The Student of Arabic

Extract

“He intends going to India as a merchant but, previous to his embarkation, wishes to give some time to the study of foreign languages, European and Asiatic, and particularly the Persian.” These words are taken from a letter of introduction which Jones wrote to be presented to Schultens; even a professor must regard a language as something to be used, not merely an object of study. Jones had begun to learn Arabic at Harrow, and at Oxford a friend encouraged him to continue this study. He met in London a native of Aleppo and persuaded him to go to Oxford, hoping that other Oxford men would be glad to make use of his services and help to pay his salary, but in this he was disappointed. The Syrian was no scholar, so Jones made him translate Galland's version of the Arabian Nights into the vernacular, and then he turned this version into literary Arabic with the help of the grammars of Erpenius and Golius. What Jones accomplished in Arabic would have been a respectable performance for any ordinary man; when added to what he did in other languages it is marvellous. He worked under difficulties; he had his living to earn, the amount of Arabic literature in print was small—a poet might be represented by one poem only—some manuscripts were badly written, if we may judge from the facsimile of the Bughyat, yet on this narrow base he raised the edifice of a sound knowledge of the language and an appreciation of its qualities. As the later historians, Bar Hebræus and El-Makīn, were the first to be known in Europe, so a late work on literature, the Shekerdan (Sukkardān al-sulṭān al-malik al-Nāṣir by Shihāb al-Dīn ibn Abī Ḥajala, written in 1356) is prominent in his pages.