Reflections on the Linguistic Map of Pre-Islamic Arabia

ISSN 0905-7196

Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia

M. C. A. MACDONALD Oriental Institute and Wolfson College, Oxford, UK

At a workshop on ‘Civilisations de l’Arabie pre´islamique’ in Aix-en-Provence in February 1996, I was asked by the organizers to give a survey of the state of our knowledge of the languages and scripts of pre-Islamic Arabia and to propose a coherent set of definitions and terms for them, in an attempt to clarify the numerous misapprehensions and the somewhat chaotic nomenclature in the field. I purposely concentrated on the languages and scripts of the Arabian Peninsula north of Yemen, and only mentioned in passing those of Ancient South Arabia, since these were to be the subject of another paper. Unfortunately, four years after it took place, the proceedings of this workshop remain unpublished. In the meantime, the contents of my paper have circulated widely and I, and others, are finding it increasingly frustrating having to refer to it as ‘forthcoming’. I am therefore most grateful to the editor of AAE for allowing a considerably revised version of my paper to be published here. It should be seen as an essential preliminary ground-clearing for my detailed discussion of the Ancient North Arabian languages and scripts which will appear early in 2001 in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages (ed. R.D. Woodard, Cambridge University Press) and my book Old Arabic and its legacy in the later language. Texts, linguistic features, scripts and letter-orders, which is in preparation.

Terminology baean, Qatabanian, Lihyanite, etc.). The The epigraphy of pre-Islamic Arabia is lit- two cases in which this is not possible are tered with labels which were misnomers the terms ‘North Arabian’ and ‘South Ar- even when they were first applied (eg. abian’, where the -ian ending is necessary ‘Safaitic’, ‘Thamudic’) or have become so to distinguish these groups of languages as research has progressed (eg. ‘Minaic’). I and scripts from Arabic. The use by some shall preface this paper with an attempt to scholars of the terms ‘North and South Ar- present a more coherent taxonomy, taking abic’ for ‘North and South Arabian’ is account of what we now know, and do not therefore to be regretted, particularly since know, of the linguistic situation at various others use the term ‘North Arabic’ to refer periods in pre-Islamic Arabia. not to Safaitic, Thamudic, etc., but to what When suggesting new terms (1) I have is normally called ‘Arabic’ (2). In the case tried, as far as possible, to follow system- of ‘South Arabic’ the term is particularly atically the use of the ending -ic (Sabaic, misleading since neither the Ancient nor etc.) for languages and scripts, and -aean/ the Modern South Arabian languages are ian or -ite for peoples and cultures (Sa- in any sense ‘Arabic’ (3). 28 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA i) Ancient North Arabian [ANA] (nordarabique ancien, Altnordarabisch) [pre-Islamic h- (hn-) and apparently ‘zero’ dialects] Oasis North Arabian [ONA] Taymanitic [formerly ‘Thamudic A’/‘Taymanite’] Dadanitic [formerly ‘Dedanite’ and ‘Lihyanite’] Dumaitic [formerly ‘Jawfian’] ‘Dispersed ONA’ [texts in the ONA scripts from Mesopotamia (formerly called ‘Chaldaean’) and other places, which cannot be classified as Taymanitic, Dadanitic or Dumaitic] Safaitic Hismaic [formerly ‘Thamudic E’; also erroneously called ‘Tabuki Thamudic’ or ‘South Safaitic’] Thamudic B, C, D, ‘Southern Thamudic’ Hasaitic [?] ii) Arabic Old Arabic (vieil arabe, Altarabisch) [pre-Islamic $l- dialects] ‘Pure’ Old Arabic texts [wholly in Old Arabic but written in the Sabaic, Nabataean, early Arabic or Greek scripts] ‘Mixed’ texts: Safaeo-Arabic, [Sabaeo-Arabic], Dadano-Arabic, Nabataeo-Arabic, Aramaeo-Arabic [texts written in the Safaitic, [Sabaic], Dadanitic, Nabataean, or other Aramaic languages and scripts but with Old Arabic features] Middle Arabic Classical Arabic Modern Standard Arabic Spoken Arabic Dialects [Appendix: Undifferentiated North Arabian] (1) ‘Pure Undifferentiated North Arabian’ texts [can be in any script, but are clearly North Arabian in language although they cannot be assigned either to Old Arabic or to a particular ANA dialect] (2) ‘Undifferentiated North Arabian Mixed’ texts eg. Sabaeo-North-Arabian [formerly ‘pseudo-sabe´en’: texts written in the Sabaic (etc.) languages and scripts but including North Arabian features which cannot be assigned either to Old Arabic or to a particular ANA dialect] Fig. 1. Suggested terminology for languages and scripts: I. North Arabian (nordarabique, Nordarabisch).

Languages (4) i) ‘Ancient North Arabian’ [ANA] The ancient and modern languages of the (‘nordarabique ancien’, ‘Altnordarabisch’) (6) Arabian Peninsula fall into two quite dis- which comprises the pre-Islamic h- (hn-) tinct linguistic groups: North Arabian and and apparently ‘zero’ (7) dialects: South Arabian. While they share some fea- Oasis North Arabian [ONA] viz. tures which mark them off from most other Taymanitic Semitic languages, there are many more Dadanitic which distinguish them from one another Dumaitic and it is now realized that their relation- Dispersed ONA (8) ship is not particularly close. Sw afaitic Hw ismaic (9) I. ‘North Arabian’ (‘nordarabique’, Thamudic B, C, D, and ‘Southern ‘Nordarabisch’) (5) Thamudic’ The term at present in general use is a sens- and possibly ible neutral label covering: Hw asaitic. 29 M. C. A. MACDONALD

At present, we know too little about the graphic South Arabian’, which describes a linguistic features of this group to make language group by the materials on which any further subdivision. it is written, or ‘Old South Arabian’ which implies (incorrectly) that it is the direct an- ii) Arabic cestor of Modern South Arabian (13). This in all its forms and at all stages of its devel- collective label covers two subdivisions. opment. The earliest of these stages is: a) The Sw ayhadic (14) languages, ie. those ‘Old Arabic’ (‘vieil arabe’ (10), ‘Altarab- traditionally called ‘Epigraphic South isch’ (11)). Just as ‘Old English’, ‘Old Arabian’, ‘Old South Arabian’, ‘Altsu¨ d- French’, etc. refer to the earliest sur- arabisch’, etc., viz. viving stages of these languages, Old Ar- Sabaic abic refers to the pre-Islamic $l-dialects of Mada¯bic (15) which traces remain in a handful of texts Qatabanic and in names (see below). Hw adw ramitic (16) In the Islamic period we have evidence of b) The non-Sw ayhadic languages, ie. the other varieties of Arabic of which the prin- other ancient languages of southern Ar- cipal are: abia, of which so far we have only rare Middle Arabic glimpses. Among these is the spoken Classical Arabic language of the Hw imyarites, who used Modern Standard Arabic Sabaic in their inscriptions. At present, Spoken Arabic Dialects this is known only from reports by writers of the Islamic period, but is Appendix to the North Arabian group possibly the language of the hymn to There are a number of texts from the pre-Is- the sun-goddess at Qa¯niya (17). The lan- lamic period which are wholly or partially guages of two other texts (18) which are in a North Arabian language but which at present incomprehensible seem also cannot be classed either as Old Arabic or as to fall under this heading, as would ANA because they contain only features probably ‘Native Minaic’, the language which are common to both. I have labelled spoken by the Minaeans (as opposed to these ‘Undifferentiated’ North Arabian, the Madhabic which they wrote), if an until such time as they can be classified example were to be found. It is possible more precisely. See the discussion below. that the dipinti recently discovered in Dhofar (19) should be included as well, II. ‘South Arabian’ (‘sudarabique’, but they have yet to be deciphered. ‘Su¨darabisch’) (12) A clear, neutral, geographical term to indi- ii) Modern South Arabian [MSA] cate both the ancient and modern non-Ar- (‘sudarabique moderne’, ‘Neusu¨ darabisch’) abic, Semitic languages of the region cov- is the common collective term for ered by modern Yemen and Oman. Within Batw hw arı¯, this overall grouping, two sub-groups can Hw arsu¯ sı¯, be distinguished: Hobyo¯t Jibba¯lı¯, i) Ancient South Arabian [ASA] Mehrı¯ (‘sudarabique ancien’ Suqutw rı¯ (Socotri) ‘Altsu¨ darabisch’) the unwritten, non-Arabic Semitic lan- is perhaps a safer term than either ‘Epi- guages spoken today, or in the recent past, 30 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA i) Ancient South Arabian [ASA] (sudarabique ancien, Altsu¨ darabisch) Sayhadic Sabaic Madhabic [formerly called ‘Minaean’/‘Minaic’. The written language used by the Minaeans and apparently inherited from their predecessors in the region of Wa¯dı¯ Mada¯b, in the Yemeni Jawf]. Qatabanic Hadramitic Non-Sayhadic Himyaritic [the native language of the Himyarites, of which a handful of possible examples remain] Other non-Sayhadic texts (ZI 11?, Ja 2353?) ? ‘Native Minaic’ [this should be restricted to any evidence that may appear for the language the Minaeans spoke] ?? The language of the Dhofar dipinti [at present undeciphered] ii) Modern South Arabian [MSA] (sudarabique moderne, Neusu¨ darabisch) Batw hw arı¯ Hw arsu¯ sı¯ Hobyo¯t Jibba¯lı¯ Mehrı¯ Socotrı¯ Fig. 2. Suggested terminology for languages and scripts: II. South Arabian (sudarabique, Su¨ darabisch).

in Oman, southeastern Yemen and Socotra. tion of any lineal ‘descent’, at least from the Although the terms ‘North Arabian’ and Sayhadic languages to the Modern South ‘South Arabian’ are both drawn from ge- Arabian tongues (20). Thus, ‘South Ar- ography, the groups they describe are de- abian’ is a geographical term which at fined by very different criteria. ‘North Ar- present covers three quite distinct types of abian’ describes a group of dialects (poss- language group, each defined by different ibly languages?) which appear remarkably criteria. ‘Sayhadic’ represents the official, homogeneous linguistically. For each of written, languages of the ancient South Ar- these, its phonemic repertoire, morphology abian kingdoms, a grouping based as much and (as far as we can tell) syntax, find on the fact that they are all relatively well closer parallels within the group than with documented, as on linguistic features. any language outside it. ‘Non-Sayhadic’ is simply a Restklassenbil- By contrast, the term ‘South Arabian’ is dung for any language indigenous to an- based more on geographical than linguistic cient South Arabia, which cannot be de- criteria. While there appear to be fairly fined as Sayhadic; while MSA is the only close internal relationships within the one of the three to be defined by linguistic Modern South Arabian group, it is ques- criteria. tionable to what extent all the languages To some extent, the contrast between within the Ancient South Arabian Sayhadic North Arabian and South Arabian reflects group really belong together on linguistic the extent of our knowledge of the two. The grounds. Indeed, future discoveries may linguistic data available for Ancient North prompt a drastic regrouping and relabel- Arabian is relatively sparse and it is possible ling of all the Ancient South Arabian lan- that if we had as much material for it as we guages. Equally, there seems to be no ques- do for Ancient South Arabian we might dis- 31 M. C. A. MACDONALD cover that the group was a good deal less ‘Thamudic’, ie. a number of different homogeneous than it appears. scripts which have not yet been fully identified and distinguished, represented in some 11,000 graffiti scattered Scripts throughout the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabian alphabetic tradition (21) The Arabian and the North-West Semitic II. The South Arabian scripts alphabetic traditions are the two great al- Monumental South Arabian of which phabetic writing systems of the Ancient there are relatively minor variations in the Near East. It is generally assumed that they Sabaic stemmed from a common source in the Madhabic north and separated some time in the Qatabanic and second millennium BC. Each has its own Hadramitic inscriptions; the traditional alphabetic order (the North- Hasaitic script (developed from the West Semitic $bgd (22) and the Arabian Sabaic) (26); the hlhw m (23)) and both have been found at zabu¯r or ‘minuscule’ scripts (27); and Ugarit (24). This in itself, of course, is only possibly the script(s) of the evidence that both letter orders were in use Dhofar dipinti and inscriptions. before the beginning of the twelfth century BC. It seems likely that the hlhw m was not III. The Ethiopic syllabary (or vocalized native to Ugarit, where the local alphabetic alphabet) order ($bghd) is amply attested, the infer- the only form of the Arabian alphabetic tra- ence being that it was in use elsewhere. The dition still in use today. only region where it seems to have been in normal use is Ancient South Arabia, al- New nomenclature for languages and scripts though the evidence is from a much later The different North Arabian alphabets period. It is true that at sites in the Yemeni were related to each other and to the South Jawf, fragmentary inscriptions in the South Arabian alphabets in ways that are not yet Arabian alphabet have been found in levels fully understood. Among the North Ar- dated by Carbon 14 to between the ninth abian scripts there are a number of sub- and thirteenth centuries BC (25) but, while categories that urgently need redefinition. the juxtaposition of these unrelated frag- Because the majority of ANA inscriptions ments of evidence raises intriguing pos- are short, very often consisting solely of sibilities, there is as yet no firm basis for names, genealogies of varying lengths and dating the origins of the Arabian alpha- introductory particles, it is often impossible betic tradition. to identify the language of the text (28). It The individual scripts within the Ar- is therefore customary, faute de mieux,to abian group are as follows: apply the name of the script to the language in which (it is assumed) the text was I. The North Arabian scripts written, unless there is evidence to the con- Taymanitic trary (29). This is most unsatisfactory but at Dadanitic present unavoidable. The discussion which Dumaitic follows is therefore primarily concerned Dispersed Oasis North Arabian with the taxonomy of the North Arabian Safaitic scripts (for which we have ample evi- Hismaic dence). The nomenclature of the languages 32 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

