The Arabic also possesses a Christian and Jewish literature which, however, is chiefly ecclesiastical. Its principal ornaments are Eutychius, Ehnakin, and Abulfaraj. Translations of the Old Testament were made not from the Hebrew, but from the Septuagint, or from Latin versions. In the middle ages, the Spanish Jews employed Arabic for their learned compositions; and several of the most important works of Moses Maimonides, etc., were originally written in that tongue.
The Arabic language, it has been remarked, is at once both rich and poor. It is necessarily destitute of innumerable words describing those ideas and objects which only civilization can develop or produce; but, on the other hand, the rich and nimble fancy of the Arabians has multiplied, to an almost incredible extent, the synonyms of their desert-tongue, so that in some cases several hundreds of expressions arc found for the same thing. The Arabic belongs to the so-called Semitic family of languages, among which it is distinguished for its antiquity and soft flexible grace. It is divided into two dialects—a northern and southern. The former, through the instrumentality of the Koran, became the predominant language of literature and commerce throughout the whole extent of the A. dominions; the latter, called the Himyarite, although in all probability the source of the Ethiopic language and writing, is known as yet only by a few inscriptions, etc. The earliest Arabic grammarian is Abul-Aswad-al-Duli, who flourished under the fourth calif, Ali. The first who reduced the prosody and metre of the Arabian poets to a system, was Khalil-ben-Ahmed-al-Ferahidi of Basra. Al-Jauhari, who died in 1009 A.D., drew up a dictionary of the pure Arabic speech, which he entitled Al-Sihah (" Purity"), and which is held in high estimation to this day. Mohammed-ben Yakub-al-Firuzabadi, who d. in 1414, was the author of an Arabic Thesaurus, entitled Al-Kamus (" The Ocean"), which is the best lexicon in the language, and has conse quently been translated into Persian and Turkish. Jordshani has explained, in alpha betical order, the meaning of the technical terms used in Arabic art and science. His
work was published by Flugel (Leip. 1845), under the title of Definitions. Meidani made a large collection of Arabic " saws,' apothegms, etc., which was published by Freytag, Bonn, 1838. Through the conquests of the Arabs in Sicily and Spain, their language became known in Europe; but notwithstanding the numerous traces of its influence in various European tongues, it became forgotten after the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. The first European scholars who earnestly took up the subject were the Dutch, in the 17th c. ; after them, the Germans, French, and English. It is now, however, beginning to be considered a necessary part of a learned theological education. Tlie modern Arabic of the inhabitants is substantially the same as that of the Koran, but the lapse of time has gradually introduced changes in the grammatical forms of the language, similar to those which have occurred in other languages. The purest Arabic is said to be spoken in Yemen, or Arabia Felix. With the exception of the Roman char acters, the Arabic have been more widely diffused than those of any other tongue on the face of the earth. (See Miller's Oriental Palwography, Eisleben, 1844, etc.) Arabic Writing.—Like all Semitic writing, this proceeds from right to left. It is borrowed from the old Syriac, and was probably introduced into Arabia by Christian missionaries about the time of Mohammed. In its oldest form it is called Kufic, from the town of Kufa, on the Euphrates, where the transcription of the Koran was busily carried on. Its characters are rude and coarse, and it has particular symbols for only 10 of the 28 Arabic consonants. This writing, nevertheless, continued to be employed for 300 years, and for coins and inscriptions even later; but in the 10th c. it was displaced for common purposes by a current handwriting, the Neslati, introduced by Ebn Mokla. This is the character still in use. In it, the consonants which resemble each other are distinguished by points, and the vowels by strokes over and under the line.