What they said about Arabic Via a reliable witness
To the logician Matta ibn Yunus, in their Baghdad debate on Arabic grammar and Greek logic:
“Grammar is a logic, but one drawn out of Arabic; and logic is a grammar, but one understood through language… If you cannot do without a little of this language for the sake of translation, you cannot do without much of it to make the translation sound, win trust and guard against the flaws that follow.”
Abu Saʿid al-Sirafi
d. 368 AH / 979 CE
al-Hasan ibn ʿAbd Allah, commentator on Sibawayh’s Kitab, from Siraf on the Persian coast.
The Arabic original
وَالنَّحْوُ مَنْطِقٌ وَلَكِنَّهُ مَسْلُوخٌ مِنَ العَرَبِيَّةِ، وَالمَنْطِقُ نَحْوٌ وَلَكِنَّهُ مَفْهُومٌ بِاللُّغَةِ… وَإِذا لَمْ يَكُنْ لَكَ بُدٌّ مِنْ قَلِيلِ هَذِهِ اللُّغَةِ مِنْ أَجْلِ التَّرْجَمَةِ، فَلا بُدَّ لَكَ أَيْضاً مِنْ كَثِيرِها مِنْ أَجْلِ تَحْقِيقِ التَّرْجَمَةِ وَاجْتِلابِ الثِّقَةِ وَالتَّوَقِّي مِنَ الخَلَّةِ اللّاحِقَةِ.
Source
Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi, al-Imtaʿ wa-l-muʾanasa, Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAsriyya, 1st ed., 1424 AH, vol. 1, p. 93
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
The debate is recorded by Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi in the eighth night of al-Imtaʿ wa-l-muʾanasa.
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