Historiography of the Arabic Grammar in Europe: The Legacy of Wright’s Arabic Grammar

Arabic Grammar is a branch of science that emerged in the early Islamic era. Nevertheless, grammatical works compiled by the Arab scholars such as Sibawaih with his al-Kitāb considered difficult to understand by those who are not Arabic speakers (especially for Europeans) in terms of paradigm and its presentation techniques. Therefore, Western scholars (Orientalists) began to write a number of works on Arabic grammar based on their grammatical tradition. The formal object of this research is the paradigm and thought on Arabic grammar, namely particular paradigm and thought used by Western scholars on compiling Arabic grammar for their own interests. Meanwhile, material object is the work of William Wright "A Grammar of the Arabic Language." The authors used universal grammar theory initiated by Noam Chomsky, which emphasized that language, in essence, has general rules. Finally, the authors found three major conclusions. First, early writing of Arabic grammar by European scholars began in the 16th century; it coined by the birth of de Alcala's work. Second, the peak of Arabic grammatical writing in Europe occurred in the 17th century with the birth of Gramatica Arabica by Thomas Erpenius. Third, although Wright's Arabic grammar clearly adopted European grammatical tradition but he did not avoid Arabic linguistic terms while finding its equivalent in English, Latin, and Hebrew. However, Wright's work is not suitable for the beginners due to his comparative linguistic approach