A Comparison of Some Meta-Linguistic Similarities Between Ibn Khaldoun's and Chomsky’s Views

Human language is a very complicated system that has been studied by scholars in different centuries; among whom was, "Abdul-Rahman Ibn Khaldoun", the great Muslim scholar, that discussed language faculty in his study of society and named it "Al-Malakat Al-Lughawiyah" (The Queen of Words), in his famous book "Al- Muqaddimah" (The Introduction) where he argued that, a child has an innate ability for language learning to him, this is a gradual quality that does not come about all at once. In the same vein, "Chomsky", the contemporary American linguist, explored linguistic competence following “Ibn Khaldoun”. He, too, believed that, language faculty is innate, and that the mind sets parameters for universal principles. Results of this comparative study of the two scholars, highlighted differences and similarities between the two, and revealed that Chomsky’s language faculty was first introduced by "Ibn Khaldoun"; whom should, therefore, be accredited as the founder of this view based on the results.