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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 3 of 161 Clear filters

From the author's own Arabic
Speaking of the beauty of God’s making of man and of his speech:
“…Then He formed every nation upon a language, made them speak it and made it easy for them; and He made the Arabic tongue the sweetest of tongues in its sounds, the most even in its course, the clearest in expression and the widest in its variety; and He made case-endings an ornament for the tongue, a rein upon it, and a line that divides wherever its meanings might be confused.”
…ثُمَّ جَبَلَ كُلَّ أُمَّةٍ مِنَ الأُمَمِ عَلَى لُغَةٍ أَنْطَقَهُمْ بِهَا، وَيَسَّرَهُمْ لَهَا، وَجَعَلَ اللِّسَانَ العَرَبِيَّ أَعْذَبَ الأَلْسِنَةِ مَخْرَجاً، وَأَعْدَلَهَا مَنْهَجاً، وَأَوْضَحَهَا بَيَاناً، وَأَوْسَعَهَا افْتِنَاناً، وَجَعَلَ الإِعْرَابَ حَلْياً لِلِّسَانِ، وَزِمَاماً وَفَصْلاً لِمَا اخْتُلِفَ فِيهِ مِنْ مَعَانِيهِ.
Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi
d. 379 AH / 989 CE
 From the author's own Arabic
Answering those who belittled the study of grammar:
“Words are locked upon their meanings until grammatical inflection opens them.”
الأَلْفاظُ مُغْلَقَةٌ عَلَى مَعانِيها حَتَّى يَكُونَ الإِعْرابُ هُوَ الَّذِي يَفْتَحُها.
ʿAbd al-Qahir al-Jurjani
d. 471 AH / 1078 CE
 From the author's own Arabic
In his lectures at the Egyptian University:
“Many languages never acquired enough means of making one clause govern another; only the languages of civilised peoples, of high intellectual culture, managed it… and Arabic is among them.”
وكثيرٌ من اللغات لم يتحصّلْ على غنًى كافٍ من وسائط إعمال الجمل في الجمل، ولم يوفَّق إلى ذلك غيرُ لغات الأقوام المتمدّنين، أصحابِ الحضارة العالية من جهة الفكر… ومنها اللغة العربيّة.
Gotthelf Bergsträsser
1886–1933

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.