DUNASH = ADONIM BEN TAMIM, the Baby lonian, was born at Irak about 90o A.D., and died about 960. He was educated when a youth at Kainvan, by the celebrated Isaac Israeli, who in structed him in metaphysics, medicine, and philo logy. He distinguished himself in his studies at such an early period that he was enabled to write a very elaborate critique on Saadia's works at the age of twenty. Dunash even became master of the whole cycle of sciences of that day, and was the representative of Jewish literature in the Fatimite dominion. He wrote works on medicine, astro nomy, and on the Indian arithmetic which had then just been introduced, as well as treatises on Hebrew grammar, in which he traced the analogies between the Hebrew and Arabic linguistic pheno mena, and a commentary on the Book of Creation, as Saadia's work on it did not satisfy him. Though his grammatical and exegetical works are still buried somewhere, yet there is no doubt that he greatly contributed to the development of Hebrew lexico graphy, as is evident from the fact that he is quoted by the first expositors. He was the first who main
tained that the Hebrew language has diminutives which are effected by the terminations j1 and jl ad ducing as an instance i5:sinN, 2 Sam. xiii. 20.
Ewald in his Hebrew grammar, c. 167, espouses this opinion, whilst I'm Ezra, who quotes Donash's interpretation of Eccl. xii. 5, disputes altogether the existence of diminutives in Hebrew. Another of Dunash's interpretations is quoted by Ezra on Gen. xxxviii. 9. Comp. Dukes, Literarische Mittheilungen u. s. w., Stuttgart, 1844, p. 116 ; Munk, Notice sur Aboulualid, p. 43-60 ; Graetz, Geschichte, v. p. 350.—C. D. G.