the attributes of Allah Most High, and exposed their contradictions and the unsoundness of their views, as is well known. Al-Ash‘arī and Abū Hāshim then disagreed over the origin of languages. Abū Hāshim said, “They arise through convention,” whereas al-Ash‘arī said, “They are divinely taught.” Others subsequently entered into this discussion. Some said, “They are partly divinely taught and partly conventional,” while a fourth group suspended judgment.
The point here is that no one can report that the Arabs—or, indeed, any nation—assembled a group who assigned all the names found in their language and then began using them after that assignment. What is known and established through mass transmission is simply their use of these expressions for the meanings they intended. Anyone who claims to know of an assignment preceding that usage is making a false claim, for no one has transmitted any such account.
It cannot be argued, “We know this by inference: without a prior convention, usage would not have been possible.”
The reply is: This is not so. Rather, we observe that Allah inspires animals to make sounds through which they understand one another’s intentions. Such communication is called “speech” and “saying,” as in Solomon’s words:
“We have been taught the speech of birds.”
And in Allah’s words:
“An ant said, ‘O ants, enter your dwellings.’”
And His words:
“O mountains, echo his praises, and you birds too.”
The same applies to human beings. Once a child begins to discern things, he hears his parents or caregiver utter an expression while pointing to its meaning. He thus comes to understand that the expression is used for that meaning—that is, that the speaker intends that meaning by it. He then hears one expression after another until he learns the language of the people among whom he has grown up, without their having agreed with him upon any prior assignment of meanings. Indeed, they have not even explicitly taught him the meanings of the names