Page:A Hebrew and English Lexicon (Brown-Driver-Briggs).djvu/11

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PREFACE
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That the Editors have made use of the Thesaurus of Gesenius on every page, with increasing admiration for the tireless diligence, philological insight, and strong good sense of this great Lexicographer, and recognition of Robinson's wisdom in allowing him to speak directly to English students by the admirable translation and editorship of the Lexicon Manuale, need not be further emphasized. They have also made free reference to Gesenius's Hebrew Grammar, in the successive editions prepared by Professor Kautzsch, follower of Gesenius at Halle, and, since 1898, to the excellent English translation of this book made by Messrs. Collins and Cowley, which appeared in that year. The grammars of Ewald, Olshausen, Böttcher, Stade, August Müller, and König, the Syntax of A. B. Davidson, and other grammatical works have been cited as occasion required. Nöldeke's contributions to Hebrew Lexicography and Grammar have been constantly used, with the works of Lagarde and Barth on the formation of nouns, of Gerber on denominative verbs, and many which cannot be catalogued here. All the critical commentaries, and a great number and variety of textual, topographical, and geographical works, with monographs and articles bearing on every possible aspect of Old Testament language, have been examined.

The published materials for the study of the languages cognate with Hebrew have reached such proportions as to tax even the most industrious in any extended comparison of kindred words. For the Arabic, constant use has been made of the dictionaries of Lane, Freytag, Dozy, Wahrmund, the Beirût Fathers, and others besides. The Editors have found themselves sharing with peculiar keenness in the unavailing regret of scholars that Mr. Lane's magnificent plan of complete Arabic lexicography was not destined to be realized. Fränkel's Aramäische Fremdwörter im Arabischen has been constantly used. For the vast and increasing storehouse of Assyrian—as yet most imperfectly explored—the dictionaries of Delitzsch, and, as far as the times of its appearance allowed, Muss-Arnolt have been employed, as well as Meissner's Supplement, and many special vocabularies. Paul Haupt, Bezold, Guyard, Strassmaier, Zimmern, Jensen, Winckler, Scheil, Sayce, King, Johns, R. F. Harper, and many writers in the Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, the Beiträge zur Assyriologie und Semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, and other publications, have been laid under contribution. A place of honour must here be given to Eberhard Schrader, the founder of Assyriology in Germany, whose fruitful work has been prematurely cut short by impaired health, and the Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek begun by him is mentioned here many times. Winckler is of course recognized as the chief editor of the inscriptions from Tel el-Amarna. For Syriac, the Thesaurus of R. Payne Smith and the Lexicon of Brockelmann have been always at hand, with Castell accessible in case of need. Constant reference has been made to Nöldeke's Syrische Grammatik (now, fortunately, translated), as well as his older works, the Neu-Syrische Grammatik, and the priceless Mandäische Grammatik. Duval and Nestle also have been laid under contribution. The Aramaic of the Targums and other Jewish-Aramaic documents, as well as the post-Biblical Hebrew have been examined in the dictionaries of Buxtorf, J. Levy, Jastrow, and Dalman, the collections of Bacher, the grammars of Strack, Marti, and Dalman, the editions of Lagarde,

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