8vo. 296 pp., Arabic text within borders, edited by Nasif al-Yazigi, contemporary embossed green cloth, faded and rubbed, contents page torn without loss, paper browned & foxed throughout, privately printed, Beirut, 1882.

Synopsis

Nasif Al-Yaziji (1800-1871) was an Arab philologist, poet and journalist. He was an editor of several newspapers and magazines such as Nagah, Tabib, Diya, and was instructed by Jesuits to translate the Bible into Arabic. The translation, from 1876 to 1880, was published linguistically richer than the first translation of the Protestants. It was the second translation of the Bible in the Arabic language.
One of Yaziji’s most significant innovations was the creation of a greatly simplified Arab font. By reducing Arabic character forms from 300 to 60 he simplified the symbols so that they resembled more closely Latin characters. It was a process that contributed to the creation of the Arabic typewriter.