Kitāb al-Nutaf le-R. Yehudah Hayyaj (review)

Rabbi Yehuda Ḥayyūj, Abū Zakariyya YaḤyā b. Dāwūd (died c. 1010), has been recognized by modern students of the history of Hebrew linguistic tradition as one of the most original grammarians of the Andalusian school. His main achievements are the theory about the "weak quiescent" ( ha-naḤ ha-ne'elam) and his original observations on Hebrew syntax. The present complete edition of existing excerpts of his K. al-Nutaf, Book of Florilegia, is a long-awaited publication of the fourth and last work of our grammarian. This book is commentary ( tafsīr) on selected verses of nine biblical books, namely, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Malachi. It opens with Ḥayyūj's short introduction. This is the first essay in Bible commentary that concerns itself with philological exegesis and that applies a trilateral-root theory to the Hebrew language (see the editor's note p. 17, 2.5.1).

Basal's edition is a praiseworthy, accurate, and succinct philological effort. It is preceded by an enlightening introduction (pp. 7–73), which presents the author (pp. 7–10), his book (pp. 10–22), its various MSS, and the editorial procedures (pp. 22–38). More important is the survey (pp. 39–73) of linguistic topics treated by the author in K. al-Nutaf, their classification, and a short discussion with informative footnotes concerning the linguistic concepts and terminology and their status in Ḥayyūj's and Andalusian grammar. The editorial system skillfully navigates between the various readings of the MSS and their earlier editions, and Basal demonstrates convincing mastery of the material. His useful Hebrew translation is punctuated by a set of important footnotes which complement and refer to his presentation of Ḥayyūj's linguistic teaching in the introduction.

The present reviewer is not a member of the distinguished group of scholars whose main interest is the Hebrew medieval linguistic tradition. However, in my extensive studies of its Arabic-Islamic counterpart, especially in its early development until the middle of the ninth century (see below), I have been made aware time and again that the origins of certain significant similarities between the two traditions have not yet been explored or satisfactorily interpreted by modern scholars. K. al-Nutafand the editor's references provide several very interesting suggestions to this effect, which Basal identifies only partly. Consider the following set of notions pertaining to the domain of general linguistic thinking (references here are to Basal's notes): Saadia's Ḥattā staqāma l-kalāmin his Commentary on Psalms referred to on p. 86 n. 2 is not "so that the sentence gets in order" but rather "so that the sentence becomes grammatically acceptable," similar to Sībawayhi (d. c. 796) in chapter 6 of his KitābI (ed. Derenbourg) 7, and later grammarians of the Arabic tradition. An interesting expression is aṣḤāb ra'y(p. 106, n. 39), which Basal, following Abramson, translates, ba'ale ha-masoret, 'possessors of Tradition.' In the early Islamic schools of law a dichotomy is presented of aṣḤāb al-Ḥadīthvs. aṣḤāb/ahl al-ra'y(see J. Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurispuidence[Oxford, 1950], chapter 9). Interestingly, the expression ahl al-ra'yoccurs in K. al-'Aynattributed to the early Khalil b. AḤmad (d. 791) (see Rafael Talmon, Arabic Grammar in its Formative Age:Kita_b al-'Ayn and its attribution to Ḥaīll b. AḤmad[Leiden, 1997], 127). (Wa-humā) luġatāniis rightly translated (p. 124, n. 6) as "two modes of expression (to the same effect)," and can be considered a calque from Arabic general linguistic terminology. Another point of interest for the Arabist is the special character of a commentary as a framework for philological-grammatical discussion. Early commentaries in...