Book
French
ID: <
10670/1.lhqzmm>
Abstract
International audience The question of the origin of language is one of the most famous pages of what should be called Islamic "theolinguistics". It is indeed conditioned by Q. 2:31 "And he [i.e. Allah] taught Adam all the names." This verse determines the Islamic alternative which is very different from the Greek one: rather than by institution (thései) or by nature (phusei), the origin of the language is only by institution, the alternative being divine or human origin. Following Suyūṭī’s (d. 911/1505) Muzhir, we first present the "theological thesis", exposed by Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004) in the Ṣāhibī. Called tawqīf (divine "fixation"), it is based on the literal interpretation of Q. 2:31. It is opposed to the thesis of iṣṭilāḥ (human "convention"), attributed to Mu‘tazilites. We next show that the Mu‘tazilite grammarian Ibn Ǧinnī (d. 392/1002) actually "hesitates" between these two positions, rallying to an intermediate position and not excluding the naturalistic hypothesis. Finally, we suggest that the question of the origin of language, by focusing on the idea of institution, can be at the origin of the scholastic discipline of ‘ilm al-waḍ‘, which is a true semiotics.