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Ibn azm on Language

This extract from a larger work contains an example of what a Muslim legal

theorist has to say about the origins of languages and the relationship between

Arabic and other kinds of speech. Since Gods will, including his law, is expressed

in an Arabic Quran, questions of language were important to the ulam"

responsible for interpreting the law. Among these ulam"was Ibn !azm of Cordova

(d. 1064), one of the most famous scholars of Muslim Spain. (The Muslims

conquered the Iberian Peninsula in 711 and ruled parts of it until 1492.) Though

best known in his own time as a scholar of law, he is most famous today as the

author of The Doves Neck-Ring, a book about love.

In his works on law, Ibn !azm argued forcefully that all forms of legal

interpretation were misleading and dangerous. Instead of speculating about what

God must have had in mind when He said this or that, or what the Prophet meant

when he recommended one thing or another, Muslims should take the Quran and

Hadith (the reports of the Prophets legally binding statements and actions)

absolutely literally: that is, based on the plain meaning of the Arabic words being

used. Rather than interpretive ingenuity, this kind of literal reading required

expertise in the Arabic language. That expertise, in turn, required knowing what

language is and where it comes from. This is the argument Ibn !azm made in a

work called al-I#k"m f$u%&l al-a#k"m, which means something like disambiguation

regarding the sources of legal verdicts. The passage translated below comes from

the beginning of that book.

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In his discussion, Ibn !azm deals with two problems. The first was inherited

from the ancient Greeks, who asked whether humans could have invented language

all by themselves or instead needed a god to invent it for them. The second

problem was one raised by the revelation of the Quran in Arabic. Was Arabic the

best of all languages, as some Muslims claimed, or just another language, no better

or worse than the others? These were sensitive topics. Fortunately for us, Ibn

!azm enjoyed verbal combat, and did not care whether he offended his readers or

not. As a result, his work provides an unusually vigorous example of pre-modern

Arabic argument.

The following is a translation of one part of al-I#k"m. The numbers in

brackets are references to the Quran (chapter:verse); you can look up the originals

at http://tanzil.info/.

Names you should look up if you dont know what they refer to:

Andalus Crdoba Aramaic

Qayraw"n Berbers Hebrew

Khur"s"n Galicians Galen

Questions to consider fordiscussion

:

1. What sources of knowledge does Ibn !azm consider authoritative?

2. In what ways does his thinking strike you as modern?

3. In what ways does his thinking strike you as pre-modern?

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From Ibn azm of Cordova Introduction isambiguation of the

Sources of Legal Verdicts

Did God give us language, or did we come up with it ourselves?

Most people say that God gave it to us. The right answer is that God gave us

the beginnings of speech. This we know both from revelation and from reason.

The proof from revelation is the verse that says: He taught Adam all

names, and then showed them [= the newly named creatures] to the angels [Qur"n

2:31].

The proof from reason is that if people had come up with language

themselves, they can only have done so after their intelligence had matured and

their knowledge had grown to encompass the definition and the nature of

everything that exists in the world, including how every single thing resembles or

differs from everything else. It is obvious that it would take many years for human

beings to reach that level of awareness. Moreover, just as children cannot fend for

themselves until they grow up, people cannot attain perfect knowledge without

someone to teach them, support them, and take care of them. But how could

parents and caregivers communicate without using speech to discuss such

necessary matters as plowing, livestock, and planting, or challenges such as heat,

cold, wild animals, and illness? To be discussed and dealt with, all of these things

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need names. In infancy, as we have said, human beings can understand nothing,

and need to be taken care of. The invention of language implies that there was a

time when language did not exist. But how then could it be invented by people

who had no language to use? Such a thing is logically impossible.

This argument provides irrefutable proof that human beings were created

and that there exists a single first creator, may he be blessed and exalted. It also

proves that there must have been prophets. No one can survive without speech,

which consists of joined sounds. The joining of sounds is an action that requires an

agent and a moment of origin, because actions are motions measured in time. This

motion must have begun at some point, since no human beings exist without it.

Speech, which requires this motion, must have come into being afterwards.

Everything new that is brought into being must be created by something else.

Accordingly, those elements of speech that come from God, as opposed to those

that can be learned naturally, can only have been acquired through a teacher

taught by God. This teacher must then have taught his people what God taught

him.

