[Jean-Joseph Marcel (1776-1854)].

Vocabulaire français-arabe, contenant les mots principaux et d’un usage plus journalier.

Au Kaire, de l'Imprimerie Nationale, An VII [1798/1799].

12° in 8s and 4s. 80 pp. The final leaf contains errata. Collates: A-A8, B-I4.

Sewn in stiff paper wrappers.

First edition of the earliest printed French-Arabic dictionary, and notably, the first dictionary ever printed in any language within the Arab world. It stands as one of the rare Cairo imprints produced before the Cairo Revolt of October 21-22, 1798, with the press having been installed only at the beginning of that month. Among all known Franco-Egyptian printed works, this dictionary is of the utmost historical importance and has been extensively studied, most recently by the Rachel Mairs.[1]
Among the scientists brought by Napoleon on the Syria Campaign was the Arabist linguist Jean-Joseph Marcel, a journalist fluent in Arabic with experience as a print manager. He was appointed to establish and oversee printing operations in Egypt, and he was provided with four presses and a staff of 22 to work with.
The first press was set up in Alexandria in July 1798, where they produced two Arab language books. However, during this early stage their use of Arabic was rife with error. In addition to much of the awkwardly translated Arabic wording being unsound grammatically, often the printed texts were so poorly constructed that they were undecipherable. This was perceived as an outrageous insult by the Egyptian people. With the present Vocabulaire, Marcel sought to overcome this problem by studying the language as it was spoken by the local population, and he succeeded in doing so. Thus, this pocket-sized work became an essential and practical tool for communication with the people. It is likely that extensive day-to-day use of copies has contributed to its current rarity.

“The Vocabulaire français-arabe, contenant les mots principaux et d’un usage plus journalier (offered here) is entirely in transliteration and explains the pronunciation of Arabic. As well as trying to describe to a French speaker how to pronounce Arabic, Marcel describes differences in pronunciation between Arabic dialects. Although French scholarship was, of course, aware of dialectal differences in modern spoken Arabic, Marcel is innovative in trying to help the user ‘perform’ the language in a social context, without judging the vernacular merely as a degraded form of the Classical.
When he arrived in Alexandria, as noted above, he had set himself to studying the local dialect. His Vocabulaire is the product of this. If one reads his text aloud, pronouncing the words in the way a French speaker would, then the result is something recognisable in Arabic – which is more than can be said for many later phrasebooks. He provides variants which the user might hear. The vocabulary section of the book contains 54 pages of useful, practical words, covering topics such as the natural world, food and drink, family, the professions and military terminology. There follow 16 pages of forms of common verbs, in the past and present tense, imperative, and active and passive participles, as appropriate. The book concludes with eight pages of phrases, on essentials such as eating, drinking, travelling and learning Arabic.” (see Rachel Mairs). The final leaf in our copy contains errata.

Literature:

Rachel Mairs, Arabic Dialogues: Phrasebooks and the Learning of Colloquial Arabic, 1798-1945. UCL Press, 2024.

Schnurrer 141.

Condition: covers and title-page slightly soiled, sporadic minor stains throughout. Various leaves partially detached from the lower two of the three stitching points. Otherwise in very good condition with no damage to text whatsoever.

Copies:  Cambridge, Lyon, Oxford, QNL. BnF: incomplete.