Brill GALex

[Andrew Patterson]

I don't know how accessible this would be, but this would be invaluable for translating the Bible into Arabic.

 

A Greek and Arabic Lexicon (GALex) (Vol. 1; Brill, 2020) https://brill.com/view/title/18852

A Greek and Arabic Lexicon (GALex) (Vol. 2; Brill, 2021) https://brill.com/view/title/60254

[jlm]

I don’t know Arabic, but would a dictionary based on its usage between the eighth and tenth century really be useful for making a translation today? I would expect that in the last thousand years many words have come to be used differently.

[R. Mansfield]

24 minutes ago, jlm said:

I don’t know Arabic, but would a dictionary based on its usage between the eighth and tenth century really be useful for making a translation today? I would expect that in the last thousand years many words have come to be used differently.

 

Perhaps if you were trying to use a lot of the same wording familiar in the Qur'an. 

[Andrew Patterson]

37 minutes ago, jlm said:

I don’t know Arabic, but would a dictionary based on its usage between the eighth and tenth century really be useful for making a translation today? I would expect that in the last thousand years many words have come to be used differently.

 

You might think so...but no, actually. Their vocabulary hasn't changed much at all. Classical Arabic has been preserved through what is called Modern Standard Arabic, which is used for nearly all writing, especially formal and religious. This is largely because the Qur'an has always been, and still is, read in the same Arabic in which it originally was written.

 

I have a personal theory that Semitic languages are inherently resistant to significant change due to the triliteral root system, but that's off-topic haha!

[Andrew Patterson]

It has come to my realization that this is a long term project...they have only completed Alef and Baa'. This could take a few decades haha