Roots · a Light

Arabic dictionaries file every word under a three letter root

Ibn Manzur, an Egyptian judge who died around 1311, spent much of his life compiling Lisan al-Arab, which fills twenty volumes in modern printings. It is not alphabetical in the way an English dictionary is. Words are filed under their root, usually three consonants, so that everything grown from k t b sits in one place: kataba, he wrote; kitab, a book; katib, a writer; maktab, a desk or an office; maktaba, a library; kitaba, the act of writing. Looking a word up means first stripping it back to its skeleton, which is a small act of analysis. The reader who finds the word also finds its relatives, and the relatives usually explain it.

Ibn Manzur · Lisan al-Arab, c. 1311