LUND HUMPHRIES MODERN LANGUAGE READERS GENERAL EDITOR: B. SCHINDLER, PH.D. ARABIC BY CHAIM RABIN, Ph.D.(Lond.), M.A., D.Phil.(Oxon.) Cowley Lecturer in Post-Biblical Hebrew in the University of Oxford ome ee ee \ LONDON LUND HUMPHRIES & CO. LTD. 12 BEDFORD SQUARE, W.C.I Sf -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED COPYRIGHT 1947 BY LUND HUMPHRIES & CO. LTD. LONDON & BRADFORD ee ii ai 48730 This book is produced in complete conformity with the authorised economy standards welt ees esl D. ING ED ae, Set in Mom ibic, Series 507 and printed in Great Britain by LUND HUMPHRIES & COMPANY LIMITED *PREFACE LUND HUMPHRIES’ MODERN LANGUAGE READERS are intended to provide students with selections of reading extracts, with such helps as complete Vocabularies and Notes, so as to enable them to acquire a sound knowledge of the languages in question. The main feature of these Readers is the complete “word by word’”’ Vocabularies, whereby words occurring more than once in a story are not repeated, thus making it necessary for students to memorise each word. The students can start the Readers after they have familiarised themselves with the simple rules of the grammars of the respect- ive languages. As regards the sequence of the texts, it is advisable for the average student to accept the order in which the short stories appear, as they are graduated in accordance with the simplicity of the text, the casier stories coming first. I therefore recommend students to read the stories in the sequence as they appear in the book. More advanced students, however, may arrange the order as it pleases them, seeing that the Vocabularies have been kept on the same level throughout. The student, who desires to learn modern, as distinct from classical, literary Arabic, will find but few European works to assist him. Harder’s Arabische Chrestomathie (Heidelberg 1911) offers a few Passages from the beginnings of modern literature. Sheringham’s Modern Arabic Sentences (London 1927) offers an introduction to the style of the daily press. Specimens from modern literature Proper are given in Madame C. V. Odé- Vassilieva’s admirable Specimens of Neo-Arabic Literature, 1880-1925, Part I: Texts, edited and prefaced by I. J. Krach- kovsky (Publications of the Leningrad Oriental Institute, BE (Leningrad 1928), which presents writings that appeared between 1880 and 1925, and some extracts from contemporaries are printed in Khemiri and Kampffmeyer’s Leaders in Con- temporary Arabic Literature, Part 1 (Leipzig 1930). Both these books are, however, not suitable for beginners, and rare in this country,