For Persian and Ottoman students of Arabic

[Linguistics]. Kitab tarjamah fi al-lughah [The Book of Translation].

€ 8.500,00

An interesting collection of two dictionaries and two linguistic treatises in Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Persian.

The first part, "Al-Azhar al-Wadih", is a concise Arabic-Persian dictionary compiled by Mustafa bin Ali bin Uthman al-Rumi. Arabic words are followed by their corresponding Persian terms in smaller script below each word.

The second part is a brief Persian treatise on aspects of Arabic morphology, discussing the various parts of speech.

The third is a Persian-Ottoman dictionary in two parts, giving terms in Persian with their corresponding Ottoman words below.

The fourth part, by Qutb bin Ahmadi al-Baqri, is titled "Al-Alfaz al-Mithlah" ("Similar Words"): a discussion of Arabic words that have identical spellings in unvocalized script but which differ in pronunciation and meaning. Aimed again at Persian readers who are novices to Arabic, this treatise (like others in this collection) provides Persian translations in smaller script underneath the respective Arabic words. The copyist or one of the manuscript's owners has given this sammelband the collective title "kitab tarjamah fi al-lughah" ("book of translation").

Light wear, some staining, altogether good. Dated 938 H on the reverse of the first text leaf. Old French handwritten description pasted to inside upper cover.

Provenance: from the library of the French oriental scholar and diplomat François Alphonse Belin (1817-77), French Consul General in Constantinople from 1868 until his death, sold by Leroux in 1878 (Catalogue de la bibliothèque orientale de feu M. Belin, no. 453: "Tohfet el edeb fi'l loghat. Dictionnaire arabe et persan explique en turk"). Later in a 20th century Parisian private collection, kept in the family for several generations and dispersed in 2022.