Grammar ‘on the fronts where Arabic is spoken’
An Abridged Arabic Grammar. With one hundred and fifty simple conversational sentences and a Vocabulary of two thousand five hundred words.
Aden: Printed at the Aden Special Prison Press, 1917.
Price: $3,750.00
About the item
Second edition, printed same year as the first edition. [viii], 294 pp. Preliminary leaves with irregular pagination; errata on page [viii]. Printed slip inserted at head of title. 1 vols. Square 8vo. Grammar ‘on the fronts where Arabic is spoken’. Terra cotta cloth and printed boards. Rubbed. Small neat ownership stamp on flyleaf and bottom edge. Very good (internally fresh). OCLC: 503838860 (BL only).
Item #310116
A practical Arabic grammar and vocabulary issued during wartime. The first edition, in 68 pages, comprises only the Grammar. This second edition is the first to include the substantial Vocabulary. Both editions are known only from copies at the BL.
With a slip inserted at the title page: “Since the issue of the first edition it has been possible to test this grammar in regard to its utility in Mesopotamia. The result has been to confirm the correctness of the claim made in para four of the preface.”
Major P.F. Norbury, Commandant of the Poona Horse Troop and Arabic interpreter first class, states in his preface that the grammar was written “to assist officers and other at present engaged in military operations on the fronts where Arabic is spoken …” Norbury observes that while officers in Aden have had difficulty in making themselves understood using other grammars, but “no such complaint can be urged against this one.”
The vocabulary is wide-ranging and includes an interesting entry under Net or Shabak: Also used locally of “Barbed wire entanglement.”
RARE.
