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 The only essential Arabic dictionary for English speakers April 28, 2004
J. E. S. Leake (Offshore, Persian Gulf)
187 out of 190 found this review helpful
First, I must say this is the only Modern Written Arabic (MWA) - English dictionary that the student of Arabic has to have. Others, Al-Mawrid, for example, are useful as supplements, and contain new vocabulary, and there is a more recent German edition (5th edition) of Wehr published by Harrassowitz, but this book has a standard of scholarship unrivalled by any other MWA-English dictionary. Middle Eastern published MWA-English dictionaries like Mawrid, for example, don't give the grammatical information learners of Arabic need, such as broken plurals, verbal vowelling, verbal nouns (masdars), let alone how verbs are used with prepositions, all of which Wehr tells the user.
Words are in root order, so maktaba (desk) [mktbh] and kaatib (writer) [k'tb] both are found under the verb kataba (to write) [ktb]. This really is the most useful way of ordering Arabic dictionaries for someone who's mastered the basics of Arabic grammar, though an alphabetic order dictionary is a help when you're starting and occasionally even when you're expert.
This dictionary is NOT a dictionary of Classical Arabic (although Beeston in his anthology of Bassar bin Burd reckoned that Wehr covered the vast majority of the vocabulary of this poet of the 8th Century AD). For Classical Arabic, Lane (perhaps supplemented by Hava's much more affordable al-Fara'id) is essential. But Lane is useless for modern Arabic. And if you're reading mediaeval Arabic, you will find Wehr fills in some of the gaps in Lane.
This dictionary is NOT a dialect dictionary, though it contains many dialect words that have found their way into the written Arabic of Egypt, Iraq, etc. Arabs don't write colloquial Arabic (at least not in formal contexts) and dialect dictionaries are specialized (colloquial Arabic-English dictionaries are usually written in a phonetic transcription rather than in the Arabic script). If you need a dialect dictionary, get one. This isn't one.
Other reviewers have rightly commented on the size of this dictionary, but some have confused editions. The 3rd (SLS paperback) edition was 114 x 162 x 45mm (4.5" x 6.4" x 1.75") in size, weighed 0.65 kg and had tiny 5.5 pt print. The 4th (SLS paperback) edition is larger: 216 x 130 x 40mm (5.2" x 8.5" x 1.5"), weighs 0.8 kg and has 7.5 pt print. This makes the SLS 4th edition's print much more readable than the SLS 3rd edition's.
The 4th edition, which is sewn-bound, is also more robust than the 3rd edition, which was perfect-bound - I'm on my 3rd copy of the 3rd edition while my 4th edition soldiers on after 8 years. However, the book is not really pocket sized any more (I still keep using my last copy of the 3rd edition as a pocket copy).
The 4th edition isn't cheap (it costs much more in England than in the US, though). If you're in the Middle East, you can pick up Librarie du Liban hardback copies of the 3rd edition (it has larger print than either of the two paperbacks - about 8 pt, the size of the original Brill 3rd edition - and is very clear) for a little less. There's also a hardback reprint of the pocket-sized 3rd edition available in the UK, which has rather unclear script. It's a straight copy of the SLS 3rd edition, and is Indian. It's usable, but is the least satisfactory version yet. But I'd advise students to get the SLS 4th edition if they can afford it. If you've lots of money, perhaps get the Harrassowitz hardback - I've not done so. And if you've money and German, get the 5th Harrassowitz edition (Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart).
[I have now bought the 4th Harassowitz English edition. The text is slightly crisper and half a point to a point larger, about 8 pt. The paper is less over-bleached, which makes it a bit easier on the eyes too. J.L.]
This is THE Arabic- English Dictionary - Malik Al-Quamees October 27, 2006
Charles Curtis (Jackman, Maine)
99 out of 102 found this review helpful
I am a former Army Arabic linguist, and a graduate of DLI/FLC Monterey. This dictionary is the primary one we used, both at DLI and later on the job. An old Army buddy, I have a deep abiding affection for this thing, it being a true linguistic masterpiece and longtime companion.
Hans Wehr was professor at University of Munster from the fifties thru the seventies. This dictionary was first published in 1952 in German as "Arabisches Worterbuch fur die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart" - a mouthful of a title if there ever was one. We just called it the Hans Wehr. To my knowledge, it is the only dictionary that's organized to properly exploit Arabic morphology, which is to say the consonal root system.
