Arabic in Chains

Book excerpt: What distinguishes Marzari's work is his ability to explain complicated matters in clear and even entertaining language. Linguists often cut a poor figure here, given their propensity to gallop non-stop through the brushwood of grammar. Not so Marzari. He illustrates the potentials and limits of a language that over 300 million Muslims in the Middle East call their mother tongue, aside from the many others elsewhere in Africa as well as in Asia, who recite Arabic as the language of the Qur'an.