ง. Sum calamo similis, fragili sum corpore; venter Te Primum incauto nimium propiusque tuenti, Sed quo plus candoris habent tibi colla Secundo, ابن خلدون On the prevalence of the Arabic language in Asia and in Africa, or in the countries formerly conquered by the Arabs, and on the various languages in use amongst the inhabitants of great cities in the territories of Muselmen; extracted and translated from the work of EBN KHALEDUNE, being the twenty-second chapter of the fourth book of the Critical and Historical Work, entitled, Kateb el eber wa dewan el moubteda wel khabaer, &c. 1 IT should be observed that the prevailing idiom amongst the inhabitants of great cities that have been conquered by the Arabs, is no other than that of the nation which has subjected them, and of the people that have conquered them. VOL. XXXVII. CI. JI. NO. LXXIV. T It is for this reason, that, even in our days, the Arabi language is spoken in all the capital cities in Muselman countries, in the east as well as in the west, although, in truth, the ancient language of Modhar (i. e. of the Koran), which was formerly in use, is now corrupted, and its inflections changed. We must attribute the prevalency of this language to the victories of the Muselmen over the foreign nations: in fact the social existence of a people and their government being found to be united with their religion, these institutions are, as far as regards religion, the basis upon which it exerts its influence; and herein the form surpasses the foundation. Now Islamism could not be studied otherwise than with the assistance of the knowlege of the divine law, that is to say, the law of the Koran; which book was written in Arabic, because it was the maternal language of the Prophet (Muhammed, i. e. Mahomet); this circumstance necessarily swept away or caused to be disused all the other languages of the various kingdoms wherein they had been before used. It is in this point of view that we should consider the prohibition set up by the Khalep Omar to those of his subjects who were not Arabians, prohibiting them the use of foreign languages, as that use (he observed) would be an act not only of malevolence but of apostacy. It was religion therefore that rejected the use of these foreign idioms; and as the Arabic was the language of the chiefs of the Muselman domination, all the other languages in the various kingdoms where they were current, were disused, whilst the subjects of the conquered nations conformed with the example of their new sovereigns, and adopted their worship; accordingly, the use of the language of the Arabs became one of the tokens of Islamism, as well as of the domination of that people; the conquered people universally renounced their particular idioms for the substitution of that of the Arabs; thus it was that this language became established, and was the prevailing language in all capital cities and principal towns where 'all other languages not Arabic became strange and disused; But the intermixture of these various languages and nations in the course of time corrupted to a certain extent the Arabic language, inasmuch as its terminations were thus altered, but the root remained: it is this modified dialect which is known in all the great capitals of the Muselman countries, by 1 The word elajem [, in the Arabic original] implies all foreign languages, or all languages not Arabic. the term town language. In fact, at this day, the population of these great towns is composed (for the most part) of the posterity of those Arabs who conquered them, and who afterwards came to settle among them, and afterwards died in their luxury, as well as of the posterity of the non-Arabs who previously inhabited them, and who possessed their houses and lands by right of inheritance. As the idioms were perpetuated from generation to generation by oral transmission, the language of the fathers was preserved among their descendants, although it was gradually changed in its forms by the intermixture of 3foreign languages with the Arabic. The dialect thus composed (as before observed) is called town language, because it is the language spoken by the inhabitants of the towns, to distinguish it from the Arabic of the Bedoweens, which is unmixed and more pure, and is denominated the language of the Desert. With such a mixture as this the Arabic could not fail to be corrupted; nay, it was even at the point of being altogether lost, at that period when there reigned at the extremity of the east the Persian Princes of Deelam, and subsequently the Selguicide Turks, and on the other extremity, in the west, (that is to say in Barbary,) the race of the 4 Zenâta and that of the Berebbers; for these sovereigns of foreign extraction governed in all the Muselman kingdoms. Nevertheless the attachment of the Muselmen to the Koran and to the Sunna, in which are deposited, in Arabic, every thing that relates to the Muselman religion, was thus the cause of the preservation of their language, insomuch that it continued to prevail in the towns, as town language. It was however quite otherwise when the Tartars and the Monguls governed in the east, for these people were not Muselmen; and this circumstance effaced, at that period of time, the preponderance of the Arabic language, which then became altogether so corrupted as to leave no longer any traces of it in 1 W حضريا Lila in the original may be rendered (besides its being the language of the cities and great towns) contemporary, or conversational, or modern dialect. 