al-Qalb wal-Ibdal
- Author died
- 244 AH
- Editions
- al-Qalb wal-Ibdal
al-Qalb wal-Ibdal (Metathesis and Consonant Alternation) is a specialized linguistic monograph on phonological alternation (ibdāl) and metathesis (qalb) in the Arabic language, composed by the philologist and lexicographer Ibn al-Sikkit (d. 244 AH / 858 CE) .
Subject Matter and Scope
The work is devoted to documenting lexical variants in Arabic that share an identical meaning but differ either by the transposition of letters (al-qalb) or by the exchange of a single consonant (al-ibdāl) . Ibn al-Sikkit records variant roots and pronunciations attested among Arab tribes, such as differences between the speech of the people of the Hijaz and Najd, supported by Quranic variants and poetic citations (shawāhid) . The linguistic data is transmitted on the authority of prominent early philologists, including al-Asma'i, Abu Ubaydah, al-Farra', and Abu Zayd al-Ansari .
Structure and Transmission
The text is organized into thematic sections according to the specific consonant pairs that undergo alternation, such as:
- Bāb al-nūn wal-lām (The alternation between nūn and lām)
- Bāb al-wāw wal-hamzah (The alternation between wāw and hamzah)
The surviving recension of the text was transmitted from Ibn al-Sikkit by Dawud ibn Muhammad al-Marwarrudhi, via al-Qasim ibn Mukhtar, to Abu al-Husayn Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Muhallabi, who taught it in Ramadan 371 AH to Abu Ya'qub Yusuf ibn Ya'qub ibn Isma'il ibn Khurrazadh al-Nujayrami .
Scholarly Reception
al-Qalb wal-Ibdal served as an early source for subsequent lexicographers and grammarians studying phonological and morphological alternation . In al-Muzhir, Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti drew upon Ibn al-Sikkit's material while observing that the author omitted several attested alternations documented elsewhere in lexicographical literature, notably the interchange between sīn and ṣād (such as al-ṣirāṭ and al-sirāṭ) . Other lexicographers, such as Abu al-Tayyib al-Lughawi, subsequently composed specialized treatises on ibdāl, highlighting that such substitutions represent distinct tribal dialects expressing equivalent meanings rather than arbitrary letter swapping within a single dialect .
Publication
The text was edited by the orientalist August Haffner and published in Beirut in 1903 . It was subsequently reissued as part of Haffner's collection al-Kanz al-Lughawi fi al-Lisan al-Arabi (Leipzig, 1905) .
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