(on which we have much less data) will in- towns of North Arabia: Dadan, Tayma¯$ and evitably follow that of the scripts in which Du¯ ma¯, and probably also among the Arab they are habitually expressed, except communities settled in Babylonia and elsewhere there is evidence to the contrary. where (32). I would suggest that Oasis There is an increasing recognition that North Arabian be subdivided into Dadan- the distinction between the ‘Dedanite’ and itic, Taymanitic, etc. only when there is ‘Lihw ya¯nite’ scripts is artificial and that they clear evidence to justify this (33). represent the same script at different stages A new name is also urgently needed for of development. Moreover, the chrono- the so-called ‘Chaldaean’ inscriptions, the logical limits of these different stages do brief texts in the ONA script, on seals, pot- not necessarily coincide with the kingdoms tery, bricks, etc. which have been found in of Dadan (see note 1) and Lihw ya¯n, after various parts of Mesopotamia and else- which they are named. However, if we where (34). They are clearly in no sense abandon the term ‘Dedanite’ it would still ‘Chaldaean’ (35) and Burrows’ description be anachronistic to talk of ‘Lihyanite’ be- of the script as ‘Old Arabic’ is equally mis- fore the kingdom of Lihw ya¯n. It would seem leading (36). While it is likely, although in to be more sensible to name the script (at most cases unprovable, that at least some all stages of its development) after the oasis of these texts are to be associated with the in which it developed, rather than after a Arab communities settled in Babylonia, specific kingdom. I would therefore sug- others appear to be connected with Syria gest that, from now on, the labels ‘Lihy- and Transjordan (37), and yet others seem anite’ and ‘Dedanite’ be abandoned and to be from Arabia itself (38). They therefore the script and language throughout their do not form a homogeneous group. I history be referred to as ‘Dadanitic’.It would suggest that this be reflected in a de- would then be possible to distinguish dif- scriptive term such as ‘dispersed Oasis ferent phases within the development of North Arabian inscriptions’, failing a the script (‘early’, ‘middle’, ‘late’, etc.) more concise and elegant title. without tying them to political events, the The name ‘Thamu¯ dic’ was the invention dating of which is anyway uncertain. of western scholars even though there is Similarly, I would refer to the scripts virtually no evidence to connect any of the which developed in the oases of Tayma¯$ texts gathered under this rubric with the and Du¯ ma¯ (modern al-Jawf) as ‘Tayman- ancient tribe of Thamu¯ d (39). However, the itic’ (30) and ‘Dumaitic’ (31) respectively. label is far too well established to be These terms would also refer to the dialects changed and its very inappropriateness, normally expressed by these alphabets. when recognized, serves to emphasize the The scripts of the Early Dadanitic, Taym- artificiality of the category. For ‘Thamudic’ anitic and Dumaitic texts, together with is no more than a Restklassenbildung (a term those of the so-called ‘Chaldaean’ inscrip- I owe to E. A. Knauf, ZDPV 97, 1981; 189, tions (of which more below) are very close n. 7), a sort of undetermined’ pigeon-hole in form, and it is often difficult to assign a into which one can put everything which short text to one or other type (see Fig. 3). does not fit into one of the better-defined It therefore seems to me useful to think in categories. In a field such as Ancient North terms of an ‘Oasis North Arabian’ [ONA] Arabian, in which so much of the evidence script, which was employed, with small is uncertain and so much work still needs local variations in letter-form and ortho- to be done, this serves a useful purpose. graphic practice, in the three major oasis- However, while this is, or should be, 33 M. C. A. MACDONALD : 1991. Studia Alphabetica NB There are no chronologicalto implications the in photographs the of order these in which inscriptions the on scripts plates are in arranged. Sass, The numbers above the letters in the ‘Dispersed ONA’ line refer Fig. 3. Letter-forms in the Ancient North Arabian alphabets.

34 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA well known to those working in the field, though these inscriptions are spread over a it is necessary to warn those less familiar huge area of desert in southern Syria, with the subject who may be misled into northeastern Jordan and northern Saudi assuming that the items brought together Arabia, the one place where they have under this rubric can in some way be never been found is in the Sw afa¯ itself. How- treated as a whole. If scholars in other ever, the misnomer is far too well estab- fields are misled or bewildered it is largely lished to be changed, although the fact that the fault of epigraphists such as Jamme it is a purely conventional term needs con- and van den Branden who, against all the stantly to be borne in mind in the face of evidence, insist on ‘l’unite´ de l’alphabet such artificial conceptions as ‘Safaitic thamoudeén’ and, in the case of van den tribes’ or a ‘Safaitic name’ (46). Branden, on a connection with the tribe of The term Hw asaitic (47) refers to inscrip- Thamu¯ d (40). tions – almost entirely funerary – found In an exhaustive study (41), Geraldine principally in northeast Arabia at the sites King has recently identified the distin- of Tha¯j, Qatw ¯ıf, etc. but occasionally further guishing characteristics of the script which afield (48). Because of the small number of Winnett labelled ‘Thamudic E’, thus en- inscriptions so far published and the re- abling us to remove it from the Thamudic’ petitive character of their content, little is Restklassenbildung. This script, and the dia- known of the linguistic features of Hasaitic. lect normally expressed in it, therefore re- It is generally held that the Hasaitic in- quire a new name (42). The surveys con- scriptions are written either in the monu- ducted by Geraldine King and others in the mental South Arabian alphabet (albeit with Hw isma` (43) desert of southern Jordan, occasional unusual letter-forms) or in one where to date at least 5000 texts have been closely derived from it (49). However, a recorded, suggest that this region of Jordan very different theory has recently been ad- and northwest Saudi Arabia holds the vanced which claims that major concentration of these inscriptions, ‘Comme on trouve des textes en ećriture hw aseénne although naturally smaller numbers are dans le sud de l’Iraq a` partir du VIIIe sie`cle avant scattered over a much wider area. In a re- l’e`re chre´tienne, il semble vraisemblable que la re´- cent article, Geraldine King and I have gion du Golfe a emprunte´ son ećriture directement therefore suggested that the script and dia- a` la source, probablement dans la re´gion Syrie-Pa- lestine ... plutoˆt qu’en Arabie du sud.’ (50) lect of these texts should be called ‘Hw ismaic’ (44). Unfortunately, this theory is based on sev- ‘Like Thamudic’, the term Sw afaitic is a eral misconceptions. Firstly, the only misnomer, although for different reasons. It Hasaitic text so far discovered in Mesopot- refers to the mainly barren area of extinct amia is CIH 699, which Loftus found in situ volcanoes and unbroken lava flows, south- in an underground tomb at the foot of a east of Damascus and northeast of Jabal al- mound where ‘Seleucid tablets occurred’ cArab (45), which is known as the Sw afa¯.It (51). The chamber had already been robbed was near the eastern edge of this region and no dating evidence for either the tomb that the first Safaitic inscriptions were dis- or the inscription is known. covered. The name is thus a purely modern Secondly, the only North Arabian in- label which bears no relation to what the scriptions found in Mesopotamia which authors of these tens of thousands of texts may date to the eighth century BC are called themselves or the script they used (if some of the Dispersed Oasis North Ar- indeed it had a name). Unfortunately, al- abian texts. However, the Dispersed ONA 35 M. C. A. MACDONALD inscriptions do not form a coherent corpus which is surely that it may be misleading representing one script which could be to try to date it by fitting it into a South considered native to this region. They are a Arabian palaeographical schema (59). random assortment of small finds from a Thus, at present we unfortunately have very wide area, which display a consider- no direct evidence for either the origin or able range of letter-forms and clearly repre- the dating (60) of the Hasaitic script. In the sent a number of different varieties of the absence of such evidence, I can only sug- ONA scripts. This suggests that they repre- gest that the Hasaitic monumental script is sent imports rather than the products of a so similar to the monumental South Ar- native form of literacy (52). It is for this abian that it is highly unlikely that they reason that I have suggested calling them could represent parallel developments ‘Dispersed Oasis North Arabian’, a label from an early period. It seems far more which I hope emphasizes their heterogen- probable that, at a date unknown, the eous character and the fact that they are South Arabian script began to be used for unlikely to be indigenous to the places monumental inscriptions in the northeast where they have been found. of the Peninsula, possibly for reasons of Thirdly, the script of the Hasaitic inscrip- prestige. Once this had begun, this al- tions is clearly very different from that of phabet ceased to be ‘South Arabian’ be- any of the Dispersed ONA texts, as can be cause it was being used at too great a dis- seen by comparing the relevant rows in tance from Southern Arabia for it to main- Figure 3, and there is nothing to indicate tain the same evolutionary course as the that the former developed from the latter true ‘South Arabian script’. Instead it be- (53). Moreover, if it had, one would need came ‘the Hasaitic script’ in the sense that to explain how this supposed independent it began its own palaeographical develop- development produced a script (ie. ment. Alas, the tiny number of inscriptions Hasaitic) which was identical, in all but the so far known and the lack of direct external tiniest details, to the monumental South dating evidence makes any true palaeo- Arabian alphabet. graphical analysis impossible at present, The dating of the Hasaitic inscriptions is and we must await the discovery of much at present uncertain. Pirenne made a tenta- more evidence before this, or any other, tive comparison of the script of one hypothesis can be tested. Hasaitic text (Ry 687) (54) with elements of Old Arabic seems to have remained a her ‘Stade D2’ and ‘Stade E’, for which she purely spoken language until the late fifth/ offered rough dates of c.280 BC and 150– early sixth centuries AD (61) which means, 100 BC respectively, and more confidently of course, that no specific script was associ- assigned another, fragmentary and much ated with it before that period. Thus, on the damaged text (Ry 688) (55), to her ‘Stade rare occasions when it was written, the C’, dating it to 350–300 BC (56). However, script associated with the local language of Pirenne’s dating was based on the ‘short’ prestige was used: South Arabian in the South Arabian chronology, which archae- southern half of the Peninsula; Dadanitic in ological finds in recent years have shown Dadan; Nabataean at Hw egra¯, cE¯ n cAvdat in to be untenable (57). Furthermore, Pirenne the Negev, and at al-Nama¯ra; a form of herself admitted that ‘cette graphie du eastern Aramaic at Mleiha (Malayhw a) on Golfe Persique ne s’inte`gre pas exactement the Oman Peninsula; Greek in an ecclesias- a` l’e´volution de l’ećriture sud-arabe; elle tical context in Syria (62); and early Arabic est spećifique...,’ (58) the implication of (63), again mainly in Syria. Some aspects 36 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA of the significance of this will be discussed tiated North Arabian’. Within this class, below. Here I would only explain some dis- subdivisions can be made to reflect the tinctions which recent studies have re- script and basic language of each text. Thus vealed and which require some refine- those Sabaic inscriptions from Haram ments of terminology. which include intrusive elements from an The documentary evidence for Old Ar- undifferentiated North Arabian language abic is of two kinds, see Figure 1: (64) (see below), I would call Sabaeo-North-Ar- (a) Texts in ‘Pure’ Old Arabic are those ex- abian, within the category of ‘Undifferenti- pressed wholly in the pre-Islamic $l- ated North Arabian’ (see Fig. 1). dialect(s), although written in a variety of scripts, as outlined above. (b) ‘Mixed’ Old Arabic texts are those ex- Reflections on the linguistic map of pre- pressed in the language normally as- Islamic Arabia sociated with the script (eg. Safaitic, At the outset it is important to distinguish Dadanitic, Aramaic, etc.) but which in- between languages and scripts, especially clude some linguistic features identifi- since, as mentioned above, the same labels able as Old Arabic. In order to distin- (‘Sabaic’, ‘Safaitic’, etc.) are usually applied guish these from the ‘pure’ Old Arabic to both. Any script can, of course, be used texts, I would suggest that these be to express any language (more or less ef- called ficiently) and there is no inevitable or in- Safaeo-Arabic (65) dissoluble link between a particular tongue [Sabaeo-Arabic] (66) and the written form in which it is habitu- Dadano-Arabic ally expressed. The fact that certain writing Nabataeo-Arabic systems have become associated with par- Aramaeo-Arabic (67). ticular languages is no more than conven- I would only apply such a label to a text if tion and, more often than not, the script the intrusive elements can clearly be iden- adopted is ill-suited to the phonological re- tified as Old Arabic as distinct from ANA quirements of the language it is used to ex- or ASA. For the diagnostic criteria avail- press. Indeed, phonology seems seldom to able at present, see below. have been considered, when writing sys- Given the paucity of material, the inad- tems which had been developed to express equacies of the scripts used and the appar- one language (with varying degrees of ently close similarities between the two competence) were employed to express an- sub-groups of North Arabian, there will in- other. One need only think of Akkadian evitably be a number of cases where it is written in a syllabary which had evolved impossible to decide whether the intrusive to express Sumerian, or the Old Aramaic elements in a particular document are Old phonemic repertoire squeezed into an al- Arabic or ANA. To avoid classifying these phabet designed for that of Phoenician. incorrectly and thus creating confusion in The fact that the same script may be used the future when the characteristics of the to write several different languages has far- two groups are described, it is useful to reaching effects on our perception and have a Restklassenbildung, or ‘pending’ cat- classification of the ancient documents we egory into which such texts can be placed study. To take just one example: scripts as- until such time as their language can be sociated with languages of political or cul- identified more exactly. I suggest, there- tural prestige, or which have become the fore, that these texts be called ‘Undifferen- medium of international correspondence, 37 M. C. A. MACDONALD are liable to be used to express other, more most intimate of personal identifiers, the local, languages. We are not particularly personal choice of the name-giver must al- surprised, therefore, when we find a most always have been paramount, and Hasaitic text in the South Arabian script, or even in societies where practices such as pa- an Old Arabic one in the Nabataean. But ponymy are the norm, the unexpected is al- what of the names in a graffito in the South ways possible. We therefore need to be very Arabian script, where there is no visible clear about what exactly we mean when we grammatical context to indicate the lan- speak of a ‘North Arabian’ or a ‘South Ar- guage; or a seal with a single name in the abian’ or a ‘Nabataean’ name, and we Aramaic script? Failing any internal indi- should avoid the temptation to use names of cators, such names have traditionally been any sort as evidence for the language, let assigned to the language usually associ- alone the ‘ethnicity’ of those who bear them ated with the script: they become ‘South (70). Arabian’ or ‘Aramaic’ names (68). Then, all In what follows, I shall divide Arabia too often, we use linguistic or onomastic very roughly by a northwest-southeast line features to define the boundaries between and refer to the western two-thirds of the communities. At best, these are extremely Peninsula as ‘western Arabia’ and to the inexact indicators – after all, most of us eastern one-third as ‘eastern Arabia’ (see have at some time written in languages Fig. 4). other than our mother tongue and if, by On present evidence, eastern Arabia chance, such a document was the only one (both at its northern and southern ends) to survive, future historians might, for in- appears to have had a development which stance, class me as French on the basis of a is rather different from that of the cultures letter I had written in that language. further west. This apparent difference may Similarly, we need to be extremely cir- in part be due to an imbalance in the cumspect in the way we use onomastic ma- amount and type of research which has so terial. Synchronically, a name represents the far been devoted to the two sides of the person who bears it, it does not ‘mean’ any- Peninsula. The study of the ancient history thing else (69). Of course, like all words, of both the northwest and southwest is still names have etymologies. But in the vast ma- dominated by epigraphy, and the results of jority of cases those who give and those who the archaeological work of the last twenty- bear them are unaware of, and unconcerned five years are only now beginning to with their original signification. For, in most change and fill out the traditional picture. cases, the nugget of linguistic information a By contrast, our understanding of eastern name contains is a fossil, and there is no way Arabia is due entirely to archaeological of relating it to a particular stage of the lan- work and, with the exception of Dhofar, guage in question or to a particular society this side of the Peninsula has produced using that stage. We therefore have no way only a handful of inscriptions, containing of knowing whether the linguistic features very little information (71). of a name can give us accurate information Thus for pre-Islamic western Arabia about the language used by its bearer. Rela- (especially the southwest) we have a great tively few names at any one time are coined deal of information about those aspects of within the community which uses them, life which are the stuff of monumental in- most are considerably older, and in many scriptions: social and political systems, cases were ‘borrowed’ from another culture. land and water rights, religious practice, Given that a man or woman’s name is the etc., whereas in the east, we are almost en- 38 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