2 3 El agem, in the original Ms. in the original Ms. ; q. d. foreign, unintelligible, barbarous. It is ; Zenana, in the printed copy from the original; which is incontestably a mistake in the punctuation, as the [x] Zenâta, a celebrated race in the west, is here designated. the Muselmen kingdoms of Irak-ajemy, of Khorasan, of Persia, of India, and of Mowarannahr, (that is to say Transoxiana.) Nor do any remains of this language appear in the Northern countries of Asia, nor in Roum, (that is to say in Asia Minor,) where they no longer conform to the distinctive peculiarities of the Arabic language in the composition of verse and prose. This idiom is accordingly no longer cultivated in those countries, but by such as seek to study fundamentally the Arabian sciences. Thus the use of the Arabic language has continued solely amongst those Muselmen to whom the most high God had vouchsafed that favor; and thus it has remained the town language in Egypt, in Syria,2 in Spain,3 and in Barbary, because the Muhamedan religion has perpetuated its use in those countries, where also the inhabitants have shown themselves zealous for its perpetuation, so that its prevalence has maintained itself. It is not so with regard to the language of Irak-ajemy, and of the other more remote countries spoken of above, where there remains no longer any vestige of the Arabic; insomuch that, even the books relative to sciences are written in the vulgar languages of those respective countries, and these various languages are there made use of even in their literary assemblies. Finally, God disposes as he pleases of night and day, (that is to say, of every thing). * Persian Irak. * Vide Une Dissertation sur la Conformité de l'Arabe de Barbarie avec l'Arabe de Syrie par J. Grey Jackson, Paris, 1824. chez Dondey' Dupré. Vide also le Journal Asiatique, vol. 4. page 193-200. 291. and vol. 5. P. 125-128. 3 When Ebn Khalidune wrote, the Arabs governed in Spain. • Much light is likely to be thrown on the valuable work of Ebn Khalidune (denominated by the French the Montesquieu of the Arabs) by M. Schultz, who is on a literary journey in the east, and has already discovered in one of the libraries in Constantinople the celebrated work of Ebn Khalidune, in 7 large volumes. OXFORD LATIN PRIZE ESSAY, FOR 1828. Unde evenit, ut in liberalium artium studiis præstantissimus quisque apud singulas gentes eodem fere sæculo floruerit? In the youth of a state arms do florish; in the middle age of a state, learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandize.-Bacon's Essay on Vicissitude of Things. ARGUMENTUM.-Cum fere paria sint in singulis sæculis hominum ingenia, causæ, quas quærimus, petendæ ex rerum ordine ac natura. Spectata Græcia, negatur aliquid inesse in pacis otio et tranquillitate, quod optimarum artium studia sua vi, nullis aliis causis adhibitis, excitare, nedum ad maturitatem perducere possit. Quamobrem causæ altius repetuntur; et ratione habita societatis humanæ, 1. unde ortum ; 2. unde incrementa capiat; 3. quibus demum modis ad summa sua fastigia sensim perducatur; ostenditur, in eadem temporum spatia necessario convenire summam fere unius cujusque populi potestatem et optimarum artium perfectionem. Accedunt etiam pro variis singuli cujusque populi fortunis secundæ quædam et concurrentes causæ. Probatur autem sententia civitatum exemplis, quum veterum, tum recentiorum. Si quid est in Historia exculti proprium et ornati animi, si quid dulce, jucundum, et præ ceteris homine liberali dignum, si quid denique, quod lectorem continua scelerum et bellorum narratione fatigatum recreet, ad eas præsertim partes confugiendum est, ubi litterarum atque artium progressus in silentio et solitudine contemplari liceat, procul ab armorum strepitu et tubarum sono. Quod si quis tentare velit, et ingenii humani fata, ut ita dicam, fortunasque intueri, statim occurret nobilis illa, et omni pertractatione digna quæstio, unde scilicet factum sit, celeberrima quæque in unaquaque optimarum artium provincia non nisi definitis quibusdam sæculis ingenia efloruisse. Quo magis admiror rem tantam a summis fere scriptoribus prætermissam; præsertim cum ea sit, quam non sine aliquo negotio expediri posse pace omnium confirmaverim. Nam si fere paria esse in singulis sæculis universorum hominum ingenia, neque decursu temporum deteriora facta in pejus ruere judicandum est; sed una esse semper atque eadem, et in eo, quod tribuerit, natura, nihil unquam immutari; si, ut verbo dicam, natura pares sumus, quantumvis disciplina provectiores, mirum profecto videri potest quod certa quædam tempora uberiorem præ reliquis ingeniorum copiam ediderint. Estimanti autem facultates indolis humanæ, et earum etiam diversitatem |