Any other approach makes a hash out of the Arab language. Straightforward alphabetical ordering is ill suited to Arabic. The only traditionally alphabetically organized Arabic dictionary that I've seen (and I've seen quite a few) which is any good at all is the Lebanese Al-Mawrid. But I use it only as an occasional adjunct to Hans. Once you get a hang of Hans, and your vocabulary and sense of Arabic grows, the Mawrid will only be very occasionally useful from Arabic to English. It may not seem possible to a beginner (it certainly didn't to me,) but the Hans Wehr will come to make much more sense, and become much more accessible, than any other Arabic to English dictionary. So if you are new to this game, suck it up and use Hans as much as possible.
One sole caveat: for Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) the Hans Wehr is incomprable & indespensible. MSA is the modern universally written form of Arabic, and the pan-national lingua franca spoken in formal settings- on TV, in courts, etc., by educated Arabs. Note, though, that the local dialectical and classical forms of Arabic are very different balls of wax, and with them this dictionary can be of only limited application. I found it pretty wanting when dealing with Egyptian dialect while in Cairo, for example. For the Gulf, Jordan, Palestine and rest of the Levant it's a little more useful.
A brief grammatical explanation as to why the Hans is the only game in town (sorry if this is redundant or too didactic, but everyone should know what the deal is:)
As others have said here, the majority of the words in Arabic are derived from a three (usually) consonant verbal root. You take the consonants - e.g., KTB which denotes writing, or 'KH'RJ denotes outward movement - and vowel them with fatahs, or short 'a' sounds (which like all short vowel sounds are unrepresented in everyday writing) and you get KaTaBa, which basically means "he wrote" or KHaRaJa which means "he went out" - both the 3rd person masculine past perfect. This is used as the essential base form of the verb, equivalent to the infinitive in an Indo-European language.
By changing the unwritten "short vowels" (re-vowelling) and by adding other written "long vowel" and consonal sounds, you can generate a slew of words related to the verb in question. For example, by adding an M (mim) to the KTB (MaKTaB) you get "office." An A (alif)(AKTuB) gives you "I write." MaKTaBA = library. KiTAB = book. KHaRUJ = exit. KHRAJ = tax. KHiREEJ= graduate MaKHRaJ = place of exit. You get the idea.
Yet it gets crazier, and more beautiful, still.
By voweling this consonal root in different ways, and by adding other consonants as prefixes or suffixes, you place the verb in different measures. Now this is critical: measures are different forms the verb takes to change its meaning. They are one of the main reasons Arabic is such a zany, beautiful (some would say opaquely impenetrable) labyrinth of meaning. There are (I believe) 26 different measures in Classical Arabic. Just thank Allah that the modern Arabs have cut that number down to 10 in Modern Standard. Ten is wild enough. They are explained in the introduction of the Hans Wehr pp. xii - xv. Read these pages. They help explain the signifigance of all the roman numeralled entries in the dictionary.
All of the above means, of course, that an straight, western style alphabetical dictionary is nearly incoherent in Arabic. The fact that verbs all have all the same classes of prefixes, and the same patterns of internal suffixes & suffixes, not to mention complex patterns of conjugation in all the measures & moods, means that you have potentially hundreds of words for each of dozens of prefixes and patterns. And the voweling issue clouds things even further. That's not even to mention further insanity such as irregular nominal plurals, cases (nunation!) & other nominal suffixes (NB: beware verbal nouns.) Our Germanic/Latinate linear methodologies just don't apply very neatly. Better to approach the system as it's organized: radically.
Better to go from the heart from which all the meaning radiates, the root system, and classify words thereby. The roots are all listed alphabetically, but their relatives are all listed under them. Thus nouns like MaKTaB, MaKTaBA, KiTAB, and even more complex permutations such as AKTiTAB (registration) or ASTiKTAB (dictation), etc. will all be found under KTB on pp. 951 & 952 of Hans. Irregular plurals are of course listed under their singular form.
The nouns are just the appetizer, though.
The real piece de resistance are the aforementioned roman numeralled enteries of the main root entery. These give you the meanings of the measures. Not every verb is put into every measure- some are only in practice used in one or two. KTB is used in the I, II, III, IV, VI, VII, VIII, & Xth measures. Referring to the introduction pp. xii-xv, you see that PP 3rd masc. sing. measure I is KaTaBa, to write. KAaTBa is measure III, which means to correspond. VI, TaKATBa also means to correspond (get used to redundancy in Arabic, as well as *ahem* apparent contradiction.. You will learn to savour repetition & ambiguity!) Measure X, ASTaKTaBa means to dictate..
