A Review of Linguistic Views in Shams Qays's Al-Mo'jam (Dictionary)

1- Introduction Shams Qays Razi's book entitled Al-Mo'jam fi Ma'ayeer Ash'ar Al-'Ajam (The Dictionary of Criteria for Persian Poems), one of the most important sources of poetics written in the 7th ('AH'), is about eloquence, prosody, and rhyme. In the chapter on rhyme, the author not only discusses about its rules but also about grammar and linguistic issues, which is one of the oldest discussions about the language itself and its developments. Based on a thematic classification in linguistics, the present paper reviews and analyzes Shams Razi's different views. 2- Theoretical Framework The theoretical foundations of the present paper are modern linguistics and its rules which are compared and contrasted with Qays's views. In his book, Shams sometimes mentions some points which can help us pronounce the words correctly and inform us about some issues related to the history of Persian language. The authors try to find his view about standard language of his own time, his familiarity with some features of old Khorasan's dialects, his way of naming phones and prepositions, accuracy or inaccuracy of some of his views in order to know that there were linguistic views about language in old times but with some differences with modern ones. 3- Methodology A descriptive-analytical method is used in this paper. The authors have completely studied Al-Mo'jam and compared and contrasted its author's view with the foundations and rules of linguistics. 4- Results and Discussion Attention to language and rules governing it is one of the most important issues discussed in some old books and texts. The function and features of language have long been noted by literary men, particularly writers. No doubt, past linguistic studies were more about compiling dictionaries, etymology, manner of articulation, some linguistic developments, and writing rules, because written form was more important and considered in the past, not spoken form. Al-Mo'jam, which is about poetics and its different related principles and criteria, provides us with some views about poetic matters, particularly rhyming letters, which altogether can be regarded and studied as sub-classifications of linguistic issues, two important of which will be reviewed in the following parts.   A. Standard Language A brief look at the diversity of texts in previous centuries and their considerable differences shows that Persian language had no single form in early centuries and until the time of compiling Al-Mo'jam to be regarded the standard language cited and referred by all writers. It seems that writers regarded their own knowledge and perception of language and dialect in their own environment as the standard language. Similarly, Shams Qays believed that poetics requires knowing the correct form of words and its combinations, but did not exactly clarify the criterion for correct recognition of "Dari words" which he regarded as standard language. The use of Dari language in poets' and writers' works can be regarded as the criterion for considering it as the standard language of his time.     Incorrect views about Persian language and its power are sometimes seen in Al-Mo'jam, because pervious writers compared Persian language's possibilities, derivation system, and the like with, for example, Arabic, and regarded the latter as the superior one, while linguists believe that there is no superior language. B. Phonemic processes Shams's explanations about rhyming letters clarify some points about phonemes and their changes at that time. He sometimes refers to the points which can help us pronounce the words correctly and inform us about the history of Persian language. One of these points which can be extracted from the text is the existence of some vowels such as unpronounced "w" which is not now present in the Persian language in its historical form and its pronunciation has changed. C. Grammatical points In the chapter on rhyming letters, the author mentions some grammatical points, particularly suffixes and their meaning, which are of great importance due to antiquity of the work. In this part, the author mostly talks about suffixes, because they are placed in the position of rhyming letters. He regards these "affixes" as preposition. 5- Conclusion and Suggestion Altogether, the study of Al-Mo'jam shows that its author pays attention to the features of language and rules governing it to make the rhetorical rules understood. Of course, the terms used in modern linguistics are different from those used in this book and similar ones. Like many other writers of the time, Qays regards the written form as the standard language, while has a side glance at pronunciation and sometimes refers to it. The form called modern standard language can be recognized in Qays's work, which is his own language used in his time and hometown. He pays attention to such phonemic processes as adjunction, reduction and alternation or metathesis and provides some related rules. Some useful grammatical points which can be used in the classification and description of linguistic models in modern grammar can be understood and extracted from the book. He provides some linguistic points and meanings to introduce types of suffixes. The knowledge of these points and his other views are useful and effective in studying historical linguistics of Persian language.