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Arabic in Cards

What They Said About the Arabs and Arabic

161 sayings, each from its source

What Arab and Muslim scholars have said about their language, and what scholars from outside the Arab world have said about it, and about the Arabs and their civilisation. Nothing is published until it was read in its author's own book or in a named, reliable witness; the Western sayings appear in their original languages beside a translation, each with a link to the page of the book.

161 sayings — 75 by Arab and Muslim scholars, 86 by others; 66 read in the original language of their author.

How these sayings were documented

Most sayings of Western scholars about Arabic circulate in Arabic translations taken from secondary sources, and many turned out to add to or cut from the original. We went back to the authors' own books, in scans of their pages, and publish the original text with a faithful translation, noting under each saying where the circulated version departs from it. Sayings whose original we have not yet found are not published.

Read in the original Read in its author's own language (French, German, Latin…) in a scan of the book; the original is printed beside any translation. From the author's own Arabic The author's own Arabic words, read in his book by edition, volume and page; the English is our translation. Narrated with its chain The speaker wrote no book of his own; this is read in a work that narrates it from him with its chain of transmission, by edition, volume and page. Via a reliable witness Reported by a named scholar without a chain, or not found in the author's own work.

Showing 2 of 161 Clear filters

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.”
وَالنَّحْوُ مَنْطِقٌ وَلَكِنَّهُ مَسْلُوخٌ مِنَ العَرَبِيَّةِ، وَالمَنْطِقُ نَحْوٌ وَلَكِنَّهُ مَفْهُومٌ بِاللُّغَةِ.
Abu Saʿid al-Sirafi
d. 368 AH / 979 CE
 Via a reliable witness
When his pupil Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi asked him whether any eloquence surpasses that of the Arabs, he said this could be known only by one who spoke every language with mastery and weighed them one by one; then he said:
“But we have heard many languages from their own people – I mean from their best and most eloquent – and, as far as it appeared and seemed to us, we found no language like Arabic: its ways are wider, its articulation finer, its steps loftier; its letters are more complete, its nouns greater, its meanings deeper, its allusions more comprehensive; and it has this grammar, whose share in it is the share of logic in the mind.”
وَلَكِنْ قَدْ سَمِعْنَا لُغَاتٍ كَثِيرَةً مِنْ أَهْلِهَا، أَعْنِي مِنْ أَفَاضِلِهِمْ وَبُلَغَائِهِمْ، فَعَلَى مَا ظَهَرَ لَنَا وَخُيِّلَ إِلَيْنَا لَمْ نَجِدْ لُغَةً كَالعَرَبِيَّةِ؛ وَذَلِكَ لِأَنَّهَا أَوْسَعُ مَنَاهِجَ، وَأَلْطَفُ مَخَارِجَ، وَأَعْلَى مَدَارِجَ، وَحُرُوفُهَا أَتَمُّ، وَأَسْمَاؤُهَا أَعْظَمُ، وَمَعَانِيهَا أَوْغَلُ، وَمَعَارِيضُهَا أَشْمَلُ، وَلَهَا هَذَا النَّحْوُ الَّذِي حِصَّتُهُ مِنْهَا حِصَّةُ المَنْطِقِ مِنَ العَقْلِ.
Abu Sulayman al-Mantiqi al-Sijistani
d. c. 375 AH / 985 CE

Some well-known sayings attributed to Western scholars have not been traced to an original and are not published: one credited to Krachkovsky (we searched the whole of his history of Arabic geographical literature), one credited to Germanus (not in any of his articles in al-Risāla), others credited to Marçais and Berque, and one credited to Brockelmann ("through the Qur’an Arabic reached an extent…"). The saying credited to al-Asma‘i is one he transmits from al-Khalil from Ayyub al-Sakhtiyani, whose saying is in this section. The saying credited to "William Work" has no such author: the name is a corruption of William H. Worrell, director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and its source has not been found. The claim that Chomsky was influenced by Sībawayh was denied by Chomsky himself in two published e-mails.