Gesenius' Hebrew grammar: 17th ed., with numerous corrections and additions, by dr. E. Rödiger. Tr. by T. J. Conant ... With grammatical exercises and a chrestomathy, by the translator.

~ 3. WORKS ON THE GRAMMAR OF THE HEBREW.,

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3. The first attempts to illustrate the grammar of the lan.
guage were made, after the example of the Arabian scholars, in
the ninth century. What was done by Saadia (ob. 942) in this
department is wholly lost. But there are still extant, in manuscript, the works of R. Judah Chayug (called also Abu Zakaria
Yahya, about the year 1040) and R. Jona (Abulwalid Merwan
ben Gannach, about 1050), composed in the Arabic language.
Aided by these labours, Abraham ben Ezra (about 1150) and
R. David Kimchi (1190-1200) acquired among Jewish scholars
a classical reputation as the grammarians of the language. From
these earliest writers on the subject are derived many of the
methods of classification and of the technical terms which are
still in part employed; e. g. the use of the forms and letters of
the verb b5 (formerly employed as a paradigm) in designating
the conjugations, and the different classes of irregular verbs; the
voces memoriales, as &TC..S, &c.*
4. The father of Hebrew philology, among Christians, was
the celebrated Reuchlin (ob. 1522), to whom Greek literature
also is so much indebted. He, however, as well as the grammarians down to Joh. Buxtorf (ob. 1629), adhered closely to Jewish
tradition. After the middle of the seventeenth century the field
of view gradually widened; and the study of the kindred languages, through the labours, especially, of Alb. Schultens (ob.
1750) and N. W. Schr6der (ob. 1798), led to important results
in the science of Hebrew grammar.
To estimate correctly those works which have since appeared,
and which are of permanent, scientific value, it is necessary to
understand what is required of one who attempts to exhibit the
grammar of an ancient language. This is, in general, 1) a correct observation and a systematic arrangement of all the phenomena of the language; 2) the explanation of these phenomena,
partly by comparing them with one another and with analogous
appearances in the kindred languages, partly from the general
analogy and philosophy of language. The first may be called
* On the origin and earliest history of Hebrew lexicography, see the preface
of Gesenius to the 4th edition of his Heb. Handworterbuch. On the first grammarians, see also Sam. David Luzzatto' Prolegomeni ad una gramm. ragionata
della lingua ebraica (Padova, 1836), p. 26 foil.