Talk:Jonah ibn Janah

Jonah ibn Janah has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: March 1, 2018. (Reviewed version).

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A fact from Jonah ibn Janah appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 31 March 2018 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that Jonah ibn Janah, one of the most important medieval Hebrew grammarians, wrote his major works in Arabic? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2018/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Jonah ibn Janah.

As it stands today, this looks awful. It is full of abbreviations and almost no punctuation. It is hard to read. Is it someone's lecture notes? Did someone scan it with OCR and then failed to proofread it? It even has four paragraphs at the end which are not in English -- I guess it is Spanish; if so, it belongs in Spanish Wikipedia, not English Wikipedia.

So I looked at the History page, and compared the current version (last changed in November 2010) to a previous version (October 2010). It appears that this writer removed all the double brackets signifying wikilinks, removed all the braces signifying templates, removed most of the punctuation, but left the text of the wikilinks and templates. Don't people use the Preview button any more? Or was this the work of some malicious bot?

They also removed the Hebrew and Arabic versions of the subject's name. I think the originals of translitrated names are helpful to those readers who can read them. (It would be even better if the vowel points were added, if these are known.)

And then they added a Spanish translation, which does not belong here.

In a few days, I may revert. Any objections? --- Solo Owl (talk) 00:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This review is

transcluded from Talk:Jonah ibn Janah/GA1

. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: HaEr48 (talk · contribs) 06:33, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take this review. Expect comments in the next few days. HaEr48 (talk) 06:33, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Initial review

Hmm let's see. The subject is certainly notable. The prose generally is well-written and complies with the manual of style. Facts are well cited to scholarly sources, no OR or copyvio is apparent, the writing is neutral, and the article is stable from edit warring. However, I have some concern about the coverage. The article only covered his early life, two of his works, and then legacy. Maybe it's because the bibliography contain mostly works about linguistics and Hebrew, and not so much biography. Please compare with biographical articles about him (e.g. the Jewish encyclopedia: Ibn Janah, Abu al-Walid Merwan, Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World: Ibn Janāḥ, Jonah, and others, you'll see that the Wikipedia article has some gaps on the biographical information.

In addition, some specific feedbacks:

• The Arabic and Hebrew book titles need English titles.
• The main book titles are in Arabic, is it because he wrote in Arabic? I think this is an interesting fact that deserves mentioning.
• Was Cordoba and Saragossa under different entities in 1012? Which entity/ruler expelled him from cordoba? Also, the Jewish Encyclopedia article (linked above) said that he did not directly move to Saragossa, but wandered first before settling there. Please mention this.

“Although ibn Janah had intended this to be an uncontroversial, supportive work” -> Is this the consensus opinion among scholars? Why is it called “Book of criticism” if it’s “uncontroversial” and “supportive”? and then there’s the fact that it actually triggered controversy.

• Talk about his physician career? It seems he also wrote another book, “Kitab al-Talkhis” on medicine
• Any family? employers? students?
• Kitab al-Mustalbag -> I’ve seen sources spelling this book as “Mustalha”, “Mustalhak” or “Mustalhag”, but never “Mustalbag”. Please double check your source.
• Can you further describe further the relation between Hayyuj’s work and Mustalha? The article mentioned that it criticized or supplements previous work by Hayyuj, but it’s not clear what the previous work by Hayyuj was and how ibn Janah’s work caused controversy. I doubt it was only because ibn Janah added 50 new word roots?
• How does ibn Janah prove that root words were consistently trilateral against the opinion of previous scholars?
• “Sefer HaHashva'ah” Can you include an English translation of this title? This title is in Hebrew, was it written in Hebrew or in Arabic (like the rest of his writing)?
• Kitab al-Anqih: Please translate this title as well as the titles of its subbooks: Kitab al-Luma and al-Usul
• Abraham ibn Ezra strongly rejecting it and calling it "madness" that could lead to heresy. -> Please explain why ibn Ezra strongly opposed this. It’s not clear to a lay reader how the concept lexical substitution could lead to heresy.
• Does “Babylonian works” mean the works of the people of Babylonia? Or the Jewish people of Babylonia
• The legacy section contains praises of his work, but make sure it also includes criticism and limitations of his work. For example, the JE article mentioned the limitation that he did not discuss vowels and accents.
• Discuss works other than the two included in the article
• Discuss his personal views (academic or otherwise).
• Did his works continue to influence the Jewish scholarship after reprinting in 19th-20th century?

-- HaEr48 (talk) 17:07, 13 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Failing

Failing this review. It's been more than a week after the initial comments, I've tried reaching out via User talk:Xuháska, but it seems that the user is inactive and there's little chance of the review being actioned anytime soon. To nominator: When you come back please take a look at the reviews above. I believe this article has potential. HaEr48 (talk) 22:41, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In this diff, I replaced a paragraph that suggested that ibn Janah became unpopular due to shift to Ashkenazi scholarship which did not read Arabic, to another that describe him as being popularized even outside the Arabic-speaking world. It is true that the Scherman source suggested the unpopularity as suggested by the prev version of this paragraph, but Brisman and Martínez-Delgado both argued the opposite. Translations and the migration by Spanish-Jewish scholars to the rest of Europe made ibn Janah's works universally popular. Since these two sources are (1) newer, (2) written by more academic writers, (3) published by more scholarly publishers, and (4) 2 > 1, I think we should follow them over Scherman. HaEr48 (talk) 07:16, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This review is

transcluded from Talk:Jonah ibn Janah/GA2

. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Iazyges (talk · contribs) 16:35, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Will start soon. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 16:35, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Criteria

• No DAB links Y
• No Dead links Y
• Images appropriately licensed Y
• I will be passing the review now, then adding prose suggestions at a later date. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 14:47, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Prose Suggestions

• ibn Janah trained there under Isaac ibn Gikatilla and Isaac ibn Mar Saul before moving out around 1012 due to the city's sacking. suggest ibn Janah was mentored there by Isaac ibn Gikatilla and Isaac ibn Mar Saul, before he moved around 1012, due to the sacking of the city.
• Other than the medical profession, suggest Aside from his work in medicine,
• @HaEr48: That is all my comments. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 07:39, 6 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Iazyges: Adopted your suggestions. Thanks for the review! HaEr48 (talk) 20:52, 6 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]