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Arabic - Proof of it Being the Original Language

Ashuri10

Member
For example, in another thread Ashuri pointed out that the word "Tur" is found in Arabic as well as Aramaic. He stated that "Tur" must be something that crept into Arabic from Aramaic. I stated that the opposite could be equally true. However, a relationship (one way or another) is established by these and many other words. Now, subsequently, if it could be proven that Arabic is perfect language of human expression then by inference it must have been the original language and "Tur" must have gone from Arabic to Aramaic and not vice versa.

Wrong, in the Arabic language the word "Tur" is used once only in the Quran in that specific verse that I pointed out, that's it, if Aramaic had borrowed this word from Arabic the Arabs would still be using this word today, but it's such a laughable claim that not even an Arabic dictionary agrees with you,

The Arabic equivalent for the word is "Jabal", and it is found all over the Arabic sources, while "Tur" is found all over the Aramaic sources, which makes "Tur" Aramaic, and "Jabal" Arabic, enough with this none sense.
 

Worshipper

Active Member
Now the first burden of proof seems easiest. Is there anyone here who disagrees that all languages are very related and that in the beginning there was only one language?
I very much disagree.

It is possible that in the beginning, there was only one language. It is by no means certain. Humans started being able to speak about 100,000 BP. At that time, they were apparently all in Africa. They left Africa about 70,000 BP. The area today in Africa where they were over those 30,000 years is an area whose inhabitants speak many different languages, and this is in a time when telecommunications make for fewer languages than the world had in the past. It is probable that the original speaking humans didn't even know of the existence of all of their fellow speakers, but only those speakers in their own tribes. In all likelihood, language developed independently in very many places and there was no single original language.

Furthermore, it is most certainly not the case that all modern languages are related. No modern language has an ancestry that can be traced back further than about 10,000 years. At 10,000 BP, there were people living in Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and America. These people did not all have contact with one another and did not all speak the same language. They had many languages. There is no relationship betwen Australian languages and European languages. There is no relationship between sub-Saharan languages and languages of the northern Pacific coast in North America. There is no relationship between any of the thousand or so languages of Papua New Guinea and Basque. Some languages in the world are related to others. No language is related to more than a miniscule number of the world's 6000 or so languages.

So I disagree wholeheartedly with your first contention.

1. Arabic has a complete organised structure of roots, that is to say, the roots meet fully all the needs of human beings in the field of expression; the other languages are not so fitted.
Even if what you were saying were true, it would actually tend to indicate not a natural language, but an artificial language. Kind of like how Esperanto has a perfectly regular morphology. Making this claim actually hurts your case.

2. In Arabic, the names of the Divine Being, the names of the principal constituent parts of the universe, of plants, animals and minerals and of the members of the human body, possess, in the why and wherefore of their contents, deep philosophy and learning. Other languages can never equal Arabic in this respect.
"Deep philosophy and learning" is neither specific nor measurable enough to be meaningful. No one can prove that the Arabic lexicon lacks "deep philosophy and learning," but at the same time, you cannot prove that the lexicons of other languages lack "deep philosophy and learning."

3. The additions and the roots of Arabic words are perfectly organized. The scope of this organization, by linking into one philosophical chain, all the verbs and nouns, belonging tot the same root, points out their interrelationships. This is not to be found, to this degree of excellence, in other languages.
Again, if this were true (and it's not), it would be more characteristic of an artificial language. Think Newspeak from 1984.

4. In Arabic expressions, words are few but meanings are many, that is to say, the Arabic language makes use of alif, laam, and nunation and the sequence of words, in such a way that to express the same meaning the other languages need a number of sentences to be linked up for the same purpose.
For your claim to be meaningful, you would have to show not that Arabic uses fewer words to express a given meaning than some other languages, but that it uses fewer words than all other languages. That'll be tough. Languages like Inuit and other agglutinative languages frequently uses a single word to express what would take a couple of sentences in a language like English. Arabic, being the same class of language as English in this regard, hasn't a prayer of beating highly agglutinative languages on this count.

5. Arabic possesses roots and expressions which are the perfect means of portraying the most delicate and deep things of the mind and human ideas.
What's the Arabic root that perfectly explains the relationship between Brahma and men's souls?

What's the Arabic root that helps us differentiate clearly among bodhi, kevala-jñana, and satori?

What's the Arabic root that perfectly explains the doctrine of the Trinity or the concept of transubstantiation?

