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Wilhelm Spitta

فيلهلم شبيتا

Notable figure 1853–1883 · Source: Najib al-Aqiqi, al-Mustashriqun, 3rd ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1964), vol. 2, p. 705; Yahya Murad, Muʿjam asmaʾ al-mustashriqin, p. 728 · Second source: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, GND authority record: Spitta, Wilhelm (1853-1883)

From Germany; worked in Egypt

Field: Phonetics and dialects

Affiliation

Author of the first grammar of Egyptian Arabic (1880)

Biography

He studied under Fleischer in Leipzig and took his doctorate in 1875, the year he was appointed director of the Khedivial Library in Cairo, where he catalogued the Arabic manuscripts until he was removed from Egypt after the ʿUrabi revolt. His Grammatik des arabischen Vulgärdialectes von Aegypten (Leipzig, 1880) was the first scholarly grammar of Egyptian Arabic; he followed it with a collection of modern Arabic tales as texts, and wrote on al-Jawaliqi's al-Muʿarrab.