Early Arabic-Persian Lexicography: The asāmī and maṣādir Genres

In the genesis and systematization of New Persian, the principal vehicle of Eastern Islamic literature from the 4th/10th century, the Arabic language sciences naturally served as models for the organization and metalanguage of their counterparts in Persian.  Lexicography is a field where one would expect an initial dependence on Arabic models.  The early period of Arabic-Persian lexicography (ca. 1040-1280 CE) is contemporaneous with the middle period of a still vigorous and changing tradition of Arabic monolingual lexicography, involving some of the same scholars; in addition, several peculiarities of arrangement in Arabic dictionaries have their counterparts in Arabic-Persian dictionaries. This paper assesses whether this similarity is the result of unthinking imitation or a conscious adoption or adaptation of tried and trusted methods; and to what extent some quite different methods were more suitable to Persian lexicographic needs.