Which Arabic root will help me see the difference between wyrd and ørlǫg?

Which Arabic root (and I'm assuming you're talking here about classical Arabic) will finally help me understand general and special relativity?

These are all rather delicate and deep ideas of the human mind. Does Arabic have the perfect means of explaining them?
 
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Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
While I'm sure Arabic is better than modern English in terms of making sense and consistency, I've seen other languages that are far more precise and fairly easy to learn than my own language(English), like Japanese(In that language, you can use three words to piece together a meaning that would take three sentences in English). Or writing systems like modern Chinese characters, where single characters can mean many things depending on the situation.

And I skimmed over the logic applied here, and I'm afraid it's completely based on bias beliefs and wishful thinking.
 

tariqkhwaja

Jihad Against Terrorism
Wrong, in the Arabic language the word "Tur" is used once only in the Quran in that specific verse that I pointed out, that's it, if Aramaic had borrowed this word from Arabic the Arabs would still be using this word today, but it's such a laughable claim that not even an Arabic dictionary agrees with you,

The Arabic equivalent for the word is "Jabal", and it is found all over the Arabic sources, while "Tur" is found all over the Aramaic sources, which makes "Tur" Aramaic, and "Jabal" Arabic, enough with this none sense.

So Arabic has synonyms. How does that prove derivation. Arabic has two words for mountain? So?
 

tariqkhwaja

Jihad Against Terrorism
I very much disagree.

These are all rather delicate and deep ideas of the human mind. Does Arabic have the perfect means of explaining them?

I see what you are saying. The conclusion uses discreet logic that is correct but all the same not obvious. That the Divinely revealed language is the mother of all languages is not an apparently logical conclusion (unless you believe that the first language was Divinely revealed). So lets do away with me trying to prove it to be a Divinely revealed language. I will leave that for another thread.

Let's just do plain research on what philologists have said in their view what is the mother of all languages. I will criticize what these conclusions are based on too and why they are wrong to say that the first language, whatever it was, was "lost in translation" so to speak.
 

Magic Man

Reaper of Conversation
Let's just do plain research on what philologists have said in their view what is the mother of all languages. I will criticize what these conclusions are based on too and why they are wrong to say that the first language, whatever it was, was "lost in translation" so to speak.

You keep saying you're going to come back with some research, and you have yet to come up with something. You have a long way to go to get to where many of us are, research-wise. Most of us have already heard the research done by others and accepted it because we don't have a biased agenda, like proving that Arabic is better than all other languages.
 

YmirGF

Bodhisattva in Recovery
You keep saying you're going to come back with some research, and you have yet to come up with something.
Me? I'm waiting for him to demand that the linguistically savvy people here point to Islamic sources that dispute his claims. (... and Muslims wonder why they are not taken seriously... )
 

Worshipper

Active Member
I see what you are saying. The conclusion uses discreet logic that is correct but all the same not obvious. That the Divinely revealed language is the mother of all languages is not an apparently logical conclusion (unless you believe that the first language was Divinely revealed). So lets do away with me trying to prove it to be a Divinely revealed language. I will leave that for another thread.

Let's just do plain research on what philologists have said in their view what is the mother of all languages. I will criticize what these conclusions are based on too and why they are wrong to say that the first language, whatever it was, was "lost in translation" so to speak.
That would certainly simplify the matter. Though frankly, I'd have an easier time believing that Arabic is divinely revealed than believing that it is the mother of all languages. But I look forward to seeing your evidence.
 

tariqkhwaja

Jihad Against Terrorism
You keep saying you're going to come back with some research, and you have yet to come up with something. You have a long way to go to get to where many of us are, research-wise. Most of us have already heard the research done by others and accepted it because we don't have a biased agenda, like proving that Arabic is better than all other languages.
Someone was bound to say that sooner or later. I have been too lax with this. Personally speaking I believe I took up a task that was more than I could chew in short time. But I deserve what you just said.
 

tariqkhwaja

Jihad Against Terrorism
The first point of note here is that all languages are traced back to their historical origins depending on the earliest writings. This is the first fallacy in tracing any language.

As Otto Jesperson stated (p. 23 of origin, development, and nature of languages (does anyone know where I can get a PDF of the book because I need to check the references):
"All language is primarily spoken and only secondarily written down. So the real life of the language is in the mouth and the ear, not in the pen and the eye."

