CLEYNAERTS, Nicolas. (With) CALIGNY, Alain Restauld de.

£2,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

Two very rare Hebrew grammars, the first a scarce edition of Cleynaert s extremely popular Hebrew grammar, first published 1529, bound with the second recorded edition ( tertia editio on title-page) of a rare grammar first published 1541. Both are aimed at beginners, starting with the alphabet. However, while Cleynaert spends a great deal of time on nouns and their declinations - his book must have been useful to learners principally because of its extensive tables of declinations, with attention to the changes in accents or punctuation - before moving onto verbs, de Caligny moves straight onto verbs, only then dealing with nouns as they are used in relation to verbs, adverbs, pronouns and prepositions, etc.. Cleynaerts, a wonderfully prolific author, was an eccentric figure who saw linguistic scholarship as a means of peaceful mediation between Christians, Jews and Muslims, as well as a means to proselytization. Educated at Leuven in his native Brabant, he first travelled in Spain, where he applied in vain to read Arabic manuscripts in the library of the Inquisition, before going to Fez in Morocco, where he insisted on living in the Jewish (rather than the official Christian) quarter. Despite suffering abuse from local Jews, he found some who were willing to teach him Arabic in return for tuition in Latin, but was unsuccessful in his attempts to buy Arabic books from the bookstalls of the Great Mosque, since non-Muslims were banned. He returned to Granada after just over a y

• Binding: Hardcover

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