What others said about Arabic Read in the original
In his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France:
“Chronologically speaking, the Qur’an created neither the Arabic language nor Arabic letters. And yet, in the tremendous blaze of its thunderclap and through the endlessly multiplied echoes it unleashed, it renewed, structured and spread the old language, exalted its literature and created – in the full sense of the word this time – a civilisation.”
André Miquel
1929–2022
French Arabist, holder of the chair of classical Arabic language and literature at the Collège de France and its administrator.
Original text — French
Chronologiquement parlant, le Coran n’a créé ni la langue ni les lettres arabes. Et pourtant, dans l’éclat formidable de son coup de tonnerre et par les échos infiniment multipliés qu’il déchaîna, il a renouvelé, structuré, diffusé le vieux langage, exalté sa littérature et créé, au plein sens du terme cette fois, une civilisation.
In Arabic
من حيث الزمنُ لم يخلق القرآنُ اللغةَ العربيّة ولا آدابَها. ومع ذلك فقد جدّد اللغةَ القديمة ونظّمها ونشرها، بدويّ صاعقته الهائل وبالأصداء التي أطلقها مضاعفةً بلا حدّ، ورفع أدبَها، وخلق- بالمعنى التامّ للكلمة هذه المرّة- حضارة.
Source
Langue et littérature arabes classiques, leçon inaugurale au Collège de France (3 décembre 1976), §5, Paris: Collège de France, 1977, p. §5
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
Translated afresh from the French; the Arabic version in the conference volume misread the sentence.
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