Arabic Beyond the Arabs
A Cordoban who complained of Arabic
قسٌّ من قرطبة يشكو من العربيّة
In 854 Paul Alvarus, a Christian of Córdoba, wrote a Latin book lamenting the young men of his community. He saw them reading Arabic poetry and studying Muslim books to learn eloquence, and spending fortunes on Arabic libraries. Scarcely one in a thousand, he said, could write a decent letter in Latin, while many composed Arabic verse finer in craft than the Arabs' own. He wrote it not in praise but in warning, which is why historians believe him.
- In brief
- The truest witness to the beauty of Arabic came from a man who feared it (854)
- Outside Arabic
- Indiculus luminosus, 35
«جميعُ فتيان النصارى الذين يمتازون بنبوغهم لا يعرفون إلّا اللغةَ والآدابَ العربيّة… إنّ النصارى أهملوا لغتهم حتّى نسوها تمامًا.»
The quotation is Pérès's free Arabic; the Latin original, Indiculus luminosus § 35, is in «What They Said About Arabic» from Migne's edition. The date of the book (854) and of Alvarus's death (c. 861) are not from the lecture, which wrongly says the second century AH.
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Sources
- هنري بيريس، مجلّة المجمع العلميّ العربيّ ١٩/٩ (١٩٤٤م)، ص٤٠١
- Indiculus luminosus, § 35, Patrologia Latina 121, cols. 555–556
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