Al-Taqfiya fi al-Lugha

Al-Taqfiya fi al-Lugha (The Rhyme Arrangement in Language) is an early Arabic rhyming vocabulary work composed through dictation by the philologist and poet Abu Bishr al-Yaman ibn Abi al-Yaman al-Bandaniji (d. 284 AH / 897 CE) Al-Taqfiya fi al-Lugha+1. The book organizes Arabic lexical material according to the final letters and rhyme terminations (qawafi) of words to assist poets and scholars of literature Al-Taqfiya fi al-Lugha+1.

Purpose and Method

Al-Bandaniji states in his preface that he named the work al-Taqfiya because it was arranged around rhymes (qawafi), noting that the Arabic language revolves around twenty-eight letters and that every word concludes in one of them Al-Taqfiya fi al-Lugha. His stated goal was to assemble what his memory retained of words essential for poets and men of letters, particularly rare and difficult expressions occurring in the Quran, poetry, and literary discourse, arranged in a structured manner so that readers could easily locate needed terms Al-Taqfiya fi al-Lugha.

The material is classified by the apparent, spoken ending of each word rather than by morphological root extraction (usul) or the stripping of augmentative letters (al-zawa'id) al-Sihah Taj al-Lugha wa …+1. The work opens with the letter alif, which the author subdivides into specific phonetic and orthographic categories, including the extended alif (al-alif al-mamduda, beginning with words like al-aba'), the hamzated alif (al-alif al-mahmuza, such as naba' and zama'), and the shortened alif (al-alif al-maqsura, such as al-qafa and al-bala) al-Sihah Taj al-Lugha wa …+1. Entries within each rhyme section are not sub-alphabetized by their initial or medial letters, but are instead grouped under the target rhyme ending alongside brief explanations of their meanings al-Sihah Taj al-Lugha wa …+1.

Modern Reception and Lexicographical Debate

Al-Taqfiya remained largely obscure in classical references until the Saudi scholar Hamad al-Jasir discovered a unique manuscript of the text and published studies in the journal al-Arab al-Sihah Taj al-Lugha wa …+1. Al-Jasir, along with the text's editor Dr. Khalil Ibrahim al-'Attiyya and linguist Abd al-Sabur Shahin, proposed that al-Bandaniji was the earliest scholar to organize Arabic vocabulary by its final letters, preceding Isma'il ibn Hammad al-Jawhari (d. 393 AH / 1002 CE), the author of al-Sihah, by more than a century al-Sihah Taj al-Lugha wa …+1.

Other lexicographers and researchers countered this assessment, maintaining that al-Taqfiya is not a true general lexicon based on the systematic bab wa fasl (chapter and section) dictionary model al-Sihah Taj al-Lugha wa …+1. They argued that al-Bandaniji compiled a specialized rhyming manual for versifiers rather than a comprehensive dictionary; he did not index words by their underlying morphological roots or organize them alphabetically by their initial letters, unlike Abu Ishaq al-Farabi in Diwan al-Adab and al-Jawhari in al-Sihah al-Sihah Taj al-Lugha wa …+1.

Publication

The book was edited from the unique manuscript by Dr. Khalil Ibrahim al-'Attiyya and published in 1976 by al-'Ani Press in Baghdad under the auspices of the Iraqi Ministry of Awqaf (Ihya' al-Turath al-Islami) Al-Taqfiya fi al-Lugha+1.