In the Middle East Sibawayh ( سیبویه ) made a detailed description of Arabic in 760 AD in his monumental work , Al-kitab fi al-nahw ( الكتاب في النحو , The Book on Grammar ) , the first known author to distinguish between sounds and phonemes ( sounds as units of a linguistic system ) .
In the Middle East , Sibawayh ( سیبویه ) wrote a book about Arabic in 760 AD called Al-kitab fi al-nahw ( الكتاب في النحو , The Book on Grammar ) ; he was the first known author to talk about the difference between sounds and phonemes .