Matthew Ferry's List: Learning Arabic - دراس اللغة العربية

"ganizes its Arabic lexicography by jidhr – the three- or four-consonant root beneath most Arabic words.

Jens Hanssen is a tireless collector of historical anecdote who a few years back published the insightful “Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital.” A Wehr-thumbing Oxford alumnus, he nowadays teaches history at the University of Toronto.

The very first Arabic dictionary, he notes, dates from the Umayyad period. Its words were apparently arranged on the basis of what part of the maw is used in pronunciation – starting with the deepest point of the throat and ending at the lips. Another early dictionary arrayed its entries by rhym"