Islamic Law, Linguistic Complexity and Scientific Knowledge: A Note on an Arabic Zoological List from Ethiopia

Abstract

In the present article a list of Arabic animal names copied in a codex kept in a collection in the town of Agaro (Jimma Zone, Oromia Region) is published and analyzed. Together with the Arabic words, the short text contains also explicatory glosses and translations into Amharic and Oromo. The authors describe the origin and the function of the text, setting it into the wider framework of the production of lists and glossaries in the manuscript traditions of Ethiopia. They then study the structure and content of the list from zoological and linguistic points of view, highlighting the interpretational issues that the author of the text had to face and solve.