What they said about Arabic From the author's own Arabic
Discussing how Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac came to differ:
“Most of a language falls away and dies when its people’s state falls, when others enter their homes, or when they are moved from their lands and mixed with others. What holds fast a nation’s language, its sciences and its history is the strength of its state and the energy and leisure of its people. As for those whose state has perished, whose enemy has prevailed over them, and who are taken up with fear, need, humiliation and serving their enemies – the death of their minds is assured, and that may well cause their language to go, their genealogies and history to be forgotten and their sciences to perish.”
Ibn Hazm
d. 456 AH / 1064 CE
ʿAli ibn Ahmad of Cordoba, Zahiri jurist and man of letters, author of al-Muhalla and The Ring of the Dove.
The Arabic original
فَإِنَّ اللُّغَةَ يَسْقُطُ أَكْثَرُها وَيَبْطُلُ بِسُقُوطِ دَوْلَةِ أَهْلِها، وَدُخُولِ غَيْرِهِمْ عَلَيْهِمْ فِي مَساكِنِهِمْ، أَوْ بِنَقْلِهِمْ عَنْ دِيارِهِمْ وَاخْتِلاطِهِمْ بِغَيْرِهِمْ؛ فَإِنَّما يُقَيِّدُ لُغَةَ الأُمَّةِ وَعُلُومَها وَأَخْبارَها قُوَّةُ دَوْلَتِها وَنَشاطُ أَهْلِها وَفَراغُهُمْ. وَأَمّا مَنْ تَلِفَتْ دَوْلَتُهُمْ، وَغَلَبَ عَلَيْهِمْ عَدُوُّهُمْ، وَاشْتَغَلُوا بِالخَوْفِ وَالحاجَةِ وَالذُّلِّ وَخِدْمَةِ أَعْدائِهِمْ، فَمَضْمُونٌ مِنْهُمْ مَوْتُ الخَواطِرِ، وَرُبَّما كانَ ذَلِكَ سَبَباً لِذَهابِ لُغَتِهِمْ وَنِسْيانِ أَنْسابِهِمْ وَأَخْبارِهِمْ وَبُيُودِ عُلُومِهِمْ.
Source
Ibn Hazm, al-Ihkam fi usul al-ahkam, ed. Ahmad Muhammad Shakir, Beirut: Dar al-Afaq al-Jadida, vol. 1, p. 32
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
Ibn Hazm speaks of languages in general; modern writers often cite it about Arabic.
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