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27-633: Its mature form was reached around 800 BCE and its use continued until the 6th century CE, including Ancient North Arabian inscriptions in variants of the alphabet, when it was displaced by the Arabic alphabet . In Eritrea and Ethiopia, it evolved later into the Geʽez script , which, with added symbols throughout the centuries, has been used to write Amharic , Tigrinya and Tigre , as well as other languages (including various Semitic , Cushitic , Omotic , and Nilo-Saharan languages ). The Musnad script differs from

54-472: A common ancestor to the exclusion of ASA is also something which has yet to be demonstrated. The hypothesis that all ANA alphabets derive from a single ancestor gave rise to the idea that the languages which these scripts express constitute a linguistic unity, a so-called ANA language . As a hypothetical language or group of languages, Ancient North Arabian forms one branch of the North Arabian group,

81-427: A huge area from southern Syria to Yemen. In 1937, Fred V. Winnett divided those known at the time into five rough categories A, B, C, D, E. In 1951, some 9000 more inscriptions were recorded in south-west Saudi Arabia which have been given the name 'Southern Thamudic'. Further study by Winnett showed that the texts he had called 'Thamudic A' represent a clearly defined script and language and he therefore removed them from

108-512: Is U+10A80–U+10A9F: Proto-Arabic Proto-Arabic is the name given to the hypothetical reconstructed ancestor of all the varieties of Arabic attested since the 9th century BC. There are two lines of evidence to reconstruct Proto-Arabic: Old Arabic in the Nabataean script is first attested in the Negev desert in the 1st century BC, but it becomes more frequent in the region after

135-518: Is a collection of scripts and a language or family of languages under the North Arabian languages branch along with Old Arabic that were used in north and central Arabia and south Syria from the 8th century BCE to the 4th century CE. The term "Ancient North Arabian" is defined negatively. It refers to all of the South Semitic scripts except Ancient South Arabian (ASA) regardless of their genetic relationships. Many scholars believed that

162-415: Is even less dating evidence in the case of Hismaic. Safaitic is the name given to the alphabet and variety of Old Arabic used by tens of thousands of ancient nomads in the deserts of what are now southern Syria, north-eastern Jordan, and northern Saudi Arabia. Occasionally, Safaitic texts are found further afield, in western Iraq, Lebanon, and even at Pompeii . They are thought to have been carved between

189-575: Is the alphabet which seems to have been used by the inhabitants of the oasis known in antiquity as Dūma and later as Dumat Al-Jandal and al-Jawf. It lies in northern Saudi Arabia at the south-eastern end of the Wādī Sirḥān which leads up to the oasis of Azraq in north-eastern Jordan. According to the Assyrian annals Dūma was the seat of successive queens of the Arabs, some of whom were also priestesses, in

216-656: The Levant and Mesopotamia . The Taymanitic alphabet is probably mentioned as early as c. 800 BC when the regent of Carchemish (on what is now the Turkish-Syrian border) claimed to have learned it. About the same time an Assyrian official west of the Euphrates reported that he had ambushed a caravan of the people of Taymāʾ and Sabaʾ (an ancient South Arabian kingdom, Biblical Sheba ) because it had tried to avoid paying tolls. There are two Taymanitic inscriptions dated to

243-639: The Ancient South Arabian alphabet. Hismaic is the name given to the Old Arabic texts carved largely by nomads in the Ḥismā desert of what is now southern Jordan and north-west Saudi Arabia, though they are occasionally found in other places such as northern Jordan and parts of northern Saudi Arabia outside the Ḥismā. They are thought to date from roughly the same period as the Safaitic, i.e. first century BC to fourth century AD, though there

270-684: The Arabic script, which most linguists believe developed from the Nabataean script in the fourth century AD, which in turn developed from the Aramaic script. The languages of the Southern Musnad script also differ greatly from the Northern Arabic language,in terms of script, lexicon, grammar, styles, and perhaps sounds, and the letters of the script increase. The Musnad is derived from Arabic with one sibilant letter (some call it samikh) or

297-594: The Semitic Arabian languages and preceding Early Arabic of the 3rd to 6th centuries. There are also those who refer to the North Arabian languages as "Proto-Arabic" and distinguish between them and Preclassic Arabic. Agathangel of Crimea defined the period of existence of the Old Arabic (pre-classical) language as the V-VIII centuries (until 750), followed by the classical caliphate period (VIII-XI centuries),

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324-604: The Thamudic 'pending file' and gave them the name 'Taymanite', which was later changed to 'Taymanitic'. The same was done for 'Thamudic E' by Geraldine M.H. King, and this is now known as 'Hismaic'. However, Thamudic B, C, D and Southern Thamudic still await detailed study. Old North Arabian script was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0. The Unicode block for Ancient North Arabian

351-410: The ancient Arabic dialects that are not identical to Late Classical Arabic. Applying such a name to the North Arabian languages is an error. Ancient Arabic apparently coexisted with North Arabian but, unlike them, remained a purely spoken language. Dutch scholar Emery van Donzel considered "Old Arabic (Proto-Arabic) language" to be one of three stages in the development of Preclassic Arabic, following

378-510: The decline of Safaitic and Hismaic . From the 4th century AD, Old Arabic inscriptions are attested from Northern Syria to the Hejaz , in a script that is intermediate between cursive Nabataean and the Kufic script of Islamic times. The urheimat of Proto-Arabic can thus be regarded as the frontier between northwest Arabia and the southern Levant. There is confusion with the application of

