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Al-Qāmus al-Muḥīṭ

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Al-Qāmus al-Muḥīṭ
Manuscript of the book displayed in the Islamic Calligraphy Museum of Tlemcen.
AuthorFiruzabadi
Original titleالقاموس المحيط، والقابوس الوسيط، الجامع لما ذهب من كلام العرب شماطيط
LanguageArabic
SubjectArabic language, Lexicography
GenreDictionary
Published14th century
Publication placePersia
Media typePrint (original), Digital (modern)

Al-Qāmus al-Muḥīṭ (Arabic: القاموس المحيط, lit.'The Encompassing Ōkeanós') is an Arabic dictionary compiled by the lexicographer and linguist, Abū al-Ṭāhir Majīd al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ya’qūb ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Shīrāzī al-Fīrūzābādī (1329–1414), commonly known as Firuzabadi.[1][2][3]

Description

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Al-Firuzabadi originally intended to produce the largest dictionary, recording the complete language in sixty volumes. However, he ended up writing only two volumes, which nonetheless included a respectable sixty thousand entries. By being incredibly frugal with his definitions and adding a number of abbreviations to his dictionary, such as m (for ma'ruf, "known") to denote words of common usage that required no additional lexicographical description or j (for jam, "plural"), he was able to fit all these entries into such a small space. Modern Arabic dictionaries still use some of these abbreviations. The Qamus became a very popular dictionary for private use, to the point where the Arabic word for "Qamus" which means "Ocean" has become the current word for "dictionary".[4]

Extension

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The giant lexicon, Taj al-ʿArus Min Jawahir al-Qamus by Murtada al-Zabidi authored this work as an extension. He completed, revised, and expanded the authoritative Arabic dictionary al-Qamus al-Muhit, in order to compile an Arabic lexicon of such scope and comprehensiveness.[5]

Digital conversion

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In recent years, efforts have been made to convert Al-Qāmus al-Muḥīṭ into digital formats, such as the Lexical Markup Framework (LMF), to make it more accessible to modern researchers and scholars.[6]

References

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  1. ^ "al-Qamus al-muhit | WorldCat.org". search.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2024-09-14.
  2. ^ Firuzabadi, Muhammad ibn Ya'qub (1987). "Al-Qamus al-muhit".
  3. ^ "Al Qamus al Muhit, a Medieval Arabic Lexicon in LMF". May 2016. S2CID 32045912.
  4. ^ Kees Versteegh (February 2013). Landmarks in Linguistic Thought Volume III - The Arabic Linguistic Tradition. Taylor & Francis. p. 33. ISBN 9781134727827.
  5. ^ Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadwi (30 April 2019). Muslims in India. Claritas Books. p. 40. ISBN 9781905837533.
  6. ^ https://aclanthology.org/L16-1150.pdf