What others said about Arabic Read in the original
Answering the scholars of Europe, who read Avicenna and Rhazes in crude medieval Latin translations and scorned the Arabs as barbarous:
“But, someone will say, who does not know that to the common people the name of the Arabs sounds, is heard as, and means nothing but barbarous, rude and uncultivated? There is some truth in this, but I openly deny that it is true without qualification. For this is not the fault of the Arabs but of the translators. The Arabs, in their time the most learned, the sharpest and the most cultivated writers of all, have through the carelessness and ignorance of translators acquired the name of barbarism, which can hardly be washed away. The learned know this, and have testified to it in published writings.”
William Bedwell
1563 – 1632
English clergyman, mathematician and Semitist, known as the father of Arabic studies in England.
Original text — Latin
At quis nescit, dicat quis, Arabum nomen apud vulgus aliud nihil, quàm barbarum, rude, & incultum sonare, audire, significare? Verum hoc quidem parte quadam, at in vniuersum hoc verum esse apertè nego. Arabum enim hæc culpa non est, sed interpretum. Arabes enim, scriptores omnium suo tempore doctissimi, acutissimi, cultissimi, interpretum oscitantia & inscitia, cognomen barbariei, vix eluendum, contraxerunt. Hoc docti nôrunt, & publicis scriptis testati sunt.
In Arabic
فإن قيل: ومَن لا يعلم أنّ اسمَ العرب عند العامّة لا يعني إلّا البربريَّ الجافيَ الغليظ؟ قلتُ: لهذا وجهٌ من الصحّة، أمّا أن يصحّ على الإطلاق فأنكره صراحة. فليس هذا ذنبَ العرب، بل ذنبُ المترجمين. فالعربُ، وكانوا أعلمَ الكتّاب جميعاً في زمانهم وأحدَّهم ذهناً وأرقاهم، لحقهم من غفلة المترجمين وجهلهم لقبُ البربريّة، وهو لقبٌ لا يكاد يُمحى. وهذا يعرفه العلماء، وقد شهدوا به في كتبهم المنشورة.
Source
D. Iohannis apostoli et evangelistae epistolae catholicae omnes, Arabicè, «Ad pium lectorem Praefatio», Leiden: Ex officina Plantiniana Raphelengii, 1612, p. p. 5
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
Bedwell was urging Europeans to learn Arabic; he was a clergyman writing for Christian readers, and his preface opens with hostile words about Islam, so this is the testimony of an adversary, not an admirer. The translators he blames are the medieval Latin translators of Arabic books. Translation from the Latin by Voice of Arabic.
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