RT Article
T1 Georg Pilder’s Arabisches Lexicon of 1772– The Oldest Known Comprehensive Arabic-German Dictionary Rediscovered
JF Der Islam
VO 95
IS 2
SP 524
OP 548
A1 Mauder, Christian
LA English
YR 2018
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1583809554
AB In 1772, the Moravian Protestant Georg Pilder (1716‒1793) finished his work on an Arabic-German-Italian dictionary with the title Arabisches Lexicon. This dictionary, which has so far escaped scholarly attention and survives in a single manuscript copy, represents the earliest comprehensive Arabic-German lexicographic work known to scholarship. Based primarily on Pilder’s experiences as a missionary in Cairo, it includes valuable material on diglossia and everyday language use in 18th-century Cairo. The article discusses Pilder’s biography against the background of Moravian activities in the Middle East, sheds light on when, why and based on which materials he composed his dictionary and studies how Pilder’s authorial intentions are reflected in the work’s content and structure. It moreover addresses the question of the dictionary’s relevancy in the contexts of missionary history, the history of Arabic Studies and contemporary linguistic research.
K1 Lexicography : Ottoman Egypt : Missionary history : History of Arabic Studies : Coptic Church : Christian Arabic
DO 10.1515/islam-2018-0033