Focus of Concern of Ibn Makkī’s Taṯqīf al-lisān: The Case of Gender in the Medieval Arabic of Sicily

The paper is concerned with Ibn Makkī ṣ-Ṣiqillī (d. 501/1107)’s Taqfīf al-Lisān, a work that aims to correct dialectisms that occur among the ʿāmma (common people) of Muslim Sicily (213-485/827-1091). It forms part of the laḥn al-ʿāmma (Verbal Mistakes of the Common People) literary genre and is the product of the divergent regional dialects of immigrants pouring into the island of Sicily and their intimate contact with the new Sicilian converts to Islam, who were attempting with only limited success, to learn Arabic for religious and commercial purposes.