Safaitic ( ''Al-Ṣafāʾiyyah'') is a variety of the South Semitic scripts used by the Arabs in southern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

and northern

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

in the Ḥarrah region, to carve rock inscriptions in various dialects of

Old Arabic Old Arabic is the name for any Arabic language or dialect continuum before Islam. Various forms of Old Arabic are attested in scripts like Safaitic, Hismaic, Nabataean alphabet, Nabatean, and even Greek alphabet, Greek. Alternatively, the term ha ...

and Ancient North Arabian. The Safaitic script is a member of the

Ancient North Arabian Languages and scripts in the 1st Century Arabia Ancient North Arabian (ANA) 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 Ara ...

(ANA) sub-grouping of the South Semitic script family, the genetic unity of which has yet to be demonstrated. The first attempt at a comprehensive Safaitic dictionary was published in 2019 by Ahmad Al-Jallad and Karolina Jaworska.

Geographical distribution

Safaitic inscriptions are named after the area where they were first discovered in 1857: As-Safa, a region of basalt desert to the southeast of

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

. Since then they have been found over a wide area including south Syria, eastern

and northwestern

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

. Isolated examples occur further afield in places such as

Palmyra Palmyra ( ; Palmyrene dialect, Palmyrene: (), romanized: ''Tadmor''; ) is an ancient city in central Syria. It is located in the eastern part of the Levant, and archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first menti ...

in Syria, in

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

, in Wadi Hauran in western

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

, and in Ha'il in north central Saudi Arabia. The largest concentration appears to be in the Harrat al-Shamah, a black basalt desert, stretching south and east from

Jabal al-Druze Jabal al-Druze (), is an elevated volcanic region in the Suwayda Governorate of southern Syria. Most of the inhabitants of this region are Druze, and there are also significant Christian communities. Safaitic inscriptions were first found in ...

through

and into

. Approximately 30,000 inscriptions have been recorded, although doubtless many hundreds of thousands more remain undiscovered due to the remoteness and inhospitable nature of the terrain in which they are found. Typically the inscriptions are found on the rocks and boulders of the desert scatter, or on the stones of cairns. In many cases it is unclear whether the inscriptions on the cairns pre- or post-date the construction of the cairns. A small number of Safaitic inscriptions have been found outside the Harrat al-Sham, including examples from

, the

Hejaz Hejaz is a Historical region, historical region of the Arabian Peninsula that includes the majority of the western region of Saudi Arabia, covering the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif and Al Bahah, Al-B ...

, and

Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...

Script

The Safaitic alphabet comprises 28 letters. Several abecedaries (lists of the alphabet) are known, but all are written in different orders, giving strength to the suggestion that the script was casually learned rather than taught systematically. The Safaitic script exhibits considerable variability in letter shapes and writing styles. The inscriptions can be written in nearly any direction and there are no word dividers. There are two primary variants of the script: normal and square. The normal variant exhibits a large degree of variation, depending on the hand of individual authors and writing instrument. The square script appears to be a deliberate stylistic variant, making use of more angular forms of the letters. Inscriptions rarely employ the square variants consistently, but mix these shapes with normal letter forms. Finally, a minority of inscriptions exhibit a mix of Safaitic and

Hismaic Hismaic () is a variety of the Ancient North Arabian script and the language most commonly expressed in it. The Hismaic script may have been used to write Safaitic dialects of Old Arabic, but the language of most inscriptions differs from Safaiti ...

letter shapes.

Letters

Language

The traditional view held that because the Safaitic inscriptions often make use of the definite article ''ha-'', in contrast to Classical Arabic '''al'', that their language should not be regarded as Arabic proper, but rather as Ancient North Arabian. However, as more inscriptions have come to light, it is clear that the Safaitic dialects make use of a variety of definite article forms, including '''al'', and even a simple '''a-''. Based on this fact, the competing view holds that the dialects attested in the Safaitic script represent a

linguistic continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated variet ...

, on which

Classical Arabic Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic () is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notably in Umayyad Caliphate, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphate, Abbasid literary texts such as poetry, e ...

and other older forms of the language lie.

Content

Most Safaitic inscriptions are

graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

that reflect the current concerns of the author: the availability of grazing for his camel herd, mourning the discovery of another inscription by a person who has since died, or simply listing his genealogy and stating that he made the inscription. Others comment on raids and pray for booty, or mention religious practices. A few inscriptions by female authors are known. Inscriptions are sometimes accompanied by

rock art In archaeology, rock arts are human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type al ...

, showing hunting or battle scenes, camels and horses and their riders, bedouin camp scenes, or occasional female figures.

References

Citations

Sources

* *

External links

*
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia
(OCIANA) * {{Authority control Arabic languages Arab ethnic groups Ancient history of Jordan Ancient Syria Ancient North Arabian Extinct languages of Asia