Cosmopolitan Philology Karla Mallette, University of Michigan This is the pre-print version of an article that appeared in postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies 5 (winter 2014). The publisher-authenticated version of “Cosmopolitan Philology” is available online at http://www.palgrave-journals.com/pmed/journal/v5/n4/full/pmed201429a.html Abstract This essay studies the Arabic-English Lexicon (1863-1893), a monumental dictionary of classical Arabic created by Edward William Lane (1801-1876), in order to discuss the constitution of Arabic as a cosmopolitan language. And it examines parenthetically the efforts made by novelist and newspaperman Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq (1804-1887) to rejuvenate Arabic as a modern cosmopolitan language. The essay is particularly interested in the temporal dynamic of the cosmopolitan language. Because it is not connected to contemporary usage in a specific region, a cosmopolitan language – like literary Arabic – is able to maintain a dynamic connection between multiple historical eras. Its historical scope is viewed as a weakness by national language ideology, which promotes the mother tongue as the only viable literary language. The essay focuses on the celebration of the historical depth and richness of the cosmopolitan language by its champions and practitioners, like Lane and al-Shidyāq.