Moreover, it is impossible to invent a language without already having some

kind of speech, or gestures with agreed-upon meanings. Logically, however,

agreement on the meaning of gestures can only be achieved through speech, just as

knowledge of the nature and definitions of things, all of which are expressed

through words, cannot exist without speech and explanations. There is no way to

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get around this difficulty. Therefore, the claim that human beings came up with

language by themselves is false.

Here someone may object that speech came about naturally. But this is also

impossible. The reason is that nature can only take one course, not several

different courses at once. Yet speaking is a voluntary action that can go off in

various directions.

Some thinkers have resorted to the idea of the mixing of natures. They

suggest that the natural forces active in the places where people live forced them to

speak the various languages that they speak. Yet this is impossible. If language

were the result of natural forces in particular places, each place could produce only

one language. But it is easy to see that this is untrue: most places have been

inhabited by speakers of different languages, limited only by the degree to which

speakers of various languages intermingled or settled nearby. Thus the argument

fails. Also, there is nothing about a particular place that causes people to call water

water and not some other name. Anyone who argues this point is either perverse

or idiotic.

Since there are no further counterarguments, it must be the case that

language came about through an act of God, who taught it to us.

At the same time, I do not deny that people may have come up with

different languages after being given the first one through which they learned the

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essence and qualities and definitions of things. We do not know which language it

was that God taught Adam in the beginning. I have no doubt that it was the

clearest, most complete, most concise, and least ambiguous of all languages, and the

one with the broadest range of precise terms for all the objects and attributes that

exist in the world. The evidence for this claim is the verse that says, He taught

Adam all the names, which should clear away any confusion or dispute in this

regard.

Some people believe that the first language was Aramaic, while others say it

was Greek, Hebrew, or Arabic. Only God knows for certain. Whatever the case, it is

clear that Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic were one languagethe language of the

northern Arabs, not the South Arabiansand that it changed as its speakers moved

around. As a result, it suffered a kind of wearing down or abrasion, like what

happens when someone from Andalus tries to imitate the accent of people from

Qayraw"n, or vice versa, or when someone from Khur"s"n tries to imitate either of

them. If you listen to the way people talk in Fa#$al-Ball%&, which is a town only a

days journey from Crdoba, you would think it was a language altogether different

than the one we speak here. The same is true in other places: wherever people live

near speakers of a different language, their speech changes in ways that are easy to

hear if you listen for them.

When speaking Arabic, the common people may pronounce a word so

differently that it sounds no different than a word in a foreign language. For

example, instead of calling grapes inab, they call them aynab; instead ofsaw'for

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whip they say us'&'; and for three dinars, instead of thal"that dan"n$r, they say

thalathd". When Berbers try to speak Arabic, instead of sayingshajarah(tree), they

saysajarah. When the Galicians learn Arabic, they use the sound h" to replace both

aynand #"(,so Mu#ammad comes out as Muhammad. There are many other

examples. If you compare Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, you will realize that the

differences among them have come about in the same way: that is, through shifts

in pronunciation over time and space and through contact between peoples. But all

three were once the same language.

From this it follows that Aramaic is the source of both Arabic and Hebrew.

According to the most commonly cited account, the first to speak Arabic was

Ishmael, who passed it on to his children. Similarly, Hebrew is the language of Isaac

and hischildren. Abraham doubtless spoke Aramaic, as attested in so many reports

that the matter can hardly be otherwise. Therefore, both Arabic and Hebrew must

have come from Aramaic.

Some say that the simplest language is Greek. But they must mean the

language of today [not ancient Greek]. Languages shed most of their vocabulary

and fall into disuse when their speakers lose political power, or when they are

overwhelmed by invaders, or forced to migrate and mix with other peoples. People

preserve their language, culture, and history only when they have the will and the

time to cultivate them, and when their efforts are supported by the power of the

state. When states collapse and people fall into the hands of their enemies, they

become poor, fearful, and humiliated, and are forced to serve their conquerors.

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Under such circumstances, the spark of intellect is snuffed out. Often, their

language disappears and their history and traditions are forgotten. This is not only

demonstrable by reason but also attested by experience. The Assyrian state, for

example, ceased to exist thousands of years ago, which is more than enough time

for the language to disappear completely; so it is hardly a surprise that most of it is

gone.

As for Aramaic, I do not claim that it is the language that God taught human

beings at the beginning. It may be that our first language has completely

disappeared, or that it still exists without our knowing which language it is.

