Introduction

Scholars have long acknowledged that the discipline of Biblical Hebrew grammar inherited many concepts and terms from the Arabic grammatical tradition of the Middle Ages. What has garnered less attention, however, is the respective language ideologies of each of these communities, and particularly the influence of the latter on the former. After all, language ideology can have a profound impact on how the grammar of a language is institutionalised. This first introductory chapter thus introduces the relevance of these issues along with an outline of the rest of the book.