This essay was written in 1878 by I. Goldziher, who is considered one of the founders and greatest masters of Islamic studies in Europe. He examines the origin and early history of Arabic grammar and some features of its later development with special regard to the cultural historical apsects of the question. Goldziher draws a picture of the most important trends and attitudes in the Arabic linguistics of the Middle Ages. The author's comprehensive historical approach enables him to integrate small, seemingly unconnected pieces into a whole system, fitting into our knowledge of other fields of Islamic culture and science. That is why his work may interest not only specialists of Arab linguistics but also historians of general linguistics and historians of Islam. Although a century and a quarter elapsed since its publication in Hungarian Goldziher's essay still has not become outdated, since no similar work has been published. The original text has been supplemented with amendments and explanations, a comprehensive and updated bibliography has also been added, together with an appendix (the original texts of the citations) and two indices.

While the rabbinic literature is often seen as a collection of miscellaneous responses to questions arising from study of the Hebrew Bible and its application to contemporary life, Neusner sees a system behind and embodied in the various writings. He discusses the ways in which the divine thought, and the human thinking that sought faithfully to interpret it, actually came to expression and treats what he calls the grammar of the divine self-expression in order to help us see the theological structure that it implies. Then he shows how this implicit system is expressed in the rules for the life of the people that God has chosen as his own. --from publisher description.

This work is the first complete description of the language of the golden Heian period (794-1185) to be published in English. It presents an innovative morphological analysis arranged so as to facilitate reference usage and at long last provides a comprehensive reference work for learners and advanced students of classical Japanese. Each linguistic aspect and function, from particles to verb forms, is described in full and illustrated with copious examples. Free of linguistic jargon, the book is accessible not only to students of the language, but also to specialists in literature, history and culture. It features introductory sections on the historical and literary background, and on writing and phonology, a cross-referenced appendix of classical Japanese verb forms, and a detailed index.