Dunash ben Labrat

Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat (920-990) (Hebrew: דוֹנָש הלוי בֵּן לָבְרָט‎‎; Arabic: دناش بن لبراط‎‎) was a medieval Jewish commentator, poet, and grammarian of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. He was, according to Moses ibn Ezra, born in Fes. the name Dunash being of Berber origin. In his youth he travelled to Baghdad to study with Saadia Gaon.

Dunash is called the founder of Andalusian Hebrew poetry. He first introduced Arabic meter into Hebrew poetry. Traditional Arabic poetry was built on interspersing long and short vowels. In contrast, Hebrew distinguishes between the quality of the vowels, rather than their length. Dunash's innovation came in drawing a parallel between the šəwâ (ə) and ḥāṭēp̄ (ĕ/ă/ŏ) and the Arabic short vowels (i/a/u), so as to create a new Hebrew meter. This meter formed the basis for all subsequent medieval Hebrew poetry. At the time, however, it opened him up to severe criticism, particularly among the students of Menahem ben Saruq, that he was corrupting the Hebrew language by introducing Arabic forms, and changing traditional Biblical styles to conform to Arabic meter and rhyming schemes. For instance, in his classic poem "Dror Yikra," he begins the second line: Ne'im shim'chem ("pleasant [is] your name"), with a modifying form of the adjective "pleasant," where properly it should be na'im.

In the field of grammar, Dunash's major work was a book attacking Menahem ben Saruq and his Mahberet ("Notebook") for violating religious standards and opposing the teachings of the sages. He dedicated his work to the leader of the Jews of Spain at the time, Hasdai ibn Shaprut. In his book, he was the first Hebrew grammarian to distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs, the first to list verbs by their three-letter roots in the Paal construction, and the first to distinguish between "light" and "heavy" roots. He also condemned Menahem ben Saruq for failing to see the relationship between Hebrew and Arabic. Dunash also wrote a book containing two hundred reservations about the teachings of his old mentor, Saadia Gaon.

...
Wikipedia