The Effects of Miftāḥ Al-ʿUlūm on Language Sciences Classification Cover Image

Miftāḥu'l-ʿulūm'un Dil İlimleri Tasnifine Etkisi
The Effects of Miftāḥ Al-ʿUlūm on Language Sciences Classification

Author(s): Nazife Nihal İnce
Subject(s): Morphology, Syntax, Historical Linguistics, Philology
Published by: Dicle Üniversitesi, Sivil Havacılık Yüksekokulu
Keywords: al-Sakkākī; Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm; language sciences; science classification; syntax; morphology; balāghah;

Summary/Abstract: Muslims who used Arabic as a mutual language had reflected on science classification and wrote books on it from the early periods of Islam. Even though the Arabic linguistics place among the sciences were almost fixed, the classification within the field itself were diverted. Al-ʿArabiyyah which was one part at the period of emergence and was covering all what should be known about Arabic language had separated into branches by the centuries passed and some autonomous disciplines had emerged. Only a few centuries later, the topics, the scope, the limits and the numbers of linguistics branches were clearly demonstrated. Whereas the general classifications considering linguistics as one group, the linguists classified the branches according to some technical criteria. Thus, the classifications of the linguists are important. But the area of linguistics itself seems to show little interest in the classification issue, except for a few works. One of these works is Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm, written by Yusuf al-Sakkākī. In this article, we will examine the effect of this work on the classification of linguistics branches. The effect of this book will be sought in the works of later periods. Balāghah works in general and the commentaries, abridgments or supercommentaries based on Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm in particular will be our resources. even though the idea of classifying is not a new idea, it is possible to say that Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm kept the idea of classification alive because of the arrangement of its topics and the information in the introduction.

  • Issue Year: 2/2018
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 207-221
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: Turkish