As far as inscriptions go the discovered ones are (by date):
Sumerian (4000 B.C.)
Elematic (2000 B.C.)
Cossean (1600 B.C.)
Chinese Manuscripts (1500 B.C.)
Hittite
Rigveda
South Arabic
Avesta
Arabic and
Asoka's inscriptions

Arab inscriptions as can be seen are quite later. This is expected due to the illiterate nature of the Arab world of the time.

One step at a time now. This is going to be a lengthy discourse. I recommend anyone who is impatient to read the second book found here: Arabic - the mother of all languages - Al Islam Online where most of what I say originates.
 

Halcyon

Lord of the Badgers
special characteristics that the Arabic language posesses that any man-made language can not possess.
Sorry, bit of an older post, but this made me laugh quite a lot.

What would be the logic behind a non-human entity crafting a language for mankind? Since it is man and his vocal cords that must use the language, there is no being more perfectly suited to create a language for man than man.
 

tariqkhwaja

Jihad Against Terrorism
Sorry, bit of an older post, but this made me laugh quite a lot.

What would be the logic behind a non-human entity crafting a language for mankind? Since it is man and his vocal cords that must use the language, there is no being more perfectly suited to create a language for man than man.

No, not even God, eh?
 

Halcyon

Lord of the Badgers
No, not even God, eh?
If there were any "special characteristics" of a language that were beyond a human being's ability to create, then we would not be able to speak said characteristics, so no, God couldn't create a language that we could speak better than any language we create ourselves.
 

Magic Man

Reaper of Conversation
The first point of note here is that all languages are traced back to their historical origins depending on the earliest writings. This is the first fallacy in tracing any language.

For one, that's the best way for us to follow languages. That's concrete evidence that we can view for ourselves.

For another, that's not the only thing the history of language is based on. It's also based on what we know of cultures from other sources.

Obviously, a language can be spoken without being written down, but the general progression is for it to be spoken and then written down in some form. Usually, a language being written down is an indication that it has been around and its culture has been around for a long time. If Arabic was a divine language, wouldn't God also hand down a way to write it? Why would he give the people the language to speak, but let them figure out a way to write it?


One step at a time now. This is going to be a lengthy discourse. I recommend anyone who is impatient to read the second book found here: Arabic - the mother of all languages - Al Islam Online where most of what I say originates.
 

Worshipper

Active Member
If Arabic was a divine language, wouldn't God also hand down a way to write it? Why would he give the people the language to speak, but let them figure out a way to write it?
What if writing is evil? If so, then God certainly wouldn't encourage it. If I'm not mistaken, the word qur'an originally meant something like "recitation." It's possible that God intended it to be remembered perfectly and transmitted orally and that the transcription of the recitation was actually contrary to God's will and introduced a major corruption of the divinely revealed tongue.

It's hard for me as a historical linguist to think of writing as a corrupting rather than a preserving linguistic influence, of course, but there are plenty of times when language is in fact corrupted by writing. Spelling pronunciations, for example. But then, I'm not God and my ways aren't his ways. If he sees it as corrupting, who would I be to argue?
 

Magic Man

Reaper of Conversation
What if writing is evil? If so, then God certainly wouldn't encourage it. If I'm not mistaken, the word qur'an originally meant something like "recitation." It's possible that God intended it to be remembered perfectly and transmitted orally and that the transcription of the recitation was actually contrary to God's will and introduced a major corruption of the divinely revealed tongue.

It's hard for me as a historical linguist to think of writing as a corrupting rather than a preserving linguistic influence, of course, but there are plenty of times when language is in fact corrupted by writing. Spelling pronunciations, for example. But then, I'm not God and my ways aren't his ways. If he sees it as corrupting, who would I be to argue?

But, again, why would God do it that way? He couldn't possibly expect it to be passed down completely orally. He would know that there was no way for humans to remember it perfectly. It still wouldn't make sense for him to create this perfect language for us, but not give us a writing system for it.
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
But, again, why would God do it that way? He couldn't possibly expect it to be passed down completely orally. He would know that there was no way for humans to remember it perfectly. It still wouldn't make sense for him to create this perfect language for us, but not give us a writing system for it.

After all, the same god gave the Hebrews their writing style and another god, Odin, gave the Futhark(Runes) to the Scandinavians. (if you believe those legends anyway... which I don't, BTW) Therefore it would be out of character to impart a language without a writing system to use it with.
 

kai

ragamuffin
really adding god to the equation is muddying the waters , why not stick to the historical facts as a basis for age
 
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