Abu Nasr Isma'il ibn Hammad al-Jawhari (ابو نصرإسماعيل بن حماد الجوهري) also spelled al-Jauhari (died 1002 or 1008) was a medieval Turkic^[1][2] lexicographer and the author of a notable Arabic dictionary al-Ṣiḥāḥ fī al-Lughah (الصحاح في اللغة).

Life

He was born in the city of Farab^[3] (Otrar) in Transoxiana (in today's southern Kazakhstan). He began his studies of the Arabic language in Farab,^[3] then studied in Baghdad, continuing among the Arabs of the Hejaz,^[4] then moving to northern Khurāsān, first to Damghan before settling finally at Nishapur.^[3] It was here he met his death in a failed attempt at flight from the roof of a mosque, possibly due to delusions of being a bird.^[5]

Works

• Taj al-Lugha wa Sihah al-Arabiya (الصحاح تاج اللغة وصحاح العربية)^[6] "The Crown of Language and the Correct Arabic" - His magnum opus dictionary of Arabic; often abbreviated as al-Sihah fi al-Lugha, "The Correct Language", and al-Sihah (الصحاح).^[7] It contains about 40,000 dictionary entries.^[8] Written in Nishapur, it was incomplete at his death and completed by a student. Al-Jawhari uses an alphabetical ordering system with the last letter of a word's root being the first ordering criterion. Al-Sihah is a principal Arabic dictionary of the medieval era and later compilers of Arabic dictionaries incorporated its material. Over the centuries several abridgements and elaborations in Arabic were produced and a large portion was copied into the huge 13th century dictionary compilation Lisan al-Arab; published online at http://www.baheth.info.^[4] A fully searchable online edition available at Baheth.info.
• Edition begun by E. Scheidius with a Latin translation, but one part only appeared at Harderwijk (1776).^[3]
• Complete edition, Tabriz (1854).
• Complete edition, Cairo (1865).
• Many abridged and Persian language editions.^[9]

In 1729 Ibrahim Muteferrika's Arabic-Turkish dictionary, based on Jawhari's, became the first book printed by printing press of Ottoman era.^[10]