Fig. 4. Sketch map of pre-Islamic Arabia showing the ‘east-west’ division used in this paper (map drawn by A. Searight). tirely ignorant of these. Similarly, the ar- sula. Nevertheless, even accepting this, chaeological exploration of the Gulf coast there are clear differences between the two and Oman has provided information about regions, and these are worth exploring. chronology, city plans, diet, burial practices To the epigraphist, the most striking con- and much else, which is only slowly be- trast between them is in the use of the art coming available in the west of the Penin- of writing. In northwest Arabia there was 39 M. C. A. MACDONALD a multiplicity of different native scripts, in those of Hatran and Parthian (Arsacid), addition to the imported Aramaic, Greek this particular form of the Aramaic script and South Arabian alphabets. From at least is not known from elsewhere. It is therefore the mid-first millennium BC, forms of the possible that it represents a local develop- Oasis North Arabian script appear to have ment, of which as yet we have only two been in use in the major oases of Du¯ ma¯, examples (78). However, the total number Tayma¯$ and Dadan and, from a period not of Aramaic texts from the Gulf area is so much later, the nomads seem also to have tiny and their geographical and chrono- used a number of different alphabets (72). logical range apparently so wide that it The question of the development and the would be dangerous to draw any con- interrelationships of the different Arabian clusions at present. scripts is still very uncertain, but it seems In the south, the contrast between west possible that most, if not all, of these North and east is slightly different. In Yemen a Arabian alphabets developed in parallel to number of individual settled, literate cul- the South Arabian scripts and not from tures grew up and yet there appears to them. have been the most extraordinary degree of By contrast, the only native script to de- uniformity in the appearance of the monu- velop on the eastern side of the Peninsula mental script (79). Since the palaeograph- was that of Dhofar. Apart from this, on ical work of Jacqueline Pirenne, it has been present knowledge at least, writing in assumed that this developed at a more or eastern Arabia appears to have been funda- less uniform rate throughout the region mentally derivative. However, I should and even in outlying areas (80). The differ- emphasize that the amount of material so ences between one inscription and another far discovered is derisory. A few dozen in the form of the monumental script are texts in cuneiform have been found at the therefore generally attributed to chrono- northern end of the Gulf (73), and a scat- logical developments, rather than regional tering of Greek texts and fragments in the variations. At the same time, there are two same region (74). The script of the Hasaitic other types of the South Arabian script: the inscriptions clearly derives directly from adapted ‘majuscule’ of the graffiti and South Arabian monumental, although in some of the inscribed sticks mentioned individual texts there are occasional rather below, and the zabu¯r, or ‘minuscule’ script, odd variations in the forms of certain let- used on the majority of the inscribed sticks ters (75). The few Aramaic texts from the which have been appearing in northern Gulf are, with one major exception, short Yemen, in their hundreds, since 1970 (81). texts, fragments or coin legends. They dis- In both cases these are groups of scripts for, play a variety of forms of the script in both in contrast to the monumental writing, the lapidary and cursive traditions and there is no uniformity here and, particu- some texts – notably the coin legends but larly in the case of the zabu¯r, there is a also others – contain letter-shapes appar- plethora of different script forms. Nor was ently derived from both (76). Indeed, in literacy confined to the settled population, some texts the scripts seem to have de- for in the deserts of southern Saudi Arabia veloped in unusual directions and, for in- there are thousands of graffiti in the South stance, in the one long inscription the signs Arabian (82) and ‘Southern Thamudic’ (83) for d, r, k and c are identical, as are those scripts, some of which may well have been for hw and m (77). Although certain of its written by nomads, like the Safaitic and individual features can be compared with ‘Thamudic’ graffiti of the north. 40 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

Thus, there is at present a very clear con- be used as evidence for the language trast between eastern Arabia, where spoken by the tribe of Qe¯da¯r or any other writing seems hardly to have taken root, of the dedicants. and the western two-thirds of the Penin- Similarly, this example should warn us sula where it seems to have been endemic. that the epithet $Alila´t mentioned by Her- This said, however, there are also clear dis- odotus (89) is not necessarily evidence for tinctions between the northwest and the the dialect of his Arab informants (who southwest in languages, scripts, the types were probably living in eastern Egypt or of document available and relations with Sinai). In ancient Near-Eastern religions other societies. In what follows, I shall be epithets rapidly became names and, once concentrating on what we know of the this had happened, the form of the name linguistic situation in north and central Ar- was fixed. All we can say is that in eastern abia in the first millennia BC and AD. I Egypt in the fifth century BC both the h- shall not deal with the languages of ancient and the $l-dialects were represented in the South Arabia, except when they impinge epithet ‘the goddess’ (90), but with no cer- on those of the north (84). tainty as to who was speaking these dialects at the time, or where they originated. Ancient North Arabian Dadanitic The hn-dialects The one dialect of Ancient North Arabian in In northwestern Arabia a multiplicity of which it is certain that hn- was used was Da- dialects developed within the group I have danitic. The normal Dadanitic article is h- called Ancient North Arabian, which uses but before /$/ (91) and /c/ (92) it is hn-.It h- as the definite article. The earliest occur- has been suggested that hn- is a survival of rence of this article is in the name of the the original article in all members of this goddess hn-$lt in the Aramaic dedications group, but that in the other dialects it was re- on silver bowls found at her shrine at Tell duced to h- (93). It is impossible to prove or al-Mashu¯ tw a, in the Nile delta. These have disprove this theory, but if this were so, one been dated to the late fifth century BC (85). would expect the odd irregularity of usage One of the dedicators was Qaynu¯ bar in Dadanitic and sporadic survivals in other Gesˇem, king of Qe¯da¯r, and it has recently dialects. In fact, however, there is only one been suggested that this is evidence that possible instance in Dadanitic of hn- before this tribe could have spoken a h-/hn-dialect a phoneme which is not a pharyngal or a (86). However, this is to stretch the evi- glottal (94), and no certain examples (except dence too far. The other dedications found in names) in the other dialects. So this fea- at the shrine are also to hn-$lt. Of the two ture could just as well, or perhaps more others which name the dedicator, one is likely, be a euphonic development within made by a man with an Egyptian name Dadanitic, as a survival from an earlier and a North Arabian patronym (87), while period. in the other both names are Semiticized A Safaitic inscription, by an author who Egyptian (88). It seems clear, therefore, that gives his nisba as hn-hw wly (95), provides an the goddess of this shrine was worshipped interesting footnote to this discussion. It is as hn-$lt, regardless of how this epithet clear from many other Safaitic texts that the would be realized in the languages of indi- Hw wlt came from outside the normal mi- vidual pilgrims, or the Aramaic of the gration areas of the tribes east of the Hw aw- dedications. This epithet cannot therefore ra¯n whose members wrote these graffiti, 41 M. C. A. MACDONALD and it is likely that the Hw wlt should be South Arabian because it uses the typically identified with the Avalitae, whom Pliny as- ANA expression d$l and, with the one ex- sociates with the oases of Du¯ ma¯ and Hw egra¯ ception just quoted, lacks any characteristi- (96), the latter at least being very much cally ASA features. This classification is within the Dadanitic hn- dialect area. Un- probably correct, but it is as well to be fortunately, the statement in the text – w nfr aware that it is, and can only be, based on mn rm ‘and he escaped from the Romans’ – the tiny amount of non-onomastic material is too brief to identify its language. available. Outside Dadanitic – ie. principally at Tell al-Mashu¯ tw a and in the Hasaitic inscriptions – the evidence for the article hn- comes Oasis North Arabian entirely from names, all but two of which The report, in Akkadian, by the eighth-cen- are compounded with hn-$lt (97) and, as tury BC governor of Suh8 u on the middle noted above, these are not evidence for the Euphrates, concerning a raid he carried out linguistic features of the texts in which they on a caravan of the people of Tayma¯$ and occur. This is particularly clear in the case of Saba$, is by now well known. This is our the name hn-$mlt, found in a Safaitic text earliest evidence for the involvement of the from northern Saudi Arabia (98), since there Sabaeans and Taymanites in the caravan is ample evidence that the article in Safaitic trade (101). However, there may be another is h- before all sounds, not hn-. reference to Tayma¯$, this time in a hieroglyphic Luwian document also of the eighth century, which is by a certain Yariris, a palace official who seems to have become The h- and possible ‘zero’ dialects regent of Carchemish during the minority of Hasaitic (?) its king. In this inscription, Yariris boasts It is important to reiterate that the etymolo- that he knew twelve languages and at least gies of personal names are not evidence for four scripts (102). The latter were, ‘the script the language of their bearers, since Hasaitic of the City’ (ie. his own hieroglyphic has been classed with the hn- dialects Luwian), and those of Sura and Assyria and simply because of the presence of the ar- finally the Taymani script. Sura has been ticle hn- in theophoric names in the texts. identified as Tyre and its script, therefore, as Other than in names, there is as yet only Phoenician (103). Rather more tentatively, it one possible instance of the article in has been suggested that ta-i-ma-ni-ti refers Hasaitic, and here it is the South Arabian to the script of Tayma¯$ (104). Like the other suffixed -n (99). So limited is the material items in the list, this is an adjectival form yet discovered that we have no other con- (105), and this could explain the -n-. Such an texts in which the definite article might be interpretation is very attractive, not least be- expected (100). It is therefore far from cer- cause it provides a schematic map of the tain what form it took in Hasaitic. It is even trading relationships of Carchemish at this possible that it did not use a definite article period: with Phoenicia to the west, Assyria at all, or else employed one, such as a vo- to the east and Tayma¯$ and Saba$ to the calic affix as in Aramaic, which did not south (106). show up in the purely consonantal South If this identification is correct, it provides Arabian script. the earliest historical reference to a North Despite its script, Hasaitic is classed as Arabian script. It does not seem to me Ancient North Arabian rather than Ancient necessary to assume that the South Ar- 42 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA abian script is meant here (107). The gov- hand, a different solution was found. The ernor of Suh8 u was quite capable of distin- inherited z sign, with the horizontal bar set guishing between Taymanites and Sa- diagonally, was used for /z/, and a sign baeans and there is no reason to suppose resembling the South Arabian dw was em- that Yariris would have said Taymanitic if ployed for /d/ (in the verb cwd) (111). At he had meant Sabaic. If Sass is correct in the same time a sign similar to the South dating to the eighth century BC some of the Arabian d was used for /dw / in the N.Div. seals with Oasis North Arabian inscrip- rdw w (112). This interchange of the d and dw tions found in Mesopotamia, this would fit signs is paralleled in Safaitic and Thamudic very well with this reference. B which also employ a sign identical to the Although I am unconvinced by many of monumental South Arabian d for their /dw /. Sass’s arguments, unless one takes the ex- On the other hand, in Hismaic, an iden- treme position that all the inscriptions on tical sign was used for /t/, the common t the seals are later additions, his dating is sign being used for /g/. No explanation probably more or less correct in some has yet been found for this bizarre feature. cases. I would therefore suggest that we There are many other examples and a thor- could take as a working hypothesis the ough study of the relationships between existence of the Oasis North Arabian script, signs and the sounds they represent in the in one or more forms, by the eighth century different forms of the Arabian alphabetic BC. The way in which this was adapted to tradition is long overdue. express the different dialects of the region is only just beginning to be worked out. Thamudic It would appear that the Taymanitic In the last sixty years, the study of script had signs for all three unvoiced non- ‘Thamudic’ has progressed considerably, emphatic sibilants, represented by s1, s2 and thanks to the work of F.V. Winnett and and s3 (see Figs. 3 and 5). It seems probable Geraldine King, it is now possible to re- that this s3 sign originally had a form move from the Restklassenbildung two similar to Monumental South Arabian s3, groups of inscriptions, and to make a very for a shape very close to the latter is found rough preliminary subdivision of some of on a Taymanitic seal inscription (RES 2688) the rest. Of the two groups which can be (108). What appears to have happened is removed one is Winnett’s ‘Thamudic A’ that the distinction between the phonemes which is now recognized as ‘Taymanitic’ represented by s3 and s1 was retained and has been discussed above. The other is longer in Tayma¯$ than in other places (109). his ‘Thamudic E’ which I have suggested Developed forms of the s3 sign appear in should be renamed Hismaic (113). Geral- at least two other Taymanitic inscriptions dine King has made a detailed analysis of (110), but in none of the other North Ar- this dialect and script (114) which, it is abian scripts. hoped, will be published before long, and Similarly, it would appear that in its so I shall add only the few brief remarks earliest form, the ONA script had no sign below. The distinctive features of language, for /d/ (see Fig. 3). In Taymanitic, which orthography, style and content of both Tay- in this case again appears to be very con- manitic and Hismaic are now fairly well servative, the z sign was also used for /d/, known and each constitutes a clearly de- while the d signs in early and late Dadan- fined type. Of course, the categories are not itic look very much as if they are adap- hermetically sealed and there are texts tations of the z sign. At Du¯ ma¯, on the other which could be either Taymanitic or early 43 M. C. A. MACDONALD

