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It has long been known that the ancient Arab philologists not infrequently misinterpreted difficult words and that, consequently, Arabic lexicons contain a number of unwarranted explanations. The principal reason for such errors was that rare words were often interpreted by mere guess, when the fault lay with the professional philologists. In other instances, certain words were misunderstood and wrongly applied before Arabic philology came into existence and the philologists had no choice but to assign them the meanings attributed by tradition or actually found in oral or literary usage, although when checked by literary evidence, the explanations were often wrong. Words of foreign origin in particular underwent that process on being accepted into the Arabic language but doubtless, indigenous words, too, became so affected.
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page 157 note 1 See Nöldeke, Th., “Willkürlich und missverständlich gebrauchte Fremdwörter im Koran,” in his Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, pp. 23 ff.Google Scholar One example (fiṭaḥl) is also mentioned by Ahlwardt, , Der Dīwān des Reḡezdichters Rūba ben Elaḡḡāḡ;, Berlin, 1913, pp. xiv–xvGoogle Scholar.
page 158 note 1 See Qutaiba, Ibn, K. al-Shi'r wal-Shu'arā', ed. de Goeje, , p. 244Google Scholar.
page 158 note 2 Ancient proverbs which were often incorporated into verses (see, e.g., Bloch, A., “Zur altarabischen Spruchdichtung,” in Westöstliche Abhandlungen, Rudolf Tschudi zum siebzigsten Geburtstag überreicht..., Wiesbaden, 1954, pp. 181 ff.)Google Scholar, not infrequently puzzled philologists. Their concise language, obsolete words, and allusions to personalities and events no longer understood gave rise to many vague, contradicting, and even erroneous explanations; see, e.g., Blachère, R., Arabica, i (1954), pp. 53 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 159 note 1 From the Tāj al-'Arūs it ia not clear whether Mu'āwiya composed the verse or only quoted it. The latter possibility is borne out by al-Damīrī, s.v. 'anūq, while al-Jāḥiẓ (K. al-Ḥayawān, iii, Cairo, 1938, pp. 522–3)Google Scholar evidently presumed that Mu'āwiya was actually the author.
page 159 note 2 Cf. al-Jāḥiẓ, , K. al-ḥayawān, iii, Cairo, 1938, p. 522Google Scholar.
page 159 note 2 'Anūq occurs in yet another proverbial saying which also contains the idea of the impossible (al-Maidānī, op. cit., p. 116): Baitun fīhi ‘l-ḥītānu wal-'anüqu “a house in which there are sea-fish and 'anūq”.
page 160 note 1 See above, p. 159, and al-Jāḥiẓ, , K. al-Ḥayawān, iii, Cairo, 1938, p. 522Google Scholar. Both words are applied, among others, to the stallion and the mare, respectively.
page 160 note 2 As a plural it is employed, e.g., in the proverbial saying quoted above, p. 159, n. 3. That it can be a plural was also admitted by Arab philologists; see above, p. 157.
page 161 note 1 See above. The adjective and the pronoun in the feminine form singular can, of course, refer to a plural (cf. previous note), but Arab philologists themselves, obviously on the ground of these and similar loc. prob., came to the conclusion that 'anūq was also feminine (see above, p. 158), while the opposite claim for the masculine gender probably goes back to the above-mentioned interpretation.
page 161 note 2 Cf., e.g., Tāj al-'Arūs, vi, p. 282, 11.5 ff., s.v. 'anūq, with al-Nuwairī, , Nihāyat al-'Arab, x, p. 208Google Scholar, s.v. rakhama.
page 161 note 3 In addition to the preceding examples see also the verse of al-Kumait in al-Nuwairī, l.c.
page 161 note 4 Cf. the above-mentioned ḥadīth (p. 138) and the two verses in al-Jāḥiẓ, op. cit., v. iii, p. 522, v. vi, p. 331.
page 161 note 5 Min shahwati . . . li-dhālika in vol. i, p. 235, 1. 11, has to be corrected into min shuhrati . . . bi-dhālika; see Oriens, i, p. 371.
page 162 note 1 Al-Damīrī, s.v.: It is mostly born from the dung of cattle.
page 163 note 1 Wrongly rendered in Jayakar's translation, v. i, p. 506.
page 163 note 2 See Tāj al-'Arūs, viii, p. 109, 1. 25.
page 163 note 3 Diwan, Cairo, 1936, p. 467Google Scholar. The verse ia not infrequently quoted; e.g. al-Zamakhsharī, , Asās al-Balāgha, ii, Cairo, 1923, p. 485, s.v. n h ḍGoogle Scholar.
page 164 note 1 See al-Jauharī, Ṣiḥāḥ, s.v.; Tāj al-'Arūs, iii, p. 592, 1. 18.