Arabic: Difference between revisions

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→‎Old Arabic: Namara inscription image
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Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic" (a collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic) first emerged around the 1st century CE. Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in [[Sabaic|Sabaic script]] at [[Qaryat al-Faw|Qaryat Al-Faw]], in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as the conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Al-Jallad|first=Ahmad|title=Al-Jallad. 2014. On the genetic background of the Rbbl bn Hfʿm grave inscription at Qaryat al-Fāw|url=https://www.academia.edu/8770005|journal=BSOAS|language=en}}</ref>
[[File:Epitaph Imru-l-Qays Louvre AO4083.jpg|thumb|The [[Namara inscription]], a sample of [[Nabataean alphabet|Nabataean script]], considered a direct precursor of Arabic script.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2016-12-15|title=Examining the origins of Arabic ahead of Arabic Language Day|url=https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/examining-the-origins-of-arabic-ahead-of-arabic-language-day-1.199916|access-date=2021-04-20|website=The National|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=linteau de porte|url=https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123278|access-date=2021-04-20|website=Musée du Louvre|language=en}}</ref>]]
 
It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced--[[epigraphic]] [[Ancient North Arabian]] (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after the towns where the inscriptions were discovered ([[Dadanitic]], [[Taymanitic]], [[Hismaic]], [[Safaitic]]).<ref name="Stefan Weninger 2011"/> However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Al-Jallad|first=Ahmad|title=Al-Jallad (Draft) Remarks on the classification of the languages of North Arabia in the 2nd edition of The Semitic Languages (eds. J. Huehnergard and N. Pat-El)|url=https://www.academia.edu/38721216|language=en}}</ref> Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered [[Old Arabic]] due to the fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic.<ref name=":1" />
 
The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an [[Nabataean alphabet|ancestor of the modern Arabic script]] are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in [[Avdat|En Avdat, Israel]], and dated to around 125 CE.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Al-Jallad|first=Ahmad|title=One wāw to rule them all: the origins and fate of wawation in Arabic and its orthography|url=https://www.academia.edu/33017695|language=en}}</ref> This is followed by the epitaph of the [[Lakhmids|Lakhmid]] king Mar 'al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at [[Namara inscription|Namaraa]], Syria. From the 4th to the 6th centuries, the [[Nabataean alphabet|Nabataean script]] evolves into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Nehmé|first=Laila|title=&quot;A glimpse of the development of the Nabataean script into Arabic based on old and new epigraphic material&quot;, in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed), The development of Arabic as a written language (Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 40). Oxford: 47-88.|url=https://www.academia.edu/2106858|journal=Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies|language=en}}</ref> There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ([[Zabad, Syria|Zabad]], Jabal 'Usays, [[Harran, as-Suwayda|Harran]], [[Umm el-Jimal|Umm al-Jimaal]]). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of the Qur'an are referred to by linguists as "[[Quranic Arabic]]", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into "[[Classical Arabic]]".<ref name="Stefan Weninger 2011"/>
 
===Old Hejazi and Classical Arabic===