Logically, one or the other of these possibilities must be true. As a rule, whenever

competing hypotheses are eliminated, the one that remains must be correct. But it

may also be the case that God taught Adam all the languages that people speak

today, or one language containing many synonyms; this language then split into

several as human beings scattered over the earth. To me, this seems the likeliest

possibility. But I cannot prove it in the same way as I can prove that God

established language in the first place. Even so, I am inclined to think that God

provided the basis for all languages, not just one. My reasoning is that people

would have had no incentive to invent new languages when they already had one

that allowed them to communicate with one another. Inventing a new language

would have been enormously time-consuming and totally useless, and it is hard to

see why any sane person would bother to try, unless he had an perverse desire to

occupy his free time with a project of no benefit whatsoever, and to neglect his

preparations for the Day of Judgment, as well as any hope of gaining profit,

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pleasure, or useful knowledge. Furthermore, how could he persuade his neighbors

to give up their language and use the one he had invented for them? Of course,

none of these things are logically impossible. Yet they are extremely unlikely.

What about the claim that a new language might be invented by a king who

wanted to impose a single speech on a polyglot population? I would say that such a

claim is inconsistent with what actually exists: namely, a diversity of languages

rather than a single one. Also, why would a king undertake such a tedious,

tiresome, unpleasant, and profitless chore, when he could simply adopt one of the

languagesincluding his ownalready in use among the people? Surely doing so

would be easier and more effective than inventing a new language from scratch.

But only God knows what really happened.

Various peoples have imagined that their language is superior to others.

This claim is nonsense. Superiority means having some special power or privilege;

it is not a function of language. Nor is there any scriptural basis for the claim. God

says: We have given every messenger a message in the language of his people so

that he could speak clearly to them [14:4]. He also says: We have put it [= the

revelation] into your language to make it easier for them to remember [44:58]. He

also reports that he revealed the Quran in Arabic so that the Prophets people could

understand it, not for any other reason.

[The Roman physician] Galen got it wrong when he said that Greek is the

best language because all the others sound like the barking of dogs or the croaking

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of frogs. This is pure ignorance. If you dont know a language, you dont

understand it, and it sounds like the noises he mentions, no matter which language

it is.

Some people say that Arabic is superior because the speech of God is in

Arabic. I say that this too is nonsense. All of Gods messages are in the language of

the people to whom they are proclaimed, and every single nation has been warned

[35:24]. Also, his message is in the books of the ancients [26:196]. On the basis of

these passages it is clear that God has sent revelation and inspiration in every

tongue. He revealed the Torah, the Gospels, and the Psalms; he spoke to Moses in

Hebrew; and revealed scriptures to Abraham in Aramaic. Languages are equal.

What about the languages spoken in the Garden and the Fire? For answers

to such questions, we can only refer to scriptural and consensual evidence; but in

this case we have neither. Nevertheless, people in the afterlife must have a

language. There are only three possibilities: they use one of the languages we use;

they use some other one; or they use different ones. The last possibility is excluded

by the fact that they can understand each other, either in Arabic, which is how their

speech is reported in the Quran; or in some other language, which is a matter

known only to God.

Someone I know once claimed that the language [of the Garden] is Arabic on

the basis of the verse Their last cry is Praise God, lord of the worlds [10:10]. I

replied that Arabic must also be language spoken in the Fire, citing the verse where

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the damned say It makes no difference if we flail or if we suffer in silence; there is

no escape [14:21], or when they ask [the people in the Garden] to pour us some

water, give us some of what God has given you [7:50], or when they say If only we

had listened and used our reason, we would not be among those in flames [67: 10].

My interlocutor agreed that this was so. I then told him that, by that reasoning, he

would also have to claim that Moses and all the other prophets spoke Arabic, since

their words are reported to us in Arabic in the Quran. But (I told him) if that is

your claim, then you are contradicting what God himself says: We have given

every messenger a message in the language of his people so that he could speak

clearly to them [14:4]. The only possible conclusion is that God reports to us in

Arabic the meaning of speeches in other languages so that we understand what

everyone is saying.

And, whatever the case, the sounds that make up words are the same in all

languages; none is better or worse than another, or more beautiful, or uglier. This

alone makes nonsense of any claim to superiority. In God alone is right guidance!

The same ignorant loudmouth claimed to me that Jews permit lying and

false oaths in languages other than Hebrew because the angels who bring good

deeds before God understand only Hebrew and so pay no attention to utterances in

other languages. I trust you see how silly that is. The One who knows the unknown

and the thoughts in your mind knows every language; there is no God but he; he is

our sufficiency and our protector.