Islamization of Linguistics

Abstract

I. NON-ISLAMIC LINGUISTICS UNDER RELIGIOUS
INFLUENCES
Linguistics has been struggling under the stranglehold of religious beliefs,
superstitions, and ethnocentrism for centuries. The role and nature of human
languages was perceived through the worldview preached by various religions.
There have been claims for the divine origin of certain languages, conferring
a special status on their speakers. Greeks, for example, believed that their
language was superior to all other languages. It was the language spoken by
the Olympian gods. Theirs was the only language with regularity, rules, and
meaning; all other languages were arbitrary and meaningless, burburoi, whence
the modern English word “barbarian.”
In India, where Panini (sixth century B.C.E.) wrote the first comprehensive
grammar of a human language, Sanskrit was believed to be the language
of gods and worthy to be studied and used by the high caste of Brahmans
only. The low-caste Hindus could not listen to the Sanskrit verses from the
holy scriptures, and severe punishments were prescribed for such sacrilegious
acts. As late as 1912, the Muslim linguist, Mohammad Shahidullah, was denied
admission to the master’s course in Sanskrit at the University of Calcutta.
The Hindu professors of Sanskrit were shqcked at the possibility that a Muslim
could be allowed to read and hence defile the Vedas, the holy scriptures of
Hindus. They bitterly opposed his admission.
In the Judaeo-Christian world, too, similar unscientific views persisted
until recently. Hebrew was God‘s own language, the language spoken in the
heavens, the first language spoken on the earth and therefore the mother of ...