All sayings · What They Said About the Arabs and Arabic

What others said about Arabic Read in the original

“This enthusiasm seems to have been well merited. There is no doubt that the Arabic language is undergoing a renaissance, and there is every likelihood of its again becoming a great literary vehicle. This renaissance will be greatly aided by the reproduction in it of the great European classics, which still retain their place as the basis of the higher education and as models of taste and style.”

D. S. Margoliouth
D. S. Margoliouth
1858–1940
British orientalist, Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford (1889–1937).

In Arabic

ويبدو أنّ هذه الحماسة كانت في محلّها تماماً؛ فلا شكّ أنّ اللغة العربيّة تمرُّ بنهضةٍ، وكلُّ الدلائل تشير إلى أنّها ستعودُ أداةً أدبيّةً عظيمة. وسيُعين هذه النهضةَ كثيراً نقلُ روائعِ الأدب الأوروبيّ الكلاسيكيّ إليها، وهي ما زالت تحتفظ بمكانتها أساساً للتعليم العالي ونماذجَ للذوق والأسلوب.

Source

Review of al-Bustānī's Arabic Iliad (Cairo 1904), Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Notices of Books, pp. 417–423, London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1905, p. 418

«This enthusiasm» is that of the Cairo writers who feted the Arabic Iliad. Nicholson quotes the sentence in 1907.

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