ARABIC–ENGLISH DIALOGUES PRINTED ON MALTA
[SHIDYĀQ, Ahmad Fāris, attributed author].
Kitāb al-muhāwarah al-unsīyah fī al-lughatayn al-Inklīzīyah wa-al-ʿArabīyah … Arabic and English grammatical Exercises and familiar Dialogues chiefly intended for the Use of Students in the English Language.
[Malta, 1840.]
8vo., pp. 188, printed right-to-left, with the text in two columns; pale dampstain towards the end, else a good copy in early quarter cloth and marbled boards, worn, portion of MS paper spine label in Arabic.
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Kitāb al-muhāwarah al-unsīyah fī al-lughatayn al-Inklīzīyah wa-al-ʿArabīyah … Arabic and English grammatical Exercises and familiar Dialogues chiefly intended for the Use of Students in the English Language.
First edition, an English grammar and vocabulary designed for Arabic students, attributed to the Lebanese-born Shidyāq, who lived between Cairo and Malta in the 1820s-40s, and is best known for his well-regarded Arabic translation of the Bible (1857), and for his less well-regarded opinion that Shakespeare was Arabic. On Malta he was director of the printing press used by American missionaries.
The dialogues (pp. 76-142) cover ‘buying and selling’, ‘the English Language’ (‘It is becoming quite an universal language’…), ‘On a journey’, ‘writing and books’ etc., followd by a list of modes of address and vocabulary of the individual words found in the dialogues.
