“We ask scholars of Arabic whose origin is non-Arab, and who were trained in their own language before they took up Arabic, about the two languages: they will not put them side by side — they will hardly even accept the question, so remote does it seem to them, so far does the subtlety of Arabic stand ahead in their judgement and their feeling. I asked Abu 'Ali about this more than once, and his answer was much as I have related.”

Ibn Jinni

d. 392 AH / 1002 CE

Abu al-Fath 'Uthman ibn Jinni, master grammarian and morphologist

The Arabic original

وَذَلِكَ أَنّا نَسْأَلُ عُلَماءَ العَرَبِيَّةِ مِمَّنْ أَصْلُهُ عَجَمِيٌّ، وَقَدْ تَدَرَّبَ بِلُغَتِهِ قَبْلَ اسْتِعْرابِهِ، عَنْ حالِ اللُّغَتَيْنِ، فَلا يَجْمَعُ بَيْنَهُما، بَلْ لا يَكادُ يَقْبَلُ السُّؤالَ عَنْ ذَلِكَ؛ لِبُعْدِهِ فِي نَفْسِهِ، وَتَقَدُّمِ لُطْفِ العَرَبِيَّةِ فِي رَأْيِهِ وَحِسِّهِ. سَأَلْتُ غَيْرَ مَرَّةٍ أَبا عَلِيٍّ عَنْ ذَلِكَ، فَكانَ جَوابُهُ عَنْهُ نَحْواً مِمّا حَكَيْتُهُ.