آثار لغة أهل البصرة في المعاجم العربية (دراسة لغوية في كتب ومعاجم العرب)

Abstract

praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and prayers and peace be upon the most honorable of Messengers, the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him… And after:

With the desire that readers of Arabic may know and recognize that what our scholars have compiled in the arts of the Arabic language is among the best works produced, this study addresses a linguistic source that is considered one of the most prominent resources from which the Arabic language derives. It presents a scholarly comparison of the language of Basra and its influence on books of language and Arabic dictionaries in light of advanced linguistic studies based on transmitted usage (oral tradition) and recorded material. The sources are the books of the Arabic language and dictionaries.

This study focuses, in its various sections, on the levels of language (morphology, phonology, syntax, and semantics). Through this, it presents the sources of this language during the stages of Arabic dictionary compilation and what has been reported from the language of the people of Basra and their scholars in morphology, syntax, semantics, as well as phonology in the collection of the language from them.

Basra had the merit in establishing the science of grammar in early times, and this is what the early Arab scholars agreed upon, in addition to the schools of Kufa and Baghdad. In Basra, grammar originated, and to it are attributed two of the greatest imams of grammar, both a source of pride: Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad and Sibawayh (d. 180 AH). Ibn Salam (d. 232 AH) said: “The people of Basra hold the highest position in Arabic, with great care for grammar, the languages of the Arabs, and rare vocabulary.”

Ibn al-Nadim (d. 385 AH) also stated: “We gave precedence to the Basrans first because the scholars of Arabic learned from them, and because Basra is older than Kufa.” Thus, the Basrans are credited with establishing linguistic phenomena with complete rationality and precise logic. They subjected most Arab speech to rules, restricted it with conditions, and cast it into logical frameworks. Anything that deviated from this or contradicted it was considered irregular, removed from the circle of analogy, and excluded from linguistic evidence. They were also known for their great carefulness and foresight, especially in the field of causation (ta‘līl), which comes as a companion and complement to induction. They did not establish general grammatical rules except on what was frequent and widely attested in Arab speech.