“Under the Spell of Language”: Arabic between Linguistic Determinism and Linguistic Relativity

The relations hip between language, thought and culture has long engaged the interest of scholars from a variety of disciplines. Philosophers, psychologists, linguists, anthropologists and other s have dealt with this subject extensively, especially in the context of how it relates to the so-called less-developed or traditional societies. Broadly speaking, the main issue in this connection is whether language is dependent on thought , or thought on language or whether the two are interdependent. The chief objective of this paper is to outline and evaluate the main themes in the attempt to apply to the Arab s and their culture the well-known position that thought is dependent on language, which Dufrenne neatly expresses by saying "that a language represents a kind of a destiny ". 1 \Ve will do so by considering the range of views put forward on the subject by a number of researchers, especially Shouby (195 1), Patai (19 73), Fraylfa (1 980, first printing 1966) and al-jabiri (199 1).~ Th e fact that at least two of these authors are
of Arab origin and write in Arabic is important , at least in militating against the temptation of trying to approach the present research from an ideological, anti-Orientalist perspective.