Dadanitic, and others which could be His- by the Philby-Ryckmans-Lippens ex- maic or Safaitic, or which show a mixture pedition mainly in the southwestern part of of the features of both groups. However, Saudi Arabia. As might be expected, these this is to be expected. display many features which are very dif- What is left as ‘Thamudic’ is a mass of ferent from the ‘Thamudic’ inscriptions of over 11,000, mainly short, texts scattered the north and they do not fit easily into the over the whole of the western part of the existing sub-groups. They are called Peninsula from Syria to Yemen (inclusive). ‘Thamudic’ simply because they are con- Approximately 2,000 of these were copied sidered to be North Arabian but cannot be and published by early scholars and travel- classified as Oasis North Arabian, Hismaic, lers in northwest Arabia and were rather Safaitic or Hasaitic. They are termed roughly divided by Winnett in 1937 into ‘Southern Thamudic’ to distinguish them three sub-groups, Thamudic B, C and D from the existing rough subdivisions B, C (115). In 1970 he revised the division and and D. Jacques Ryckmans described some of the labels, calling Thamudic B ‘Najdi’ and their features in his article ‘Aspects nou- combining C and D under the heading ‘Hi- veaux du proble`me thamoude´en’ (120) jazi’ (116). However, this only led to con- which, in my opinion, even after half a cen- fusion and his original classification has tury, remains the best available description generally been retained (117). Of these of Thamudic as a category. We must await groups, by far the largest is Thamudic B the full analysis of these texts before we can and it is almost certain that future work know how many more sub-groups are rep- will show that this should be subdivided. resented in the collection and whether any Similarly, on the basis of different signs for of these can be removed from the Thamudic r and n, Geraldine King has suggested that ‘pending file’ and given labels of their own. Thamudic C should be subdivided (118). Most of the texts are known only in Hismaic hand-copies of uncertain accuracy and this Some years ago, E. A. Knauf tried to show combined with their brevity makes them that the script and dialect which Winnett extremely difficult to interpret. In addition, called ‘Thamudic E’ should be classed as a the values of certain signs in Thamudic B, sub-group of Safaitic which he suggested C and D are still in doubt. An interesting renaming ‘South Safaitic’ (121). However, feature of Thamudic D, which is the script as Geraldine King has shown, the script, of the Thamudic counterpart of the Raqo¯sˇ orthography, content and some linguistic inscription (119) and which can therefore features of these texts differ markedly from be dated to AD 267, is the apparently ar- those of Safaitic and the attempt to sub- chaic forms of many of its letters (see Fig. sume them under the ‘Safaitic’ rubric blurs 3). This is particularly clear in the case of $, important distinctions, bringing confusion b, z, s1, sw and n. This should serve as a rather than clarification (122). For instance, warning to those who propose palaeo- no fewer than six signs have identical graphical developments between one shapes, but completely different values, in script and another. For had we not had the the two alphabets (Fig. 3). Thus the sign Raqo¯sˇ text with its date, Thamudic D representing g in Hismaic is used for t in would have been classed as one of the Safaitic, the sign for tw in Hismaic is hw in earliest of the North Arabian scripts. Safaitic, and so on (123). It will thus be The vast majority of the known Thamudic clear that, although geographically, and inscriptions (some 9,000) were discovered perhaps chronologically, these scripts are 44 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

Fig. 5. Sibilant shifts in Ancient North Arabian, Arabic, Nabataean and other Aramaic dialects.

close neighbours, the palaeographical re- be of this type, but as yet there is too little lationship between the two is fairly distant. evidence to tell. Similarly, although the two dialects were almost certainly mutually comprehensible, Safaitic there are significant differences in usage. Much progress has been made in the study To take just one example, whereas Safaitic of Safaitic in the last twenty years and it is uses h- for both the definite article and the, hoped that this will accelerate in the near much rarer, nearer demonstrative (‘this’), future. It is the dialect of Ancient North Ar- Hismaic uses h- before nouns so in- abian about which we know most and yet frequently that Geraldine King has sug- the very nature of the texts puts a severe gested that when it is used it may have had limit on the amount and type of infor- a specifically demonstrative force. In most mation we can glean from them. cases where one would expect the article, The texts were written largely by no- and where in Safaitic it would be present, mads who migrated across southern Syria, there is no visible mark of definition in His- western Iraq, northeastern Jordan and maic. This suggests that Hismaic either had northern Saudi Arabia probably between no definite article (as in Syriac) or else em- the first century BC and the fourth century ployed a vocalic affix (like the Aramaic em- AD. Some 20,000 inscriptions are known at phatic ending) which would not have been present and there are tens of thousands represented in the purely consonantal more awaiting discovery. They thus repre- script. In this regard it may be significant sent a very dense concentration of evidence that affiliation to a social group is never ex- for a particular Ancient North Arabian pressed by the nisba in Hismaic (124). script and dialect over a considerable area It is for this reason that I have tentatively at the northern end of the Peninsula. The described Hismaic as neither a h- / hn- nor extent of the material available, and in par- an $l- dialect, but as an apparently ‘zero’ ticular the huge onomasticon, can some- dialect, as far as the definite article is con- times distort comparisons with other dia- cerned. As noted above, Hasaitic may also lects which are less well represented (125). 45 M. C. A. MACDONALD

