Dunash ben Labrat דונש בן לברט
the man who brought Arabic metre into Hebrew verse
Born at Fez about 920, he went as a young man to Baghdad to study with Rav Saadia Gaon, and then came to Cordova at Hasdai ibn Shaprut's invitation.
The first thing he is known for is his critique of Menahem ben Saruq's dictionary. It was sharp, dedicated to the patron, and it cost Menahem his house and his freedom. The substance of the argument was how the root is built; in the end neither of them was right, but their students were.
The second matters more. He carried the Arabic quantitative metre into Hebrew verse, matching the Hebrew half-vowels to the Arabic short ones. This changed everything: after him Ibn Gabirol, Judah ha-Levi and Moses ibn Ezra all write so—the whole Spanish school. Contemporaries, though, accused him of corrupting the language: a foreign metre broke the natural stress of Hebrew, and the reproach was repeated for a century after.
His D'ror Yikra is still sung at the Sabbath table.
In grammar he was the first to distinguish transitive from intransitive verbs and the first to arrange verbs by three-letter roots—so the step toward Hayyuj was his as well.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Teshuvot Dunash — the critique of Menahem's dictionary — the argument over the structure of the root and its consequences
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Dunash ben Labrat" — Fez and Baghdad, the Arabic metre in Hebrew verse, the charge of corrupting the language
- Reference literature: years of life — the years of birth and death by the agreed count of the reference literature; where the source says «about», it is marked as such
Basis: documents and evidence.