al-Madkhal ila Taqwim al-Lisan
- Author died
- 577 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Bashā'ir al-Islāmiyyah lil-Ṭibā‘ah wal-Nashr wal-Tawzī‘
al-Madkhal ila Taqwim al-Lisan (The Introduction to Correcting Speech) is a work on linguistic correction and common speech errors (lahn al-amma) by the Andalusian philologist and grammarian Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Hisham al-Lakhmi (d. 577 AH / 1181 CE) . The book is also recorded under the fuller title al-Madkhal ila Taqwim al-Lisan wa-Ta'lim al-Bayan (The Introduction to Correcting Speech and Teaching Eloquence) .
Purpose and Composition
Ibn Hisham stated in his introduction that the first duty for students of Arabic is to correct commonly used vocabulary that the public had altered from its original usage . He was prompted to compose the treatise after observing that earlier authorities on common speech errors—particularly Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi in his Lahn al-Ammah—had been excessively rigid, condemning usages that were in fact permissible dialectal variants (lughatan) among the Arabs . He likewise sought to address the oversights of Ibn Makki al-Siqilli in Tathqif al-Lisan wa-Talqih al-Janan, responding to their unwarranted criticisms while adding numerous errors prevalent in his own era that both earlier authors had overlooked .
Structure and Contents
The author organized the book into six distinct sections:
- Refutation of Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi regarding common speech errors (al-Radd ala Abi Bakr al-Zubaydi fi Lahn al-Ammah) .
- Refutation of Ibn Makki al-Siqilli regarding Tathqif al-Lisan (al-Radd ala Ibn Makki al-Siqilli fi Tathqif al-Lisan) .
- Chapter on expressions for which the Arabs transmitted two or more dialectal variants (Bab ma ja'a an al-Arab fihi lughatan fa-akthar) .
- Chapter on uninterpretable public solecisms that lack any evidence in the language of the Arabs (Bab ma talhanu fihi al-ammah mimma la yahtamilu al-ta'wil wa-la alayhi min lisan al-Arab dalil) .
- Chapter on terms originally used for two or more things that common usage restricted to one (Bab ma ja'a li-shay'ayn aw li-ashya' fa-qasaruhu ala wahid) .
- Chapter on lines from early poetry adopted by the common people as proverbs (Bab ma tamaththalat bihi al-ammah mimma waqa'a fi ash'ar al-mutaqaddimin) .
Method and Sources
The work documents the dialectal features, social life, and pronunciation of names and toponyms in sixth-century AH al-Andalus, tracing foreign loanwords and colloquialisms back to classical Arabic roots . Ibn Hisham drew on an extensive range of grammatical and lexicographical authorities, including Sibawayh's al-Kitab, al-Khalil ibn Ahmad's Kitab al-Ayn, Ibn al-Sikkit's Islah al-Mantiq, al-Mubarrad's al-Kamil, Ibn Durayd's Jamharat al-Lughah, Ibn Sidah's al-Muhkam, and Ibn Qutaybah's Adab al-Katib, as well as his own commentaries on Tha'lab's al-Fasih and Ibn Durayd's al-Maqsurah . He supported his corrections with 56 Quranic verses, 23 prophetic hadiths, over 100 proverbs, and more than 450 verses of poetry and rajaz metre . His poetic citations unusually included post-classical (muhdathun) poets whose verses were traditionally not used as linguistic proofs, such as Abu Tammam, Ibn al-Rumi, al-Mutanabbi, al-Babbagha, and Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri .
Influence and Derivative Works
The treatise served as the basis for several later Andalusian and North African linguistic texts:
- Inshad al-Dawall wa-Irshad al-Su''al by Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Hani al-Lakhmi (d. 733 AH), who rearranged Ibn Hisham's book into alphabetical order .
- Irad al-Li'al min Inshad al-Dawall by Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Khatimah al-Ansari (d. c. 770 AH), an abridgment of Ibn Hani's rearrangement .
- An anonymous abridgment of Ibn Khatimah's work, which was published by the orientalist Georges Séraphin Colin in 1931 .
Manuscripts and Editions
The text survived in two unique Maghrebi-script manuscripts: a complete 72-folio copy from the seventh century AH scribed by Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Ahmad al-Zur'i under the title Kitab al-Radd ala al-Zubaydi fi Lahn al-Awwam, and a vocalized 92-folio copy transcribed for Ibn al-Shari in 607 AH bearing the title al-Madkhal ila Taqwim al-Lisan wa-Ta'lim al-Bayan .
Its final chapter was first printed by Abd al-Aziz al-Ahwani in 1962, followed by Abd al-Aziz Matar's publication of the refutations against al-Zubaydi (1966) and Ibn Makki (1973) . A full critical edition was edited by Hatim Salih al-Damin, who published it in installments in the Iraqi journal al-Mawrid between 1981 and 1983, and later as a monograph through Dar al-Basha'ir al-Islamiyyah in Beirut (2003) . The book was also edited by the Spanish scholar José Pérez Lázaro and published in Madrid by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in 1990 .
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