Yusuf al-Maghribi

Yūsuf al-Maġribi (Arabic: يوسف المغربي) was a 17th-century traveler and lexicographer active in Cairo. He is the first author to treat Egyptian Arabic as a dialect distinct from Classical Arabic, compiling an Egyptian Arabic word list, the Raf` al-'iṣr `an kalām 'ahl miṣr (i.e. "apology of the Egyptian vernacular", literally "the lifting of the burden from the speech of the population of Egypt"), which survives in a unique manuscript kept at St. Petersburg State University. Al-Maghribi's dictionary reflects a wider trend in early 17th century Ottoman Egypt towards colloquial writing.

Edition

• Abdul-Salam Ahmad Awwad, Raf` al-Isar `an kalam ahl misr, Moscow (1968).

References

• Elisabeth Zack. Yusuf al-Maghribi's Egyptian-Arabic Word List. A Unique Manuscript in the St. Petersburg State University Library, Manuscripta orientalia (ISSN 1238-5018 ) 2001, vol. 7, no3, pp. 46–49.
• Society and Economy in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, 1600–1900, American Univ in Cairo Press (2005), p. 34.
• Paula Sanders, Creating Medieval Cairo, American Univ in Cairo Press (2007), p. 99
• Nelly Hanna, In Praise of Books: A Cultural History of Cairo's Middle Class, Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, Syracuse University Press (2003), ISBN 978-0-8156-3012-8, chapter 5.

See also

• De vulgari eloquentia