What they said about Arabic From the author's own Arabic
In the preface to his book on drugs – his own first language was Khwarazmian:
“Into the tongue of the Arabs the sciences were carried from every region of the world, and they were adorned by it and settled in hearts, and the beauties of the language flowed through their arteries and veins. Every nation, it is true, finds sweet the language it has grown used to and uses in its affairs with its companions and peers; and I measure this by myself. I was formed in a language in which a science, were it set down, would look as strange as a camel on a rain-spout or a giraffe in a ploughed field; then I moved into Arabic and Persian, and in each I am a stranger who must labour at it. Yet to be satirised in Arabic is dearer to me than to be praised in Persian.”
al-Biruni
d. 440 AH / 1048 CE
Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni, Khwarazmian astronomer, mathematician and pharmacologist
The Arabic original
إِلَى لِسانِ العَرَبِ نُقِلَتِ العُلُومُ مِنْ أَقْطارِ العالَمِ فَازْدانَتْ وَحَلَّتْ فِي الأَفْئِدَةِ وَسَرَتْ مَحاسِنُ اللُّغَةِ مِنْها فِي الشَّرايِينِ وَالأَوْرِدَةِ، وَإِنْ كانَتْ كُلُّ أُمَّةٍ تَسْتَحْلِي لُغَتَها الَّتِي أَلِفَتْها وَاعْتادَتْها وَاسْتَعْمَلَتْها فِي مَآرِبِها مَعَ أُلّافِها وَأَشْكالِها؛ وَأَقِيسُ هَذا بِنَفْسِي، وَهِيَ مَطْبُوعَةٌ عَلَى لُغَةٍ لَوْ خُلِّدَ بِها عِلْمٌ لَاسْتُغْرِبَ اسْتِغْرابَ البَعِيرِ عَلَى المِيزابِ وَالزَّرافَةِ فِي الكِرابِ، ثُمَّ مُنْتَقِلَةٌ إِلَى العَرَبِيَّةِ وَالفارِسِيَّةِ، فَأَنا فِي كُلِّ واحِدَةٍ دَخِيلٌ وَلَها مُتَكَلِّفٌ، وَالهَجْوُ بِالعَرَبِيَّةِ أَحَبُّ إِلَيَّ مِنَ المَدْحِ بِالفارِسِيَّةِ
Source
al-Biruni, Kitab al-Saydana fi al-Tibb, ed. Abbas Zaryab, Tehran: Markaz-i Nashr-i Danishgahi, 1991, introduction ch. 5, p. 14
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
Checked against Abbas Zaryab's edition (Tehran 1991, p. 14); not linked, as the edition is in copyright and no authorised copy is online. Shawqi Dayf quotes slightly different wording; the text given here is the edition's.
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