> And even though I know a perfect language is impossible
It's already existed for a very long time and it's called Arabic language. It's the extreme opposite of English where English is a hodgepodge of a languages mixtures where about 1/3 is French language, about one third is old English and about 1/3 of other world's languages including Arabic.
Comparing the best of English literatures for example Shakespeare's books and the best of Arabic literature for example Quran, there's no contest. That's why translating Quran with English does not doing it justice and only scratches the surfaces of its intended meaning. You can find this exact disclaimers in most of the Quran translations but not in Shakespeare's books translation.
This argument seems to presuppose that a language is more perfect if it has fewer influences and contributions from other languages. But you didn’t actually state that assumption, and certainly didn’t support it. Maybe the most perfect language is a perfect amalgamation of all languages. That’s at least as plausible to me.
According to Islamic tradition it's the language of the heavens. The bottom line is that the best and/or perfect language there is, should be able to create the best and/or perfect literature either in the form of book/oration/etc. Mind you Quran is not originally in the form of book it's actually oral tradition and Muhammad is a well known illiterate person. In fact (I'm not making this up) currently there are many thousands (perhaps ten or hundred of thousands, who knows) of so called Hafiz who already memorizing the entire Quran. God forbid, if all the physical and digital Quran is being burned or deleted the entire Quran can be recreated rather easily. The same cannot be said about any other books including the Bible. Quran is believed to be sent as a revealed knowledge and wisdom as other books given to other prophets before Muhammad that started with Adam. Except that the other holy books are not guaranteed to be intact over time and have certain shelf life unlike the Quran [1].
But regardless, if you don't believe in prophethoods, you should view its supremacy from the point of Quran supreme literacy values alone (forget about the laws, the wisdom and the guidances). In actual facts there are several open challenges from Quran itself for those who doubted to create something of similar quality or values even in one short chapter or even smaller pieces of sentences. If you cannot and most probably never will even with the help of AI/LLMs/etc, you have to accept that Arabic is the perfect language in creating the original masterpiece.
[1] Magnificence of the Qur'an - by Mahmood bin Ahmad (2006):
This point of view was basically covered in the interview.
> I grew up in a French household, and I often feel that there are French words and expressions that better capture what I want to express than any English word or expression could.
> Eco writes that when European scholars were arguing about what language Adam and Eve spoke, each one typically argued in favor of the language he himself spoke. So Flemish scholars said that Adam and Eve obviously must have spoken Flemish, because Flemish is the most perfect expression of human thought.
> So Flemish scholars said that Adam and Eve obviously must have spoken Flemish
Obviously the Flemish scholars are blindly biased that's why it's very popular all over the world /s
Seriously, any great book or literature using Flemish that is considered a golden standard in Flemish as the Quran is? The book that's read every minutes around the world and memorized entirely, continously generations after generations? Fun facts, even the Pope do not memorized the entire Gospel let alone the entire Bible including the Old Testaments.
I'm just making fun of claiming that some language is the best, because native speakers themselves say so. Especially talking about such chauvinist culture like muslim arabs.
I don’t think so. That brings such bastardized result as English spelling.
And there are many different ways and purposes to be best at. For example modern English is compact language with simple grammar. But at the same time it’s rather ambiguous compared to more verbose languages.
The idea of a perfect language seems somewhat ill defined in the first place. The definition used in the original comment seems to be more-or-less “most divinely inspired,” which is… not really something they can be argued about usefully.
If we’re going to discuss the idea of a perfect language, there will be a strong tendency for people to pick the language they can best use to express their thoughts—most likely their native language. So, English does have the advantage that even native speakers think it is quite a silly language, and nobody in their right mind would even think of calling it perfect.
> The idea of a perfect language seems somewhat ill defined in the first place
I'm not a linguistic expert but let's say that a person know ten languages then accoding to that person it must be one of them is the best comparatively, because each of them has exactly same purpose of expressing and articulating the speakers thought and ideas. Whether the person admit it honestly, that's a different story.
I'd suggest you go to any random person that speaks several languages including Arabic, and ask the person which one is the best according to his opinion. Do this over large samples perhaps several thousands multi-lingual persons to get rid of the bias, I think the answers will most probably Arabic.
Fun facts, original Gospel is being spoken in Aramaic, and the language is much closer to Arabic than Hebrew [1]. Another fact, scholars agreed the original name of Jesus is without J, most probably Isa or Iso, and in the Quran the Isa is the name correctly given in the Quran. If Jesus is walking in the street of Bethlehem today, he probably will not has responded if someone call him with his Bible name.
The Old Testament of Bible, is considered by most scholars was originally spoken and written in Hebrew but the language was dead for several centuries, that's why eventhough Jesus is Jewish they didn't speak Hebrew at the time. Hebrew is a close cousin of Arabic, and both are Semitic languages. Based on the experts of Hebrew and Arabic (in which I'm not), the Hebrew language is like a dialect of Arabic. Both has Allah, the name of almighty God as singular deity without gender. There's no such thing in Arabic or Hebrew the plural for Allah, gender or extension thereof like you have in God, with plural God, or woman Goddes. That's why in Islam and Jewish, you have committed the biggest sin if ascribing any partners in worship to God.
It's already existed for a very long time and it's called Arabic language. It's the extreme opposite of English where English is a hodgepodge of a languages mixtures where about 1/3 is French language, about one third is old English and about 1/3 of other world's languages including Arabic.
Comparing the best of English literatures for example Shakespeare's books and the best of Arabic literature for example Quran, there's no contest. That's why translating Quran with English does not doing it justice and only scratches the surfaces of its intended meaning. You can find this exact disclaimers in most of the Quran translations but not in Shakespeare's books translation.