzard, L. "Sibawayhi's Observations on Assimilatory Processes and Re-Syllabification in the Light of Optimality Theory", in: Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, vol. 3 (2000), pp. 48–65. (PDF version - No longer available; HTML version; HTML Unicode version)
- Carter, M.G. Sibawayhi. London and New York: I.B. Tauris 2004. ISBN 1-85043-671-1.
[edit] External links
- Sibawayhi Project contains all significant printed editions of Chapters 1-7, 285-302, and 565-571 of the Kitāb, together with published translations into French and German.
- Sibawayh's Kitāb online in Arabic at al-eman.com.
- Download the Kitāb in scanned format from Internet Archive or Arabic Wikisource
