The translation movement: what was gained and lost between Greek, Syriac and Arabic?
Between the eighth and tenth centuries, a huge body of Greek philosophy, medicine and science was translated into Arabic, mostly in Baghdad. Many of the translators were Syriac-speaking Christians, and texts often passed through Syriac on the way. Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873) and his circle were the most famous.
The translators had to invent vocabulary. Different translators rendered the same Greek term differently, and some early translations were revised several times.
In 932 there was a famous debate in Baghdad between the logician Abu Bishr Matta and the grammarian Abu Sa'id al-Sirafi. Sirafi argued that Greek logic was just Greek grammar, useless for Arabic speakers. Matta defended logic as universal, independent of any language.
Who was right? Is logic language-independent, or does it always carry the structure of the language it was born in?