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Safaitic
Safaitic ( ''Al-Ṣafāʾiyyah'') is a variety of the South Semitic scripts used by the Arabs in southern Syria and northern Jordan in the Harrat al-Sham, Ḥarrah region, to carve rock inscriptions in various dialects of Old Arabic and Ancient North Arabian. The Safaitic script is a member of the Ancient North Arabian (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: Al-Safa (Syria), As-Safa, a region of basalt desert to the southeast of Damascus, Syria. Since then they have been found over a wide area including south Syria, eastern Jordan and northwestern Saudi Arabia. Isolated examples occur further afield in places such as Palmyra in Syria, in Lebanon, in Wadi Hauran in western Ir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 has been used synonymously with "Paleo-Arabic" to describe the form of the Arabic script in the fifth and sixth centuries. Classification Old Arabic and its descendants are classified as Central Semitic languages, which is an intermediate language group containing the Northwest Semitic languages (e.g., Aramaic and Hebrew), the languages of the Dadanitic, Taymanitic inscriptions, the poorly understood languages labeled Thamudic, and the ancient languages of Yemen written in the Ancient South Arabian script. Old Arabic, is however, distinguished from all of them by the following innovations: # negative particles ''m'' */mā/; ''lʾn'' */lā-ʾan/ > CAr ''lan'' # ''mafʿūl'' G-passive participle # prepositions and adverbs ''f'', ''ʿn'', ''� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 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. Classification Many scholars believed that 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 a common ancestor to the exclusion of ASA is also s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahmad Al-Jallad
Ahmad Al-Jallad is a Jordanian-American philologist, epigraphist, and a historian of language. Some of the areas he has contributed to include Quranic studies and the history of Arabic, including recent work he has done on pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions written in Safaitic and Paleo-Arabic. He is currently Professor in the Sofia Chair in Arabic Studies at Ohio State University at the Department of Near Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures. He is the winner of the 2017 Dutch Gratama Science Prize. Biography Al-Jallad was born in Salt Lake City. As an undergraduate, he attended the University of South Florida. He entered Harvard University for his doctoral program in Semitic philology and received his Ph.D. in 2012. Two of his mentors during his studies were Michael C. A. Macdonald from the University of Oxford and John Huehnergard from Harvard University. One of his earliest achievements was reconstructing a previously unknown Arabian zodiac from pre-Islamic Arabia. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Safaitic in a few important respects, meriting its classification as a separate dialect or language. Hismaic inscriptions are attested in the of Northwest Arabian Peninsula, Arabia, dating to the centuries around and immediately following the start of the Common Era. One striking feature of the script is that it lacks a definite article. The Hismaic script is named after Hisma Desert, where it was mainly used, along with the surrounding areas up to central Jordan. It was discovered by F.V. Winnett who named it Thamudic E, and later G. King's work, it was renamed to "Hismaic". Characteristics Phonology Hismaic has undergone the merger of Proto-Semitic s¹ + s³, the same as all Arabic varieties and Dadanitic. There are clear instances of '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Safa (Syria)
As-Safa (, ), also known as Tulul al-Safa (, ), Arabic for ''Al-Safa hills'', is a hilly region which lies in southern Syria, north-east of Jabal al-Druze volcanic plateau. It consists of a basaltic lava field of volcanic origin, covering an area of 220 square kilometres, and contains at least 38 cinder cones. This volcanic field lies within the northern part of the massive alkaline Harrat Ash Shamah volcanic field that extends from southern Syria, through eastern Jordan to Saudi Arabia. The region is extremely scarce in water. Volcanic activities The field contains numerous vents which have been active during the Holocene Epoch (12,000 years ago). A boiling lava lake was observed in the Es Safa volcanic area in the middle of the 19th century (see Erta Ale in Ethiopia and Puʻu ʻŌʻō in Hawaii for reference). Demography The region was frequently used by the Druze through history as a refuge in the years of war. The whole region currently lies within As-Suwayda Governorate, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, elevated prose and oratory, and is also the liturgical language of Islam, "Quranic" referring to the Quran. Classical Arabic is, furthermore, the Register (sociolinguistics), register of the Arabic language on which Modern Standard Arabic is based. Several written grammars of Classical Arabic were published with the exegesis of Arabic grammar being at times based on the existing texts and the works of previous texts, in addition to various early sources considered to be of most venerated genesis of Arabic. The primary focus of such works was to facilitate different linguistic aspects. Modern Standard Arabic is its direct descendant used today throughout the Arab world in writing and in formal speaking, for example prepared speeches, some r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 this area. The State of Jabal Druze was an autonomous area in the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon from 1921 to 1936. In the past, the name Jabal al-Druze was used for a different area, located in Mount Lebanon. In Syria, most Druze reside in Suwayda Governorate, which encompasses almost all of Jabal al-Druze. This governorate is unique in Syria as it has a Druze majority. Additionally, it has integrated Christian communities that have long coexisted harmoniously with the Druze in these mountains. In the 1980s Druze made up 87.6% of the population, Christians (mostly Greek Orthodox) 11% and Sunni Muslims 2%. In 2010, the As-Suwayda governorate has a population of about 375,000 inhabitants, Druze made up 90%, Christians 7% a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Semitic Script
The South Semitic scripts are a family of alphabets that had split from Proto-Sinaitic script by the 10th century BC. The family has two main branches: Ancient North Arabian (ANA) and Ancient South Arabian (ASA). The scripts were exclusive to Arabia and the Horn of Africa. All the ANA and most of the ASA scripts fell out of use by the 6th century AD. The exception was Geʽez, a child of ASA in use in Ethiopia. It and its variants remain in use today for various Ethiosemitic languages. In Arabia, the South Semitic scripts were replaced by the Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ..., which is descended from the Nabataean script.Michael Everson and Michael Macdonald"Proposal to Encode the Old North Arabian Script in the SMP of the UCS" ''Proposals from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
