What others said about Arabic Via a reliable witness
“If we except China, there is no other people that may justly take pride, as the Arabs may, in the abundance of its books on the sciences of its language and in its early sense of the need to arrange its vocabulary according to principles and rules.”
August Fischer
1865–1949
Leipzig Arabist who worked for the Cairo Arabic Language Academy on a historical dictionary of classical Arabic.
In Arabic
وَإِذَا اسْتَثْنَيْنَا الصِّينَ فَلَا يُوجَدُ شَعْبٌ آخَرُ يَحِقُّ لَهُ الفَخَارُ بِوَفْرَةِ كُتُبِ عُلُومِ لُغَتِهِ، وَبِشُعُورِهِ المُبَكِّرِ بِحَاجَتِهِ إِلَى تَنْسِيقِ مُفْرَدَاتِهَا، بِحَسَبِ أُصُولٍ وَقَواعِدَ، غَيْرُ العَرَب.
Source
المعجم اللغويّ التاريخيّ، القسم الأوّل، مقدّمة المؤلّف، مجمع اللغة العربيّة، القاهرة ١٣٨٧هـ/١٩٦٧م، ص٤
The Arabic is the Cairo Academy's text; the German original was never published. The English is ours, from the Arabic.
Fischer wrote the introduction in German; the Academy published it in Arabic after his death and the German was never printed. The English is ours, from the Academy's Arabic.
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