And so forth.
Abberations, cognates and foreign words - which ironically will probably throw you for a loop quicker than native Arab ones will - are listed in straight alphabetical fashion among the roots.
You have to begin to learn the morphology, learn to i.d. roots in your sleep, and internalize the patterns. Then pick up the Hans Wehr and let the fun begin!
At DLI one of our profs has created a "Conjugations of the Ten Measures" verb chart which is requisite to fully & easily utilizing this dictionary, especially for beginning and intermediate students. It apparently exists in no other place. I don't know why there isn't one in the Hans, seeing as how all those nutty German positivists have seemingly considered & fully classified nearly everything else. Try googling it, maybe you can dig it up online. Or else try to run a DLI Arabic alum down, and get a copy off him or her. If all else fails, you can perhaps construct a similar chart using the Hans (again, pp. xii - xv) and a good grammar book. I have my chart sealed to the back of my dictionary for easy reference.
This dictionary strips the patterns of the Arab language bare. This incredible semantic superstructure is one even many native speaking Arabs are mostly unaware of. Still, sometimes - okay, maybe often - this dictionary (like scientific things can so often do) kills the puppy, dissects it, and gives you a chart. But the essence of that puppy isn't in the chart. It's a more metaphysical reality. A living, breathing, wriggling thing, one that requires much more intuition than logic to understand.. The Arab language is just such a reality. Another semantic universe, truly exotic to an English speaking mind, a vivid poetic wonder.
You know, studying Arabic is a real pleasure. It's truly sublime.
Anyway, this is the dictionary you must own if you are in any way serious about Arabic. Using it can be a both exhilarating (no joke) yet exasperating and loopy experience, given how it represents the culmination of centuries of Orientalist scholarship.. Which means it is both a huge triumph, yet somehow simultaneously a subtle subterranean disaster. The Teutonic mania for clinical order and classification creasing into the envelopping cyclically anarchic mystery of the Semitic mind... Or something like that.
In any case, it is a masterpiece, which is good seeing as how it's apparently nearly all we've got.
This is simply indispensable...the best! October 2, 2000
L. Feld (Arlington, VA)
48 out of 52 found this review helpful
The Hans Wehr Arabic-English dictionary is simply the best...and totally indispensable. I don't know how you cold get by learning Arabic without it! I studied Arabic for several years, and got more use out of this dictionary than out of any other reference source BY FAR. If you don't believe me, I wish I could show you a picture of my dictionary now -- it's been used so much it's in pieces (obviously, I need to go out and buy a new one!). The most difficult thing (which can get frustrating, but like a puzzle, once you unlock the secret, everything starts clicking into place) is you've got to know the root of a word in order to find it in here. But that's the challenge -- and beauty -- of Arabic, possibly the world's richest, most poetic, amazing language; once you know the root a whole world of rich variations on the basic root meaning (i.e. DRS=study; mudarris=teacher, or one who MAKES you study!) starts to open up. No matter what level of Arabic you're at, you need this dictionary!
There's only one Hans Wehr January 24, 1999
29 out of 31 found this review helpful
I've been using this dictionary for four years and i've used other dictionaries as well. The Al-Mawrid Arabic-English dictionary may have just as many words in it or more, but the definitions are actually definitions in this dictionary (not just synonyms). I like the compactness of this dictionary, it's easy to carry around and store yet comprehensive enough to find virtually any Arabic word if you know the root. There has never been a word I couldn't find in it after I knew the proper root of an Arabic word.
By far the best July 28, 2005
B. Wilson (Georgia)
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
I learned Arabic at the Defense Language Institute where they've used Hans Wehr for some time. At first I must say that it is quite hard to use until you've learned how to derive the root from a word, the alphabet of course, forms of words, and verb measures. Therefore I would definitely advise you to start with a cheap dictionary which is more easily understandable, at least until you learn the basics. Having said that, I have to tell you that anyone who says this is not a good dictionary was most likely just frustrated because they had not learned the basics yet. If you look the reviews, you'll notice that most complaints were from people trying to learn Arabic from the beginning with Hans Wehr. You'll also notice that anyone even remotely familiar with Arabic can't seem to praise it enough. Thats because once you're through learning the root system you are going to realize that the Hans Wehr is by far the most comprehensive and useful dictionary you'll find unless you're studying a very technical or esoteric subject. I guarantee that once you get your foundation in the language and have used this dictionary for a little while, other dictionaries will simply piss you off with how superficial and disconnected they seem. Just give it a little time.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 71
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