I have published elsewhere (126) a It follows from this that, if the name of lengthy survey of the content of these in- the deity which we pronounce (anachron- scriptions and I will not repeat that dis- istically) ‘Du¯ shara¯’, had been pronounced cussion here. Instead, I would like to draw with a [͐] in Nabataean, it would have attention to a few interesting, but uncon- been spelt in Safaitic with s1, and this we nected, details which may help to place the never find. Instead, it is always spelt with dialect in its linguistic context. s2 and probably had a pronunciation ap- Like the other North Arabian languages, proximating to the ich-laut [c¸], which Sı¯ba- Safaitic had two unvoiced non-emphatic wayhi describes for (sˇ¯ın), the reflex of s2, sibilants, represented by the letters s1 and in eighth-century Arabic (129). As I explain s2 (see Fig. 5). It is clear from the loan- below, we know that this name came to words, or rather ‘loan-names’, found in Safaitic via Aramaic because it is generally Safaitic that these letters did not have the spelt with a d rather than the etymological same phonetic values as their etymological d. We must therefore conclude that in the equivalents in standard Arabic, repre- Nabataean Aramaic of the Hw awra¯n, at sented by the letters (sı¯n) and (sˇ¯ın)re- least, the phonemes /sˇ/ and /s´/, which spectively. It is for this reason that I now were represented by the same letter ( )in use the phonetically neutral notation for the Aramaic alphabet, were still pro- these letters, s1 and s2 (borrowed from An- nounced differently. This maintenance of cient South Arabian), rather than the tra- the distinct pronunciation of the pho- ditional s and sˇ which imply the pronunci- neme /s´/ marks out Nabataean Aramaic ation [s] and [͐] respectively. from most of the other Middle Aramaic In his brilliant studies of ‘Arabian Sibi- dialects which underwent the sound-shift lants’, Professor Beeston showed that in [s´]±[s]. Simplistic dismissals of this as ‘Ar- Ancient North Arabian and in Arabic up abic colouring’ (130) mask the really inter- to at least the eighth century AD, the two esting questions which it raises (131). unvoiced non-emphatic sibilants, repre- In Safaitic and Hismaic, the lack of [s] sented by s1 and s2, and in Arabic by the obviously caused problems in the translit- letters (sı¯n) and (sˇ¯ın), were pronounced eration of Latin and Greek names and titles respectively [͐] and [c¸] and that there was containing S or S. There are a few cases no ‘pure’ [s] (127). This explains why the where s1 has been used ($qlds1ΩClaudius, Aramaic divine name Bacal-sˇamı¯n was spelt tts1ΩTitus) but the more usual expedient in Safaitic with s1 (thus bcls1mn) not s2.Itis seems to have been to use the emphatic sw interesting to compare this loan form with (qsw rΩkaiˆsa|, grfsw Ω$Ag|i´ppaV, hrdsw Ω the calque (ie. loan translation) bcls1my, also cH|}´ dhV, flfsw ΩFi´lippoV, grmnqsw ΩGer- spelt with s1, which is found in a few manicus, etc.). It is almost certainly for this Safaitic texts (128). If s1 and s2 in Safaitic reason that sw was put in the place of had had the values of their equivalents semkath in the Hismaic ABC found at (sı¯n) and (sˇ¯ın) in standard Arabic, one Khirbat al-Samra¯$ (132). would have expected the loan form from Aramaic Bacal-sˇamı¯n to be spelt with s2 and Nabataean (133) the calque bcls1my to be spelt with s1, since For many years it has been widely held we know that the word for heaven was that the Nabataeans wrote in Aramaic but s1my (cf. Ar. sama¯$) in Safaitic. The fact that spoke Arabic. This view is based on the both are spelt with s1 suggests that this was presence of Arabic loan-words in the Naba- pronounced [͐]. taean inscriptions and on the claim that the 46 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA vast majority of the names in Nabataean from Sinai has its own characteristics and inscriptions are ‘Arabic’ (134). However, if internal development, which is distinct one excepts the Nama¯ra inscription, which from that of the Nabataean heartland is in Old Arabic, and JSNab 17, which is in around Petra. It is therefore misleading to Nabataeo-Arabic (see below), only a small refer to them as ‘Nabataean’ and to use them number of Arabic loan-words can be iden- as evidence for ‘the Nabataeans’. It would tified in the Nabataean inscriptions. I have be wiser to return to the practice of earlier counted a maximum of twenty-eight, six of scholars and refer to them as ‘Sinaitic’. which could also be Aramaic (135). More- Moreover, while the vast majority of these over, with two exceptions (136), these texts consist simply of names accompanied words occur only in the texts from Hw egra¯ by sˇlm, dkyr, bryk, b-tw b, etc. (137) the language or Rawwa¯fa: exactly where some Old Ar- of the few statements which do occur is al- abic and Ancient North Arabian influence ways Aramaic, not Arabic. It seems to me is to be expected. If these loans provide evi- probable that someone writing a graffito dence of an ‘Arabic substrate’ in Nabataean would express himself in his language of Aramaic, it is therefore only in the lan- normal use, rather than a literary tongue guage used in North Arabia from the first (138), and therefore the case for spoken Ar- century AD onwards, not in the Nabataean abic even in Sinai seems to me unproven. of Petra or the other parts of the kingdom. Certainly, the widespread use of names It cannot therefore be used as evidence that which are linguistically Arabic is no evi- Arabic was the spoken language of ‘the dence for the spoken language at the time Nabataeans’ in general. This demonstrates the texts were carved. Names have an extra- the danger of treating as a homogeneous ordinary record of survival and it is usually corpus all the inscriptions which we label impossible to guess at the reasons for using, ‘Nabataean’. retaining, or discarding them in any par- Turning to the onomastic evidence, it is ticular society at any particular period. first necessary to distinguish what we mean Just as my name ‘Michael’ has been pre- by ‘Nabataean’ names. Generally, this is served through the survival of two re- taken to mean all names found in Naba- ligions, so the popularity of certain names in taean inscriptions unless there is a par- Sinai, or among the Nabataeans, could in ticular reason for attributing them to an- some cases have been connected with the other group (eg. ‘Greek’ or ‘Jewish’ names). worship of deities who were also venerated However, we use the term ‘Nabataean’ for by speakers of Old Arabic. Unfortunately, texts in a number of local varieties of the Ar- however, we do not know which of these amaic script from the Hw awra¯n to Arabia, cults, if any, were ancestral among the Nab- Sinai and Egypt, and while it may some- ataeans and which were later introductions. times be helpful to use the label in this flex- It is usually assumed that the Nabataeans ible way, we should not allow it to mislead came from Arabia, but I know of no argu- us into assuming that the authors of all these ment for this origin that will stand scrutiny texts belonged to a single homogeneous (139). In the earliest reference to the Naba- group, the ‘Nabataeans’. taeans, when they were nomadic, they were Names which are clearly of Arabic form, already in southern Transjordan, which re- eg. those containing the definite article $l,or mained their heartland throughout their the word $bn ‘son’ (as opposed to Aramaic history and I know of no clear evidence that br), or the $f cal nominal form, occur very they came from anywhere else. Given their largely in Sinai. But the script of these texts geographical position and their involve- 47 M. C. A. MACDONALD ment in the frankincense trades they nat- voked Dushara as ds2r had read his name urally had links with peoples in northwest in an Aramaic text, without ever hearing it Arabia and eventually came to rule that from a North Arabian speaker. This is obvi- area. They worshipped many of the same ously preposterous. However, the only deities as their neighbours in that region. alternative is that they received the cult But if their chief deity, Dushara, was the god from Aramaic speakers. of the Petra mountains, as is generally be- It is, of course, likely that they came into lieved, this surely suggests a very old and contact with the cult of Dushara in the close attachment to this area. It is interesting Hw awra¯n, rather than at Petra, and it is gen- that in the Hismaic graffiti from the area of erally assumed, though there is virtually Wa¯dı¯ Ramm, not far from Petra, invocations no evidence one way or the other, that the to Dushara outnumber by approximately spoken language of the Hw awra¯n was Ara- 62% to 38% those to Lt/$lt (140), despite the maic (145). But the cult of Dushara was a fact that there was a major temple to $lt at vital and distinctive element of Nabataean Ramm (141) and that in the Safaitic graffiti, communal identity. Other deities in Syria written by the nomads to the north and east had important cult centres (eg. Bacal- of the area, she is by far the most popular shamı¯natSı¯c) but were also worshipped deity. Moreover, the N.Div. ‘Dushara’ in elsewhere (eg. Bacalshamı¯n at Palmyra). these inscriptions is most often spelt in its Dushara was one of the very few to be North Arabian form D-s2ry (142), which uniquely associated with a particular contrasts with the entirely Aramaized form people or state. It therefore seems likely (ds2r) normally found in the Safaitic inscrip- that Nabataeans, from the heartland, tions. would have been involved in his cult even This may contribute a small piece of evi- in the Hw awra¯n, indeed one might expect dence to the debate on which language the them to have dominated it. If these were Nabataeans spoke. If, as is commonly be- speakers of Old Arabic there would have lieved, D-s2ry/Dwsˇr$ means ‘He of the been no point in their communicating with Shara`’ (the mountains, north of Petra) the nomads in Aramaic, since Old Arabic (143), he was presumably a local deity for and Safaitic would have been mutually in- the population of the Hw isma` of southern telligible. In this case, the name Dushara Jordan, which produced the Hismaic in- would have come into Safaitic with an ini- scriptions. The meaning of the epithet tial /d/ and a final, consonantal /y/. In- would have been obvious to them and it stead, it was borrowed in its Aramaic form would not be surprising, therefore, that with an initial /d/ and (presumably) a they spelt it in its etymological form. On final vowel, and this suggests that those the other hand, it is also unsurprising that Nabataeans from whom the cult was it should appear as a loan-form in the adopted spoke a dialect of Aramaic. Need- Safaitic texts, written several hundred kilo- less to say, this is very far from being con- metres away, in an area where most people clusive. It is intended simply as a small would be unaware of the geographical ref- contribution to a continuing debate. erence (144). What is significant is that the loan in Safaitic is from Aramaic. It seems Old Arabic to me out of the question that ds2r in Safaitic could be a spelling pronunciation, Diagnostic features since this would require that all those As I have said, Herodotus’ statement that writers of Safaitic inscriptions who in- the Arabs worshipped a goddess named 48 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

$Alila´t, tells us that this form of the Ar- goddess’) (151). It is therefore unsafe to as- abic definite article was in use by the fifth sume that the article $l- has been assimi- century BC but, of course, gives us no other lated in this phrase, since llt could as easily information about the dialect. So we cannot represent *li-La¯t as *li-l-la¯t. assume that this is a direct ancestor of the One characteristic of Old Arabic, which Old Arabic attested in later texts (146). has not so far been recognized, is that the However, there is a handful of inscriptions 3rd. person masc. sg. of the suffix conju- dating from the late first century BC on- gation (‘perfect’) of verbs tertiae y/w ended wards which are either expressed in, or dis- in/-a¯/ in Old Arabic, as in the later stages play features of, Old Arabic and which of the language, thus *bana¯ ‘he built’ (152). have been found right across the Peninsula, This is in contrast to the ANA treatment of in central, north and eastern Arabia, Syria this class of verbs, in which the final radical and the Negev. retained its consonantal value, thus bny However, since Old Arabic appears to (presumably representing *banaya). This have been normally an unwritten language provides us with another important dis- its features are not at all well defined. The tinction between Old Arabic and ANA and most obvious characteristic is, of course, one which is visible not only in scripts such the use of the definite article $l-. But, even as Dadanitic and Aramaic which use matres here it is necessary to be cautious. As I re- lectionis for final vowels, but also in those marked earlier, the presence of $l- in a name which do not. In the latter, the pronunci- does not mean that the text in which that ation *bana¯ is expressed simply as bn,asin name occurs is in Old Arabic. The inscrip- the inscription of cIgl bn Hfcm (see below), tion from Qaryat al-Faw, a photograph of as opposed to the regular ANA bny. which was published by Wafik Ghoneim Another distinctive mark of Old Arabic and which was discussed by Manfred is the feminine singular relative pronoun, Kropp at the 1991 Seminar for Arabian $lt (cf. Classical Arabic $allatı¯), which occurs Studies (147), was included in a recent list in JSLih 384, see below. This is not found of the earliest inscriptions in the Arabic in ANA, which uses dt (eg. in Safaitic and language, as the first attestation of the defi- Hismaic) or d$t (eg. in Hasaitic). nite article $l- (148). However, the only Other features of Old Arabic distinguish clear example of $l- in this text is in the it from the Sayhadic languages, but are name of an ethnic group the $(a¯)l $l-$hw nkt shared with Ancient North Arabian. Thus which one would expect to retain the ar- it has two, rather than three, unvoiced non- ticle in its native form, whatever the lan- emphatic sibilants, although the notation of guage of the text (but see below under Da- these in scripts which have signs for three dano-Arabic). A second instance of the ar- is sometimes unpredictable. This is a fea- ticle has been assumed in this text in the ture which Old Arabic shares with all but phrase l-lt which Robin interpreted as *li-l- the oldest stages of Ancient North Arabian. la¯t, ‘for Al-la¯t’. However, we know from The causative stem of the verb is $f cl rather the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions that than hf cl or s1f cl and it uses the preposition one of the most popular deities in North mn rather than bn ‘from’. Arabia was Lt, who is distinguished in Until recently, it was thought that the use both theophoric names and in invocations of the negative particle lam plus the prefix from $lt (*ila¯t?/Alla¯t?) (149) – there are conjugation (the ‘jussive’ in Classical Ar- sometimes prayers to both in the same text abic) was a distinctive feature which could (150) – and from the epithet (h)-$lt (‘the be used to identify Old Arabic (153). How- 49 M. C. A. MACDONALD ever, this construction has recently been 3 m. sg. of the suffix stem of verbs tertiae found in a Safaitic inscription from north- w/7. Dadanitic is the only ANA script in eastern Jordan (154), the language of which matres lectionis are employed (164) which, in other respects, could be either and the letter -h is used to represent final Safaitic or Old Arabic (155). /a¯/ (165). Thus *bana¯ appears in this text As explained in the section on nomencla- as bnh (166), as opposed to Dadanitic (and ture, before the sixth century AD, no one other ANA) bny, (ie. *banaya) (167). script was associated exclusively with Old The other documents which can be said Arabic and, on the rare occasions on which to be in more or less ‘pure’ Old Arabic are it was written, a number of different alpha- the Nama¯ra inscription (AD 328) (168), bets was used. The reasons for this will be lines 4–5 of the cE¯ n cAvdat inscription (169) discussed below, but the result is that, (of uncertain date) (170), both in the Naba- while there are relatively few inscriptions taean script; and the inscriptions of Umm which are linguistically more or less ‘pure’ al-Jima¯l (of uncertain date), Zebed (AD Old Arabic, there are several others which 512), Jabal Usays (AD 528), and Harra¯n display a mixture of Old Arabic features (AD 568) all of which are in what is recog- and those of the language normally associ- nizably the Arabic script (171). ated with the script in which the text is In addition, there are two leaves of written: in particular Safaitic, Dadanitic, parchment from a Psalter found in the ge- Nabataean or other Aramaic. nizah of the Umayyad mosque in Dam- ascus. They bear part of the Septuagint text Texts in ‘pure’ Old Arabic of Psalm 78 (LXX, 77) with an Arabic gloss The earliest document which is indisput- in Greek transliteration, set out in parallel ably in Old Arabic is the inscription of cgl columns. Following a detailed study of this bn Hfcm, written in the Sabaic script, text I am convinced that it is pre-Islamic which was found at Qaryat al-Faw (156) (172). This is the most valuable text in Old and may date from the end of the first cen- Arabic so far discovered since the Greek tury BC (157). transliteration seems to have been made This text uses the article $l- (158), the with great care and consistency from an *bana¯, rather than *banaya, form of the 3 m. oral source, and thus is uncomplicated by sg. of the suffix stem of verbs tertiae w/7 the orthographic conventions of another (159), the $f cl form of the causative stem, script. It also, of course, provides the and the preposition mn rather than bn vowels and has the additional advantage (160). On the other hand, it has certain Sa- that there can be no doubt as to the baic features such as the form of the 3 m. meaning. sg. enclitic pronoun -hw which alternates with -h (161) and the sporadic attachment of -m to the end of words, possibly Old Arabic ‘Mixed’ texts attempting to imitate Sabaic mimation As described in the section on nomencla- without understanding its purpose (162). ture, the Old Arabic ‘mixed’ texts can be W. W. Mu¨ ller (163) has recognized that subdivided into Safaeo-Arabic, Dadano- JSLih 384 should also be classed as Old Ar- Arabic, etc. These are texts written in the abic rather than Dadanitic, since it contains Safaitic (Dadanitic, etc.) scripts, and which the Arabic relative pronoun $allatı¯ in the are predominantly in the language nor- form $lt. The text also contains an example mally associated with that script (ie. in of the *bana¯ rather than *banaya form of the Safaitic, Dadanitic, etc.), but which also 50 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA contain elements which can be attributed of Rome, the Romans’, $ldw f ‘the tribe of to Old Arabic. Dw aif’, etc.) and never by the nisba (rmy, dw fy). Moreover, in Safaitic, ‘the Nabataeans’ are $ [Sabaeo-Arabic] always called simply nbtw, rather than * l nbtw. At present, there are no clear examples of If therefore, as seems likely, $l in this contexts in the Sabaic script and language text is the Arabic article, this text contains which contain elements clearly attributable a record of what I have called the ‘northern to Old Arabic rather than ANA (173). Old Arabic isogloss’ (182) in which the /l/ However, when all the inscriptions from of the article is not assimilated, even before Qaryat al-Faw are published it is very the sounds called by the grammarians probable that some will be found to fall of Classical Arabic al-hw uru¯f al-sˇamsiyya or into this category. ‘sun letters’. However, other features of the text are Safaeo-Arabic characteristic of Safaitic, such as the voca- There are a handful of Safaitic inscriptions tive particle h- and the assimilation of the which appear to contain the definite article n in the preposition mn. I would therefore $l-. The clearest of these is C 2446 which is place C 2446 among the ‘mixed texts’ as an known only from a hand-copy (Dn 68c). example of ‘Safaeo-Arabic’. This reads Another possible text of this type is WH 589 which contains the statement $s2r∞.±q lS1cdbnMr$ bn Nr w-wgm c[l] $h-h Nr l-l-mdbr ‘and he migrated to the inner de- qtl∞.±-h $1 (N)btw y mbcyncm cwd w-dw f f-h- sert’. The two ls are clear on the photo- lt mcmn w-$lt dtn w-gd-[c](w)d w-gd-dw ft$r graph, but it is quite possible that they are m-d $s1lf w-wlh kbr s1hw r cl $h-h hw bb-h l-$bd the result of dittography on the part of the (174). author, who had just written, and then crossed out, a second s2 between the r and ‘By S1cd son of Mr$ son of Nr and he the q of $s2rq. In Safaitic, the word mdbr is mourned for his brother Nr (whom) the Na- never used with the article (183), but it is bataean killed during the attack (175) on the possible that it was referred to as *$l-mdbr flocks of cwd and Dw f (176). And so, O Lt in Old Arabic, cf. the place-name Rhw bt mcmn (177) and goddess of Dtn (178) and which also does not take the article in Gd-cwd and Gd-Dw f (179) [grant the oppor- Safaitic, but appears as al-Ruhw bah in later tunity of] revenge on him who did this thing Arabic (184). (180). And he mourned greatly s1hw r (181) for There are also several Safaitic inscrip- his brother, his beloved, for ever’. tions in which the definite article appears as $- rather than h-. Given that in the On Dunand’s copy, the first letter of (n)btw y Safaitic script the two letters are dis- is the same length as the previous l,asop- tinguished only by a short side-stroke (see posed to the very short ns in the rest of the Fig. 3), I restrict myself to those for which text, so the reading is not entirely secure. photographs are available and where it is However, regardless of whether the nisba is difficult to suggest another explanation Nbtw y or Lbtw y, it seems probable that the let- (other than an error by the author). Thus ters $l represent the Arabic article, rather SIJ 37 has s1lm w-fsw yt m-b$s1 $-s1snt ‘security than the word $l (cf. Ar. $a¯l) meaning ‘social and deliverance from misfortune this year’ group’, since in Safaitic this is always fol- (185), and KRS 125, an unpublished in- lowed by the name itself ($lrm‘the people scription from northeastern Jordan, has cwr 51 M. C. A. MACDONALD l-m ycwr $-s1fr ‘blindness to whoever Hasaitic), it has not yet been found in Da- scratches out the writing’ (186). In both danitic where, on the relatively rare oc- cases, if my analysis is correct, these would casions when affiliation to a social group is be records of what I have called the ‘central expressed, it is usually marked simply by Old Arabic isogloss’ in which the /l/ of the d π the group name (191). As a final twist, article is assimilated before a sibilant (187). however, the name of the honorand’s social However, all these inscriptions display group is given as hn-$hw nkt, ie. with the dis- features typical of Safaitic, as well as poss- tinctive Dadanitic definite article, even ible examples of the Old Arabic definite ar- though the same name is found elsewhere ticle and it is for this reason that I have in the form $l-$hw nkt, with the Old Arabic de- placed them among the ‘mixed’ texts, as finite article $l- (192). Safaeo-Arabic. It is customary to link these examples with various South Arabian texts in which the nisbas hw nkyn, hw nkytn, and $hw nkn are Dadano-Arabic found (193). However, this does not seem The Dadano-Arabic texts (JSLih 71 and 276) to me possible. The form of the tribal name, and the Nabataeo-Arabic inscription $hw nkt, as attested in North Arabian, would (JSNab 17) were found in the very centre produce the nisba * $hw nky in the masc. sg., of an Ancient North Arabian (ie. h- dialect) * $hw nkyt in the fem. sg. and presumably area. The two former were found at Dadan * $hw nkyn in the pl. and this would surely and the latter at Hw egra¯, c.25 km to the be the same in Ancient South Arabian. north. In JSLih 71 and in JSNab 17 we find I cannot therefore agree with Robin the name of the town in its Arabic form (and some earlier scholars) that the forms ($)l-hw gr. This contrasts with the forms Hw gr$ hw nkyn (194), hw nkytn (195), and $hw nkn (196) in Nabataean, possibly hw gr in Safaitic (188) are respectively the masc. and fem. sg. and the form behind Pliny’s transcription and the pl. nisbas from the clan/tribal name Haegra (189). $hw nkt (197). JSLih 71 is an honorific inscription It is now generally accepted that lines written in the late Dadanitic script. The 4–10 of JSLih 71 are in Old Arabic and it name and genealogy take up the first two is certainly true that the definite article $l- lines and are linguistically indeterminate, occurs at least twice in this section of the in that they could be either ANA or Old text. However, although Professor Bees- Arabic, although the mater lectionis -h,re- ton’s interpretation of this part of the in- presenting the final -a¯ in the first name, is a scription as ‘near-classical Arabic’ (198) distinctive mark of Dadanitic orthography was of great importance in drawing (190). Line 3 gives the tribal affiliation of attention to its true language, I have diffi- the man honoured in the form d $l hn-$hw nkt. culties both with individual details of his As noted above, we cannot tell as yet reading and, more importantly, with the whether the expression d $l was used in fact that (like all the interpretations before Old Arabic or whether it is a distinguishing it) it did not take account of the fact that mark of ANA, therefore, at present this the ends of lines 4–9 are missing. I am must also be treated as linguistically inde- preparing a new reading of the text terminate. However, the situation is further which I hope to publish in the near fu- complicated by the fact that, although the ture. Here I will merely describe some of expression d $l is typical of other ANA dia- its Old Arabic features. lects (Safaitic, Hismaic, Thamudic B and The article $l- occurs at least twice 52 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