405-403: The eighth and seventh centuries BC. Hasaitic is the name given to the inscriptions — mostly gravestones — which have been found in the huge oasis of Al-Hasa in north-eastern Saudi Arabia at sites like Thāj and Qatīf, with a few from more distant locations. They are carved in what may be an ANA dialect but expressed in a slightly adapted form of another member of the South Semitic script family,

432-430: The first century BC and the fourth century AD, though these limits can be no more than suggestions based on the fact that none of the approximately 35,000 texts known so far seems to mention anything earlier or later than these limits. Taymanitic is the name given to the variety of Northwest Semitic and ANA script used in the oasis of Tayma . This was an important stopping point on the caravan route from South Arabia to

459-520: The mid-sixth century BC, since they mention the last king of Babylon, Nabonidus (556–539 BC), who spent ten years of his seventeen-year reign in Taymāʾ. Thamudic is a name invented by nineteenth-century scholars for large numbers of inscriptions in ANA alphabets which have not yet been properly studied. It does not imply that they were carved by members of the ancient tribe of Thamūd. These texts are found over

486-725: The numbers written out in words. Zabūr , also known as "South Arabian minuscules ", is the name of the cursive form of the South Arabian script that was used by the Sabaeans in addition to their monumental script, or Musnad. Zabur was a writing system in ancient Yemen along with Musnad. The difference between the two is that Musnad documented historical events, meanwhile Zabur writings were used for religious scripts or to record daily transactions among ancient Yemenis. Zabur writings could be found in palimpsest form written on papyri or palm-leaf stalks. The South Arabian alphabet

513-414: The oases (Dadanitic, Dumaitic, Taymanitic) and by the nomads (Hismaic, Safaitic, Thamudic B, C, D, and possibly Southern Thamudic aka Thamudic F) of central and northern Arabia . Dadanitic was the alphabet used by the inhabitants of the ancient oasis of Dadan (Biblical Dedān, modern Al-`Ula in north-west Saudi Arabia), probably some time during the second half of the first millennium BC. Dumaitic

540-705: The other being Proto-Arabic . They are distinguished from each other by the definite article , which in Arabic is ʾal- , but in ANA is h- . They belong to a different branch of the Semitic languages than the Ancient South Arabian languages . The validity of this hypothesis has been called into question. This is particularly the case for Taymanitic , which has been determined to be a Northwest Semitic language. Safaitic and Hismaic are also now considered forms of Old Arabic due to shared features. The Ancient North Arabian scripts were used both in

567-565: The post-classical period (XI-XV centuries), and then the period of decline (XVI-XVIII centuries). Late Preclassic dialects, both urban and Bedouin, are described to some extent by early Arab philologists. New Arabic or Middle Arabic, which became the urban language of the Arab Caliphate in the 8th century, emerged from pre-classical Arabic dialects, which continued to develop until modern Arabic dialects, showing tremendous changes. There are several features shared by Classical Arabic ,

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594-671: The renovation of the Ma’rib Dam in 1986, which was carried out at the expense of Sheikh Zayed and in conjunction with the celebration of victory in the North Yemen Civil War against the Kingdom of Yemen . The inscription was published in a scientific article written by the Frenchman Christian Robin as the last official Musnad inscription. Ancient North Arabian Ancient North Arabian ( ANA )

621-425: The terms "pre-classical Arabic", "Proto-Arabic", "Old Arabic" and "Old Arabic". This is sometimes the name given to ancient epigraphic North Arabian languages. Sabatino Moscati called them "pre-classical", Georgi Akhvlediani called them "proto-Arabic", Johann Fück, Haim Rabin, Ibrahim al-Samarrai and Karl Brockelmann called them "ancient Arabic". Brockelmann considered the epigraphic North Arabian languages to be among

648-750: The third sīn. Six signs are used for numbers: The sign for 50 was evidently created by removing the lower triangle from the sign for 100. The sign for 1 doubles as a word separator. The other four signs double as both letters and numbers. Each of these four signs is the first letter of the name of the corresponding numeral. An additional sign ( 𐩿 ) is used to bracket numbers, setting them apart from surrounding text. For example, ‏ 𐩿𐩭𐩽𐩽𐩿 ‎ These signs are used in an additive system similar to Roman numerals to represent any number (excluding zero). Two examples: Thousands are written two different ways: Perhaps because of ambiguity, numerals, at least in monumental inscriptions, are always clarified with

675-516: The varieties of Modern Arabic and the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions that are unattested in any other Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of the northern Hejaz . They are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor, Proto-Arabic. The following features can be reconstructed with confidence for Proto-Arabic: This article related to

702-452: The various ANA alphabets were derived from the ASA script, mainly because the latter was employed by a major civilization and exhibited more angular features. Others believed that the ANA and ASA scripts shared a common ancestor from which they both developed in parallel. Indeed, it seems unlikely that the various ANA scripts descend from the monumental ASA alphabet, but that they collectively share

729-571: Was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.2. The Unicode block, called Old South Arabian, is U+10A60–U+10A7F. Note that U+10A7D OLD SOUTH ARABIAN NUMBER ONE (𐩽) represents both the numeral one and a word divider. Yemeni archeologist and linguist Mutaher al-Eryani , was keen to record a memorial in the Musnad script and in the Sabaean language, commemorating

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