The Syriac Chronicle

It would be long to recount how he adds new meanings to already known roots; how he confirms roots and meanings doubted by lexicographers; how he supplies Syriac verbal conjugations and proves that certain verbs were also used in Pael a Syriac intensive verb form or Ethpaal a reflexive-passive verb form and Aphel a causative verb form; how he attaches derivatives to primitives, or places primitives from which they flowed before certain derivatives that appeared in the lexicon; and indeed, not rarely, introduces entirely new ones. Among these new entries are such that clarify the ratio of coins and measures, and which, if one were allowed to pursue this subject, should be placed separately as a third utility. For Abulpharagius loves to add notes here and there in his Syriac Chronicle by which the ratio of both coins and measures is explained. For the sake of example, I will touch upon some of them. That ܟܟܪܐ kikkar/talent signifies a cushion, that Castell has; but that the same word signifies the same thing as the Mongolian word used by Abulpharagius in the Arabic text, namely بالبليش bal-bilish, that is, a talent, you would seek in vain. Much less can he teach, which is also missing in the Arabic text, how many denarii, or zuzim, or dirhems such a kikkar equaled. Bar-Hebraeus teaches this. On page 442, lines 9, 10, and 16, he says there were two kinds of talents, silver and gold, of which the former equaled 700 zuzim and the latter 700 mithqalim a unit of weight, often for gold. That ܚܘܪܐ hwara signifies white, Castell says, but that this word also denotes a certain silver coin, he does not say. Michaelis added this from Assemanus, who in his Oriental Library affirms that hwara is worth the sixtieth part of a Seville crown, commonly Pezza Sivigliana da otto. From Bar-Hebraeus we learn that this is either entirely false (for I have often found that little faith should be placed in Assemanus regarding rare words or the meanings of words), because then hwara would be a coin of very small value, or, if it is true, hwara also denotes a dirhem.