What others said about Arabic Read in the original
In his book British Orientalists:
“The Arabic language, ingenious in structure, at once rigid and sensitive, with its almost unlimited vocabulary to which all the tribes contributed their share of synonyms, being by theological definition a perfect instrument – for the Koran is held to be the very word of God – thus became a subject worthy of study; no occidental literature can in any way bear comparison with Arabic in the fields of grammar, rhetoric, lexicography and all the branches of philology.”
A. J. Arberry
1905–1969
English orientalist, Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, translator of The Koran Interpreted and of the Muʿallaqat.
In Arabic
واللغةُ العربيّة – وهي بارعةُ البناء، صارمةٌ ورهيفةٌ معاً، ذاتُ معجمٍ يكاد لا يُحَدّ، أسهمت فيه القبائلُ كلُّها بنصيبها من المترادفات، وهي بتعريف علم الكلام أداةٌ كاملة، إذ يُعَدّ القرآن كلامَ الله نفسَه – صارت بذلك موضوعاً جديراً بالدرس؛ ولا يقوى أيُّ أدبٍ غربيٍّ على أن يُقارَن بالعربيّة بحالٍ في ميادين النحو والبلاغة والمعجم وفروعِ فقه اللغة جميعاً.
Source
British Orientalists, London: William Collins, 1943, p. 9
Read in the Digital Library of India scan on archive.org. “Literature” here means scholarship in these fields.
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