(199), once in b-l-hw gr (ie. ‘in al-Hw igˇr’), and pression finds an exact parallel, but this once, following the demonstrative particle time with the Dadanitic article, in HE 1: h- (also found in Ancient North Arabian and, as a preposed ha-, in early Arabic f-crr/dg˙bt / crr / h-s1fr/dh. poetry) in the phrase h-l-mfl in line 8. Failure to recognize the demonstrative The protective formula is typically Da- here has led some writers to assume that danitic and for this reason I have classed hl- represents another, otherwise unat- JSLih 276 as Dadano-Arabic, rather than tested, form of the definite article: thus pure Old Arabic. The treatment of the Old presupposing the use of three different Arabic article in this text is identical to that forms in the same text. in the cgl bn Hfcm inscription, ie. the as- The implications of JSLih 71 are in- similation of the /l/ before a following triguing. The inscription was set up in a sibilant, and this makes it a record of the town which was a centre of the Ancient ‘central Old Arabic’ isogloss (201). North Arabian (h-) dialect, Dadanitic, and is written in the Dadanitic script. Yet the only part of the text which is linguistically Nabataeo-Arabic Dadanitic is the definite article in the name If we except the cE¯ n cAvdat inscription, in of the honorand’s social group (hn-$hw nkt), which Aramaic and Arabic are not mixed even though this is introduced by the non- but are used in different sections, the only Dadanitic ANA expression d $l. The rest of Nabataeo-Arabic text so far identified is the text is in Old Arabic. Why should this JSNab 17, at Hw egra¯/Mada¯$in Sw a¯lihw , which be? If the honorand, or the dedicator, was is composed in a mixture of Nabataean Ar- a speaker of Old Arabic, as might be sug- amaic and Old Arabic and written in the gested by the use of this language in the Nabataean script (202). The interpretation body of the text, why was the Dadanitic of parts of the text are still disputed, but it article used with his social group, particu- is clear that some elements are in Aramaic larly since the group’s name occurs else- (eg. br, brt, the date) and others in Old Ar- where as $l-$hw nkt? Whatever the expla- abic, and yet others could be in either (eg. nation, this text is a dramatic example of w-lcn mry clm$ mn ysˇn$, where, apart from the close co-existence of ANA and Old Ar- the divine name, the rest could be either abic in this area. Nabataean Aramaic or Old Arabic). As in JSLih 71, the article $l- occurs twice, once A second Dadano-Arabic inscription is in the place name $l-hw grw (line 4) and once JSLih 276. This reads before a common noun $l-qbrw (line 7). zdlh / bn / {k}{l}b / d-cmrtc /f-crr/dg˙bt / The presence of these Old Arabic crr / $-s1fr dh linguistic features in the Dadanitic and Na- ‘Zdlh son of {Kl}b of the lineage of cmrtc. bataean Aramaic milieu suggests a degree And so, may Dg˙ bt defile the destroyer of multilingualism in these North Arabian of this writing.’ oases which parallels that at Qaryat al-Faw, and possibly at Nagˇra¯n (203). In each of The reading $-s1fr dh is clear (200) and there these places there was a dominant written can be no doubt that the $ was intentional language, respectively Dadanitic, Naba- since (in contrast to their Safaitic equiva- taean Aramaic or Sabaic, but these mixed lents) the letters $ and h have entirely dif- texts suggest that speakers of Old Arabic ferent forms in the Dadanitic script. The ex- were also present, although, in the north at 53 M. C. A. MACDONALD least, we have no way of knowing whether safer to refrain from classifying this as a or not they were residents. separate dialect until the full epigraphy of the site is published, after which the Aramaeo-Arabic linguistic situation there should become a Finally, there is an Aramaeo-Arabic inscrip- great deal clearer. I have therefore left these tion, from Mleiha (Mulayhw a) in the U.A.E., texts in the ‘Undifferentiated’ Restklassen- which suggests that Old Arabic was also in bildung for the present. use in eastern Arabia, at least in the second On Figure 1, I have divided the ‘Undif- century AD (204). The text is composed in ferentiated North Arabian’ documents, into a rather barbarous Aramaic but contains a two sub-groups: (1) ‘Pure Undifferentiated number of Old Arabic features including North Arabian texts’ and (2) ‘Undifferenti- the use of the article $l- and the preposition ated North Arabian Mixed texts’ (see the fı¯ ‘in’, where Aramaic and Ancient North explanations on Fig. 1 and the discussion Arabian use b- (205). It may also be signifi- below). cant that the deities invoked are Mana¯t, here spelt mnt (ie. presumably with a ‘Pure’ Undifferentiated North Arabian texts long /a¯/ which would not be represented There are five such inscriptions from Qa- in a medial position), rather than mnwtw as ryat al-Faw, and possibly two from Na- in Nabataean (206), and possibly Khl, the gˇra¯n. These are: eponymous deity of Qryt dt Khl (ie. Qaryat (i) Ja 2122 (208) which is to all intents al-Faw) (207). There are so few written and purposes an ANA text. While documents from eastern Arabia that it is much of the vocabulary could, of impossible to be sure what languages were course, also be Ancient South Ar- spoken there at any time in the pre-Islamic abian, the $f cl Form, $hw dt, must be period. However, this text from Mleiha North Arabian. In this context, the provides a tiny fragment of evidence to spelling bny (ie. *banaya) as opposed suggest that Old Arabic may have been one to *bn (209) (ie. *bana¯) for the verb ‘to of the vernaculars. build’, suggests that the language is in a dialect of ANA rather than Old Undifferentiated North Arabian Arabic (see the discussion of JSLih 348 In addition to the texts discussed above, under ‘Pure’ Old Arabic texts, above). there are a number of others which are (ii) The tomb inscription of Mcwyt bn clearly in a North Arabian language but Rbct (210). With the exception of the which cannot be exactly classified within Ancient South Arabian form of the that grouping. In some cases it is not even nisba, qhw tw nyn, the language of this text possible to decide whether they are in Old is ‘pure’ North Arabian. Given this, I Arabic or in ANA. But for the majority it would classify it as ANA rather than is possible to exclude Old Arabic without Old Arabic on the basis of the form being able to assign them to a particular bny. Kropp’s conclusion that, if the ANA dialect. clan name at the end of line 3 is re- Since most of the latter group come from stored as $[hw nkt], then at least four let- Qaryat al-Faw it is quite possible that they ters must be lacking at the end of each represent the dialect of ANA spoken in the line, is not necessarily correct (211). city at one or more periods. However, the The name is clearly incomplete, but number of published inscriptions from (regardless of whether or not the Faw is, at present, so small that it seems name was $hw nkt) it is far more likely 54 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

