Question: In general in English, we don't ever apply the definitive article to languages. We don't say "He speaks the Japanese" or "It was originally written in the French."

But for translated books, they are very often prefaced with a note phrased as *Translated from the Spanish* or *Translated from the Arabic*.

Where does this odd form originate? What is the reason for this grammatical deviation?

Answer: 
In English, the definite article "*the*" has often been used in an idiomatic way with the names of things that wouldn’t appear to need an article..

Once, the use of "*the*" with a language was much more prevalent than it is today. Here are two old citations from the Oxford English Dictionary:

> 
> *"[Let not your studying the French make you neglect the English](https://books.google.ch/books?hl=fr&id=E24EAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Let+not+your+studying+the+French+make+you+neglect+the+English%22#v=snippet&q=%22Let%20not%20your%20studying%20the%20French%20make%20you%20neglect%20the%20English%22&f=false)"* (1760).
> 
> 
> *"Every advantage that … a complete knowledge of the Arabic could afford"* (1795).
> 
> 
> 

The OED says people use "*the*" with languages in an [elliptical](https://www.thefreedictionary.com/elliptical) way – that is, they’re mentally deleting part of a longer phrase. Examples: "translated from the Spanish [version]" … or "from the [original] German" or "from the Japanese [language]."

---

[According to an online article](http://masteringarticles.com/definite-article-languages/#:%7E:text=Rule%207.12%3A%20Use%20the%20definite,The%20English%20language%20is%20hard):

> 
> Rule 7.12: Use the definite article when the word *language* immediately
> follows the name of a language.
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > English is hard.
> > 
> > 
> > The English language
> > is hard.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > Bill wants to learn Chinese.
> > 
> > 
> > Bill wants to learn the Chinese language.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
>
> 
> Definition of Spanish 1: the Romance language of the largest part of
> Spain and of the countries colonized by Spaniards
> <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Spanish>
> 
> 
> 

We see from the above definition that "Spanish" means "**the** language of Spain etc."

So, in this meaning, if you wrote "the Spanish" you would effectively be writing "**the the** language of Spain"

So, if I say, "I speak Spanish" I mean "I speak **the** language", if I said "I speak the Spanish" I would mean, "I speak **the the** language."

In the case of a translated text, we are not translating the entire Spanish language that would require us to translate a dictionary. We are instead referring to the original *text*. The phrase "Translated from the Spanish" is conventionally understood to mean, "Translated from the Spanish text."