The Historical Dictionary Between Tradition and Modernization

Abstract

Perhaps the meticulous attention given by linguists to individual words, in order to prevent their extinction or disappearance, caused them to focus less on tracking changes in meaning—even though semantic development studies have reached their peak. In order to advance dictionary-making and achieve optimal development, modern scholars turned their attention to constructing a historical dictionary—a resource that meets our needs by providing word meanings along with their various and evolving senses across different eras, from their origins to the present.

The historical dictionary documents the first appearance of each word in the language and traces the changes in its meanings and pronunciation. It also shows the word’s origin and whether it was borrowed from another language, directly or through intermediaries. This dictionary relies on texts found in both ancient and modern Arabic corpora to demonstrate the age of a word and its usage across time. Its work does not stop at traditional compilation; it continues into the modern era through the digitization of the dictionary, making it accessible to researchers. This introduction leads us to the following questions:

– To what extent do we need a historical dictionary that defines the historical boundaries of word usage across time?

– What are the outcomes of building a historical dictionary?

– Has the dream of the Arabic language come true—gathering the scattered vocabulary from ancient and modern corpora across long ages?