SOUSA, Joao de.

Vestigios da lingua arabica em Portugal, ou lexicon etymologico das palavras, e nomes portuguezes, que tem origem arabica, composito por ordem da Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, por Fr. Joaõ de Sousa, correspondente de numero da mesma sociedade, e interprete de S. Magestade para a lingua arabica.

Lisbon, Officina da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1789. 4to (205 x 150 mm), pp. xx, 160; twentieth-century reddish brown buckram, spine faded; from the library of the Royal Society of London (with its cancellation stamp) to which it had been presented by Sir Joseph Banks, with presentation mark. First edition. The first etymological dictionary of Portuguese words with Arabic origins written by one of the leading Arabic scholars of eighteenth-century Portugal. The lexicon is organised alphabetically in Portuguese, and gives the equivalent Arabic word or source, a transliteration and a description of the word’s meaning and origins. In the Vestigios, Joaõ de Sousa emphasises the immense effects that nearly six hundred years of Moorish occupation had upon Portugal, both linguistically and culturally.A talented linguist from an early age, Joaõ de Sousa was sent to Lisbon from his home and birthplace, Damascus, at the age of sixteen on the recommendation of his Capuchin teachers, who had been impressed by the speed with which Sousa had learnt Spanish, Italian and French. On arriving in Lisbon he was taken on by the family of Joaõ de Saldanha de Oliveira e Sousa (later first Count of Rio Maior), whose name Sousa later adopted. After a brief spell teaching at the convent of N. Sa. de Jesus da Ordem Terceira da Penitência, he joined the Academia Real das Ciências and became the official interpreter for the Estado da Marinha e dos Negócios Ultramarinos. The Portuguese had many trading ties with northern Africa at the time and Sousa was employed on two diplomatic missions through which he managed to perfect his North African Arabic. He later became professor of Arabic at Lisbon University, where he published many important works on the language, the first being the Vestigios.Azevedo-Samodaes 3243 (second edition, 1830, only); Innocencio IV 1323; Palau 320778; Palha 673; Schnurrer, Bibliotheca arabica 129.

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• ordernr.: T2080

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