that the inscription continued onto a group (216), which are characteristic of fourth line, now lost (212). The text ANA. On the other hand, its vocabulary is runs perfectly from the existing end entirely Sabaic rather than North Arabian, of line 1 to the beginning of line 2, as including the Sabaic preposition bn ‘from’ it does from lines 2 to 3. The chances (line 8) and mimation on the first two of this happening by coincidence proper names. must be extremely remote. Similarly, the Ghoneim inscription (217), (iii) Ansary, Qaryat al-Fau: 147, no. 6 is which I have discussed above, is expressed also ANA for similar reasons, even in the conventional phraseology of a Sabaic though here the 3rd person masc. sg. dedicatory text. It contains the phrase d $l enclitic pronoun alternates between and, once again is by a member of the $l- -h and -hw. As already explained, the $hw nkt, but again this cannot help identify the divine name $l-$hw wr, while itself language of the text. The verb ‘to build’ ap- linguistically Old Arabic, cannot, of pears in the form bny which would seem to course, be used to identify the lan- exclude its being Old Arabic (218). But it is guage of the text. likely that here bny is simply the Ancient (iv) Ansary, Qaryat al-Fau: 143/2, which South Arabian word rather than the ANA reads w$lbnsw qn d $l ntn; and possibly form. (v) Ja 2142 (213) which is very fragmen- The remaining texts in this category tary. come from the area of Haram, in the north Similarly, two texts from Nagˇra¯n which of the Yemeni Jawf. In his detailed study contain the phrases d$t $hl and d $hl respec- of the inscriptions from this area, Christian tively, should probably also be classed as Robin has identified eleven of the twenty ‘Pure Undifferentiated North Arabian’. texts in the Sabaic script of the Amı¯rite These are period as being couched in ‘une varie´te´ (vi) Mu¨ 2 (214) d’arabe avec un habillage morphologique (vii) Ja 859 (215). inspire´ du sabeén’ (219), and has proposed naming this mixed language ‘pseudo-sa- Undifferentiated North Arabian Mixed texts beén’. However, this is surely to overstate These are texts which are basically in the the case. The non-Sabaic features in these language normally associated with the texts are as follows: (1) the preposition mn script in which they are written, but which ‘from’ rather than Sabaic bn (in five texts) contain North Arabian features which are (220); (2) a conjunction hn ‘because’ (in not sufficiently diagnostic to identify them eight texts); (3) the negative particle lm fol- clearly as Old Arabic or ANA. All those lowed by the prefix conjugation (in four known at present are in the Sabaic lan- texts); (4) the use of s1 for s3 (in two texts); guage and script and I suggest they be (5) the use of s3 for t (in one text); and (6) termed Sabaeo-North-Arabian. the omission of $ (in one text), and h and c (in two texts) (221). This list does not seem particularly im- Sabaeo-North-Arabian pressive, either in the linguistic importance The first of these is CIH 450, a stela of un- of the features themselves or the regularity known provenance with a nine-line in- of their occurrence, especially when it is re- scription. It begins nfs1 w-qbr (like many membered that the definite article is always Hasaitic texts) and it contains the phrases expressed in these texts by Sabaic -n, never d$t $l and d $l marking affiliation to a social Arabic $l- (or, indeed, ANA h-), and the 55 M. C. A. MACDONALD causative stem is always hf cl, as in Sabaic, ‘Ce pseudo-sabeén pourrait donc eˆtre never $f cl, as in North Arabian (222). All this une premie`re tentative de langue com- suggests to me that, rather than being co- munication (ce que les spećialistes appel- uched in ‘une varie´te´ d’arabe avec un hab- leraient une koine` ...) pour un certain illage morphologique inspire´ du sabeén’, nombre de tribus du sud-ouest de the language of these texts is more likely to l’Arabie, entre le Hw ija¯zetleYe´men: represent imperfect attempts to write cor- Qahw tw a¯n, Madhhw ij, Amı¯r, cAthtar et peut- rect Sabaic by non-native speakers (223). eˆtre Kinda’ (227). Moreover, while these six features distinguish the language of these eleven texts The ANA dialects and Old Arabic would from standard Sabaic, they do not necess- certainly have been mutually comprehen- arily all represent intrusions from the same sible and what little evidence we have sug- language. Only half of them (nos. 1, 3 and gests that all the tribes he mentions (with 4) are characteristic of North Arabian, at the possible exception of Amı¯r and cAthtar) least as it is known at present, although the spoke one or other of these North Arabian use of lam plus the prefix conjugation languages. It is therefore not clear to me makes it very likely that the four texts con- why they should have needed to com- taining this expression have North Arabian municate with each other in a koine` based affinities and all these also contain the par- on, and largely consisting of, Sabaic – a lan- ticle hn (feature 2) (224). However, none of guage which Robin himself admits they these texts contains any feature that is ex- would have had to learn – even when it clusive to Old Arabic or to ANA. At was ‘modified’ with a handful of fairly present, therefore, I would include these minor North Arabian, and possibly other, interesting inscriptions in the category of elements. Undifferentiated North Arabian Mixed Furthermore, I do not understand why Texts, in the sub-category of Sabaeo- among these tribes both at Faw and at North-Arabian (225). Haram It will be clear from this that I cannot follow Robin in elevating what appear to ‘il semblerait ... que les textes importants me to be the irregular features of these Sa- et soigne´s soient re´dige´s en pseudo-sabaeo-North-Arabian texts from Haram into beén et que les autres le soient en norda- a distinct, more or less artificial, language rabique. Il en re´sulterait que la langue lo- or dialect: ‘pseudo-sabeén qahw tw a¯nite’ (226). cale [viz. a North Arabian language] However, if I have understood him cor- s’employait pour les usages communs rectly, I am even more puzzled by his ex- mais qu’une autre [viz. pseudo-sabeén’], planation of the development and use of dont le prestige devait eˆtre plus grand this supposed dialect: ou qui e´tait mieux comprise en dehors de l’oasis, e´tait pre´fe´reé pour les actes les ‘Les Arabes proches du Ye´men auraient plus solennels’ (228). donc utilise´ le sabeén pour communi- quer entre eux, mais l’auraient adapte´ In both Haram and Faw there are inscrip- pour en faciliter la maıˆtrise, re´duisant le tions in good Sabaic and, therefore, it is su- nombre des sifflantes a` deux et introdui- rely difficult to believe that this sort of sant subrepticement des mots et des ‘pidgin Sabaic’ would have been regarded formes propres a` l’arabe. Il s’agirait donc as a language of prestige to be used intentio- d’une langue plutoˆt artificielle. ... nally ‘pour les actes les plus solennels’. 56 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

I would therefore suggest the following have been published to make any realistic alternative explanation. judgement on the linguistic situation there, 1) The texts from Haram and those from although given its geographical position Qaryat al-Faw should be considered sepa- one would obviously expect there to have rately. The geographical positions, histories been a mixture of North Arabian and An- (as far as we can tell), social and cultural cient South Arabian languages. We can lives of the two towns appear to have been only hope that more texts will appear in very different. Haram, even in the Amı¯rite the near future. period, was firmly within the Sabaean cultural sphere, even if the dominant part of the population may have hailed origi- The late Pre-Islamic period nally from northern nomad stock (229). As we have seen, there are remarkably few Faw, on the other hand, was an entirely documents in Old Arabic, and until the Central Arabian town, albeit an extremely sixth century AD there was no single script cosmopolitan one. Certainly, there was associated with it. This implies that, until strong Sabaean influence there – Saba$ was the period immediately before the rise of its most powerful neighbour – but it was Islam, it remained a vernacular in societies only one element among many, and I do which were either non-literate or which not get the impression that it was in any wrote in other languages – Sabaic, Ancient way ‘a South Arabian town’. North Arabian, Aramaic, Greek. We can 2) At Haram, the limited range and na- only guess at the reasons for this and the ture of the non-Sabaic elements in the Sa- reasons why, on occasions, Old Arabic was baeo-North-Arabian inscriptions suggest written. In the late first millennium BC and that they are clumsy attempts at writing the early first millennium AD, it was pre- correct Sabaic by people whose mother sumably the vernacular of groups which tongue was either a different language, or a were basically non-literate, perhaps prima- dialect of Sabaic which contained elements rily nomadic, which when they moved into from another language. situations where literacy was necessary – 3) At Qaryat al-Faw, on the other hand, eg. contact with settled peoples – found the situation is more complex. Here it writing systems associated with other lan- seems very probable that at least two forms guages already established. Those who of North Arabian coexisted: Old Arabic wanted to write would therefore have had and one or more, as yet undefined, dialects to learn the rudiments of the language as- of ANA. There are a handful of texts in Old sociated with the script, or simply have Arabic and ANA written in the Sabaic had their texts written for them by scribes script, but we cannot know how wi- and masons. Only in very special cir- despread this practice was until the Faw cumstances would an individual have in- inscriptions are fully published. However, sisted on his text being expressed in the there are also texts at Faw couched in the vernacular, and the problems that this Sabaic language with only a few North caused the scribes and masons in adapting Arabian intrusions and I would suggest the orthographic conventions of one lan- that these, like the Sabaeo-North-Arabian guage to an unfamiliar tongue, can be seen inscriptions at Haram, are the products of both in the true and mixed Old Arabic texts North-Arabian speakers trying, not enti- and in the Undifferentiated-North-Arabian rely successfully, to write correct Sabaic. inscriptions. Since several of these texts in 4) Too few inscriptions from Nagˇra¯n ANA and Old Arabic (or approximations 57 M. C. A. MACDONALD to it) are the monumental inscriptions of as the ‘Arabic’ script was not developed or important people (the king of Qahw tw a¯n, derived from either the Syriac or the Naba- Imru$ l-Qays ‘king of all the Arabs’, etc.) it taean alphabets, in any conscious way. It is is possible that there was already a political simply the Nabataean alphabet in its latest implication in using the spoken tongue ra- form (233). ther than what may, by then, have been re- It is generally accepted that the Arabic garded as a ‘foreign’ written language. Ho- script originated in the region of northern wever, until we have further evidence this Arabia, southern Syria and southern Iraq. can be no more than speculation. In northern Arabia and southern Syria It is interesting to compare the case of Old there had been a strong tradition of An- Arabic with that of those dialects of Ancient cient North Arabian (ie. h- dialects) written North Arabian used largely by nomads: Sa- in forms of the Arabian script. However, faitic and Hismaic, to take the best docu- these dialects and scripts were gradually mented. I have suggested elsewhere that the displaced by Aramaic as the vehicle of art of writing was acquired more or less ac- prestige writing in the oases of northern cidentally by the nomads and served no Arabia. This probably happened first in useful purpose within their society,since the Tayma¯$, which came under Mesopotamian only readily available writing materials influence from the sixth century BC on- were rocks and boulders (230). In addition, wards. It is noticeable that although brief since they used different scripts and diffe- Taymanitic inscriptions have been found in rent languages from the sedentaries around the sanctuary areas which have been exca- them, literacy was of no use to these nomads vated, the important religious texts are in when they came in contact with settled so- Aramaic. The change took place much later ciety. Indeed, a handful of Greek graffiti by in Dadan where there was a strong local members of groups which also wrote in Sa- political entity which survived the atten- faitic, suggests that if they needed literacy in tions of Nabonidus. It was only under Na- the settled lands then they had to learn the bataean domination, when the political rudiments of Greek (231). In these societies, centre had been transferred to Hw egra¯ (Ma- in the desert or on its fringes, the nearest da¯$in Sw a¯lihw ), that Aramaic became the ge- equivalent to the self-conscious use of Old neral medium for public pronouncements. Arabic in monumental inscriptions, is in a The nomads probably continued to use burial cave in the desert of northeastern their own dialects and scripts, but these Jordan, near the important Roman fort of had no prestige and were completely irrele- Dayr al-Kahf. Here, the construction of the vant to those in the settled areas. The distri- tomb is recorded in a Nabataean inscription bution in the north of the Peninsula of the for ‘general consumption’, but the names of pure and mixed Old Arabic texts suggests the dead are carefully inscribed on their sar- that speakers of an $l- dialect were present cophagi in Safaitic, presumably the script throughout the areas where Aramaic had and ‘language’ of the deceased (232). come to be the prestige script. It was there- If this explanation for the small number fore natural that when Old Arabic came to of Old Arabic texts in ‘borrowed’ scripts is be written in these regions, the Aramaic correct, it may help to explain how Arabic script should be the chosen vehicle. Of came to be written in a derivative of the course, the late Nabataean script, which Aramaic alphabet, rather than in one of was the one chosen, was completely inade- the, far more suitable, Arabian scripts. I am quate for the expression of Arabic. Not completely convinced that what we know only did it have only twenty-two letters to 58 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA represent the twenty-eight phonemes of another royal epitaph in almost perfect Arabic, but this number was effectively re- Aramaic in a late, if archaizing, Nabataean duced still further since one letter, semkath, script, was set up in Mada¯$in Sw a¯lihw (237). was not used and the forms of several Thus the Nama¯ra inscription is within a others had become indistinguishable (234). tradition in which Aramaic and the Naba- I would suggest that even if its grave ina- taean script are the vehicles for prestige pu- dequacies were considered, they were blic monuments of Arab polities in thought to be completely outweighed by northern Arabia, just as Sabaic and the Sa- its prestige. baic script were at Qaryat al-Faw. In this context, the use of the Nabataean The difference between the north and the script to write the Old Arabic epitaph of south lay in the fact that, in the south, Sa- Imru$ l-Qays, ‘king of all the Arabs’, is baic, however imperfectly written, seems highly significant. The date is AD 328, more to have remained the official language of than two centuries after the annexation of prestige documents until shortly before the the Nabataean kingdom, but during this pe- rise of Islam, whereas in the north the co- riod the script had clearly continued to be ming of Christianity appears to have pro- used and thus to develop. It seems a fair as- duced a shift in the use of written lan- sumption that the inscription was couched guages from the mid-fourth century on- in Old Arabic because this was the native wards. In the Byzantine provinces Greek language of Imru$ l-qays and those who became the language of political statements composed his epitaph. If so, it is scarcely cre- and Greek and Syriac (and the other Chris- dible that they would have had it written in tian Aramaic dialects) the languages of the a script with which they were entirely unfa- church. Most public documents were there- miliar or which was associated with a com- fore composed in one or other of these lan- pletely alien culture (235). It is usually as- guages. It was only in exceptional cir- sumed that the Imru$ l-Qays of the Nama¯ra cumstances, and to make a clear cultural inscription was the second Lakhmid king, point, that an Arabic version was added to although the evidence is by no means clear- the Syriac and/or Greek as at Zebed (AD cut. If correct, this would suggest that by the 512) or Harran (AD 568). fourth century AD the Lakhmid court However, in southern Iraq, the Lakhmid (which Arab tradition makes one of the ‘bi- court was one of a number of self- rthplaces’ of the Arabic script) may already consciously Arab and Arabic-speaking po- have been literate in Arabic, using the Naba- litical entities which grew up in the taean alphabet to write it. northern part of the Peninsula in late anti- Of course, the use of a script to write a quity. In these, although the language of ‘new’ language (Arabic) does not preclude the church would have been Syriac, the po- its continuing use to express the ‘original’ litical and cultural language was Arabic, language (Aramaic). Thus, 160 years before not Greek. Thus it seems likely that it was the epitaph of Imru$ l-Qays, an army unit in this region that Arabic first came to be a formed from a north Arabian tribe, regularly written language, displacing Ara- Thamu¯ d, declared its loyalty to the Roman maic as the language of prestige docu- emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius ments for reasons of politics and ethnic Verus in inscriptions in the prestige lan- pride, but continuing to use the Aramaic guages of Greek and Nabataean Aramaic, script, although in a form which was not at Rawwa¯fa, in northwest Arabia (236). associated either with the church (238) or Thirty years after the death of Imru$ l-Qays the Sasanian state. In this way, almost acci- 59 M. C. A. MACDONALD dentally, Arabic came to be written in a CIH Ancient South Arabian and completely inadequate script, and in this Hasaitic inscriptions pu- form eventually displaced the much more blished in Corpus Inscrip- suitable Ancient South Arabian alphabet tionum Semiticarum. Pars IV. which gradually fell into disuse along with Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, the Sayhadic languages it expressed. 1889–1932. It should be emphasized that, at present, CIS ii Aramaic (including Naba- all this can be no more than a hypothesis taean) inscriptions published based on the fragmentary evidence avai- in Corpus Inscriptionum Semiti- lable and inferences drawn from it. We carum. Pars II. Paris: Impri- must hope that, in the near future, more merie Nationale, 1889–1954. data will appear which will reveal whether Doughty Thamudic B, C and D and it is founded on rock or on sand (239). Hismaic inscriptions copied by C.M. Doughty and repu- SIGLA blished with the ‘Doughty’ AMJ Hismaic inscriptions pu- numeration in van den blished, with no coherent Branden A. Les inscriptions numbering system, by W.J. Jo- thamoude´ennes. Louvain: Bi- bling in the preliminary re- bliothe`que du Muse´on, 25: ports of his cAqaba-Macan 1950. Survey. G.M.H. King has col- Ghoneim A Sabaeo-North-Arabian text lected them and given them a edited in Kropp M. The continuous numeration under Inscription Ghoneim AfO 27. the siglum AMJ, in King 1980. Abb. 10: A Fortunate GMH. Early North Arabian Error. PSAS 22: 1992: 55–67. Thamudic E. A Preliminary des- H Nabataean inscriptions pu- cription based on a new corpus of blished in Healey JF. The Na- inscriptions from the Hw isma¯ bataean Tomb Inscriptions of desert of southern Jordan and pu- Mada’in Salih. Oxford: Journal blished material. Ph.D. thesis of Semitic Studies Supple- submitted to the School of ment, 1: 1993. Oriental and African Studies, HCH Safaitic inscriptions in Har- University of London, 1990. ding GL. The Cairn of Hani$. ARNA Nab Nabataean inscriptions pu- ADAJ 2: 1953: 8–56. blished by J.T. Milik and J. HE Dadanitic, Taymanitic and Starcky in Winnett FV & Reed Thamudic B, C and D inscrip- WL. Ancient Records from tions in Harding GL. The Tha- North Arabia. Toronto: Univer- mudic and Lihw yanite Texts. In: sity of Toronto Near and Parr PJ, Harding GL & Middle East Series, 6: 1970: Dayton JE. Preliminary 139–162. Survey in N.W. Arabia, 1968. C Safaitic and Thamudic B Part II: Epigraphy. Bulletin of inscriptions published in the Institute of Archaeology, Corpus Inscriptionum Semiti- University of London 10: 1971: carum. Pars V. Paris: Impri- 36–52, 60–61. merie Nationale, 1950–1951. HSIM Safaitic inscriptions in Har- 60 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

