Creator Bio
Judah Ḥayyūj
ca. 945–ca. 1012
Judah Ḥayyūj ben David al-Fāsī, also known as Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā, was a prominent Andalusi grammarian and linguist. Born in Fez, Ḥayyūj moved to Córdoba under the influence of the courtier Ḥasday Ibn Shaprūṭ. Andalusi philologists of the eleventh and twelfth centuries held Ḥayyūj in high esteem, crediting him with discovering and proving that all Hebrew verb roots contain (at least) three letters. Ḥayyūj was apparently the first Andalusi Jew known to write in Arabic. His Book of Small Pearls (Kitāb al-nutaf) employs the methodology of Arabic grammarians. Ḥayyūj seems to have been a student of the grammarian Menaḥem Ibn Sarūq and was involved in the controversy between Menaḥem and Dunash ben Labraṭ.
Content by Judah Ḥayyūj
Primary Source
Book on Verbs That Contain Weak and Lengthening Letters
“Praise be to God: to Him praise is due. He was without beginning and shall be without end, Creator and Ruler of the world. He decrees a thing, and it is established unto Him. He made man by His power…
Primary Source
Letter: On Arabic Meter
Now how can you say that the Arabs’ metre is right in the Hebrew language [ . . . ]. We can know this and study the wise men of the generations who were before us, the makers of rhyme, with whose…