Judah ibn Kuraish

Life & Legacy

Judah ibn Kuraish (Hebrew: יהודה אבן קריש, Arabic: يهوذا بن قريش, fl. 8th-9th centuries CE), was an Algerian-Jewish grammarian and lexicographer. He was born at Tiaret in Algeria and flourished in the 9th century. While his grammatical works advanced little beyond his predecessors, he was the first to study comparative philology in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. He recognized that the various Semitic languages are derived from one source and that although they are different in their development, they are subject to the same linguistic laws. Judah's grammatical researches were original, and he maintained his views regardless of the Mishnah and the Talmud so he has been erroneously considered a Karaite.