Articles |
A Newly Reconstructed Karaite Work on Hebrew Grammar
University of Cambridge
Karaite grammatical thought originated in the ninth or even the eighth century CE. It had its roots in Masoretic literature and in the Arabic tradition of grammar. Scholarly study of Karaite grammatical tradition was given new impetus when the second Firkovitch Collection held in the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg and containing the majority of extant Karaite linguistic manuscripts became open to international scholars. Hitherto a number of Karaite grammatical treatises have been edited and the origins, periodization and characteristic features of this tradition studied. Yet further surviving treatises must be reconstructed and grammatical concepts investigated in more detail before a complete account of the Karaite linguistic teachings can be given.
This article reconstructs from unpublished manuscripts the Karaite grammatical treatise Kit
b al-
uq
d f
ta
rf al-lugha al-ibrniyya traditionally attributed to Ab al-Faraj Hrn. The newly reconstructed text shows that Kitb al-uqd was not composed by Abu al-Faraj Harun and must presently be considered anonymous. Additionally, it provides evidence that the word uqd here is a previously unknown technical term meaning ‘derivational relations, rules’ rather than ‘pearl-strings’ as was suggested before.