Kitab al-Tanqih ספר הדקדוק
A book in two parts: a grammar of Hebrew and a dictionary of its roots. Written in Arabic at Saragossa in the first half of the eleventh century, it became for centuries the starting point of everyone who examined the language of the Tanakh.
Two parts. The Kitab al-Luma is the grammar, the Kitab al-Usul the dictionary of roots. Together they are the Kitab al-Tanqih, the "Book of Careful Examination"; they were translated into Hebrew in Provence as the Sefer ha-Rikmah and the Sefer ha-Shorashim.
What is new in them. Ibn Janah carried through what Hayyuj had begun: the root of a Hebrew word is three letters, and everything else is explained from it. All later grammar stands on this; Ibn Ezra, the Radak and the Ramban lean on him in matters of language, sometimes without naming him.
The dispute. With Samuel ha-Nagid he argued sharply and in print—each wrote books against the other. The dispute was over particulars of analysis, but it was conducted so that it is remembered in itself.
The sources do not give the exact year of writing; the book belongs to the first half of the eleventh century.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- The Kitab al-Tanqih in the Sefer ha-Rikmah and Sefer ha-Shorashim translations — the make-up of the book and its subject
Scholarship
- Reference works on the grammatical school of Sepharad — the place of the book and the dispute with Samuel ha-Nagid
Basis: documents and evidence.