Glossarium Græco-Arabicum

The database Glossarium Græco-Arabicum makes available the files of a lexical project, intended to open up the lexicon of the mediæval Arabic translations from the Greek. It contains images of the filecards (ca. 80,000) which have not yet been published in the analytical reference dictionary A Greek and Arabic Lexicon (Leiden: Brill, 1992ff.), and comprises Arabic roots from the letter jîm to the end of the Arabic alphabet.

From the eighth to the tenth century A. D., Greek scientific and philosophical works were translated wholesale into Arabic. This activity resulted in the incorporation and reorganization of the classical heritage in the new civilization which, using Arabic, spread with Islam.

The object of project Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum is to make readily available to scholars the direct information which the Graeco-Arabic translations contain for several areas of research. These include:

• the vocabulary and syntax of Classical and Middle Arabic;
• the development of a scientific and technical vocabulary in Arabic;
• the vocabulary of Classical and Middle Greek;
• the chronology and nature of the translation movement into Arabic; and
• the establishment of the texts of Greek works and their Arabic translations.

Since 1980, the materials available in earlier glossaries, included in editions of the texts both published and unpublished, were compiled in a systematic layout on index cards, and were considerably enlarged in the course of the continuing work on the project from the original source texts, available in manuscript and in critical editions.

On this basis, a group organized by Gerhard Endreß (Ruhr University of Bochum) and working in cooperation with Dimitri Gutas (Yale University, New Haven, Conn.) started to prepare the Greek and Arabic Lexicon, being the first attempt to present in a rationalized and systematic way the lexical results of Graeco-Arabic studies during the past hundred years.

In this workgroup, scholars competent in both Greek and Arabic collaborated to compile materials from printed glossaries, to parse Greek texts and their Arabic translations from printed editions and manuscript sources. This basic work was advanced most notably by Professor Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt (co-founder of the project), Dr. Rüdiger Arnzen (co-author of vols. I and II of the Lexicon), Klaus Alshut, M. A., Dr. Cleophea Ferrari, Dr. Christel Hein, Dr. Stephan Pohl, Dr. Oliver Overwien, Dr. Jörn Thielmann, Dr. Geoffrey J. Moseley and several others.

In compiling and analyzing the Sources which form the basis of the Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum, an endeavour has been made to include adequate testimonies of all the major disciplines of philosophy and the sciences. The coverage includes works such as Aristotle's Categories, Analytica posteriora, Physics, and De anima, Porphyry's Eisagoge, and Euclid's Elements.

The Glossarium Graeco-Arabicum contains a sufficiently representative sample of the entire range of Greek vocabulary and syntax. It registers every word encountered in our core source texts and not only the scientific vocabulary; it is not just a dictionary of technical terminology.

The entire vocabulary relating to Arabic lexemes beginning with the letters alif or bāʾ was made available since 1992 in the form of an analytical reference dictionary, the Greek and Arabic Lexicon (GALex). As it was not possible to continue this lexicon for financial reasons, it was decided to make the material comprising the rest of the Arabic alphabet and compiled on filecards available in the form of an open access reference database. Each data set is linked to an image scanned from the filecard and can be searched for the Arabic and Greek lexemes, Arabic roots, or particular Arabic and Greek expressions and phrases.