Table 1. Table of Old Arabic inscriptions and other documents. Document Script Provenance Date Pure Old Arabic cIglbnHfcm Ancient South Arabian Qaryat al-Faw 1st c. BC (?) JSLih 384 Dadanitic Dadan Pre-1st c. AD (?) cE¯ n cAvdat lines 4–5 Nabataean cE¯ n cAvdat, Negev (?) Nama¯ra Inscription Nabataean Al-Nama¯ra, S. Syria AD 328 Umm al-Jima¯l Arabic Umm al-Jima¯l, Jordan 6th c. AD (?) Zebed Arabic Zebed, N. Syria AD 512 Jabal Usays Arabic S. Syria AD 528 Harra¯n Arabic Leja¯, S. Syria AD 568 Psalter fragment Greek Syria ? (?) Old Arabic Mixed Texts Safaeo-Arabic C 2446 Safaitic Zalaf, S. Syria 1st c. BC–4th AD WH 589 Safaitic Burquc,NEJoran 1st c. BC–4th AD SIJ 37 Safaitic Jathu¯ m, NE Jordan 1st c. BC–4th AD KRS 125 Safaitic NE Jordan 1st c. BC–4th AD Dadano-Arabic JSLih 71 Dadanitic Dadan Pre-1st c. AD (?) JSLih 276 Dadanitic Dadan pre-1st c. AD (?) Nabataeo-Arabic JSNab 17 Nabataean Hw egra¯ AD 267 Aramaeo-Arabic Mleiha East Arabian Aramaic Mleiha 2nd century AD (?) Pure Undifferentiated North Arabian Ja 2122 Ancient South Arabian Qaryat al-Faw 3rd–2nd c. BC (?) Mcwyt bn Rbct Ancient South Arabian Qaryat al-Faw 2nd c. BC (?) Ansary, Fau: 147/6 Ancient South Arabian Qaryat al-Faw (?) Ansary, Fau: 143/2 Ancient South Arabian Qaryat al-Faw (?) Ja 2142 Ancient South Arabian Qaryat al-Faw (?) Mu¨ 2 Ancient South Arabian Nagˇra¯n (?) Ja 859 Ancient South Arabian Nagˇra¯n (?) Undifferentiated North Arabian Mixed Texts Sabaeo-North-Arabian CIH 450 Ancient South Arabian Unknown (?) Ghoneim Ancient South Arabian Qaryat al-Faw 3rd–2nd c. BC (?) Haram 8 Ancient South Arabian Haram 2nd c. BC–1st c. AD Haram 10 Ancient South Arabian Haram 2nd c. BC–1st c. AD Haram 13 Ancient South Arabian Haram 2nd c. BC–1st c. AD Haram 33 Ancient South Arabian Haram 1st c. BC–1st c. AD Haram 34 Ancient South Arabian Haram 1st c. BC–1st c. AD Haram 35 Ancient South Arabian Haram 1st c. BC–1st c. AD Haram 36 Ancient South Arabian Haram 1st c. BC–1st c. AD Haram 40 Ancient South Arabian Haram 1st c. BC–1st c. AD Haram 56 Ancient South Arabian Haram 1st c. BC–1st c. AD

61 M. C. A. MACDONALD

ding GL. Safaitic Inscriptions Lisa¯n Ibn Manzw u¯ r, Lisa¯n al-cArab (15 in the Iraq Museum. Sumer 6: volumes). Beyrouth: Da¯r 1950: 124–129. Sw a¯der, 1955–1956. HU Taymanitic, Hismaic and Tha- LivH Hasaitic inscriptions in Li- mudic B, C and D inscriptions vingstone A. A Linguistic, copied by C. Huber and pu- Tribal and Onomastical Study blished with the ‘HU’ nume- of the Hasaean Inscriptions. ration in van den Branden, Les ATLAL 8: 1984: 86–108. inscriptions thamoudeénnes. LP Safaitic inscriptions in Lit- IIS Inventaire des inscriptions suda- tmann E. Safaı¨tic Inscriptions. rabiques. Acade´mie des Syria. Publications of the Prin- Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres ceton University Archaeolo- (Paris)/Istituto Italiano per il gical Expeditions to Syria in Medio ed Estremo Oriente 1904–1905 and 1909. Division (Rome). Paris: Boccard/Rome: IV, Section C. Leyden: Brill, Herder. 1943. Ja South Arabian inscriptions Ph Taymanitic, Hismaic and Tha- published by A. Jamme. mudic B, C and D inscriptions JaL Dadanitic (formerly Lihya- copied by H.St.J.B. Philby and nite) inscriptions published published in van den Branden by A. Jamme. A. Les textes thamoudeéns de JSLih Dadanitic (formerly Dedanite Philby. Louvain: Bibliothe`que and Lihyanite) inscriptions in du Museón, 39 and 41: 1956. Jaussen A & Savignac M-R. RES Re´pertoire d’e´pigraphie se´mi- Mission archeólogique en Arabie. tique. Publie´ par la Commis- (6 volumes). Paris: Leroux/ sion du Corpus Inscriptionum Geuthner, 1909–1922. Semiticarum, Acade´mie des JSNab Nabataean inscriptions pu- Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. blished in Jaussen & Savignac, (8 volumes). Paris: Imprimerie Mission. Nationale, 1900–1968. JSTham Taymanitic, Hismaic and Tha- Ry Ancient South Arabian, Ha- mudic B, C and D inscriptions saitic and Undifferentiated published in Jaussen & Savi- North Arabian inscriptions pu- gnac, Mission. blished by G. Ryckmans in the KJC Hismaic inscriptions edited in series ‘Inscriptions sud-ara- King, Early North Arabian Tha- bes’. mudic E. SIJ Safaitic inscriptions in Winnett KRS Safaitic inscriptions recorded FV. Safaitic Inscriptions from by the Basalt Desert Rescue Jordan. Toronto: University of Survey in northeastern Jordan Toronto Near and Middle East in 1990. See King GMH. The Series, 2: 1957. Basalt Desert Rescue Survey WAMS Safaitic inscriptions in Winnett and Some Preliminary Re- FV. An Arabian Miscellany. marks on the Safaitic Inscrip- AION 31 [N.S. 21]: 1971: 443– tions and Rock Drawings. 454. PSAS 20: 1990: 55–78. WH Safaitic inscriptions in Winnett 62 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

FV & Harding GL. Inscriptions brew placing the accent on the final syllable) and from Fifty Safaitic Cairns.To- the unaccented vocal in the preceding syllable being reduced to a schwa (cf. mela¯k-ı¯m∞*malak- ronto: University of Toronto ¯ım). I therefore refer throughout this paper to Near and Middle East Series, 9: Dadan and Dadanitic and only use the term ‘De- 1978. danite’ when referring to the name formerly WTay Taymanitic inscriptions pu- given to some of the Dadanitic inscriptions. I am blished in Winnett & Reed, An- most grateful to Dr. Sima for this suggestion which I have quoted verbatim. cient Records from North Arabia. 2. Thus, for instance, Nabia Abbott’s book entitled WTI Dumaitic, Thamudic B, C and The Rise of the North Arabic script... which deals D,HismaicandSafaiticinscrip- with the development of the Arabic script, not tions published in Winnett & the North Arabian alphabets and the (to me) Reed, Ancient Records from bizarre classifications in Bergstra¨sser’s Einfu¨h- rung in die semitischen Sprachen (retained in the North Arabia. English translation of 1983) in which ‘North ZI Ancient South Arabian inscrip- Arabic’ refers only to Arabic, and ‘South Arabic’ tions published in cIna¯n ZA. refers to Gecez, Amharic, Tigre¯ and Mehri! Refe- Ta $rı¯hhw adw a¯rat al-yaman al- rence to Ancient South Arabian in Bergstra¨s- qadı¯ma. Al-Qa¯hira: Al-silfiyya, ser’s book is confined to notes on Mehri. 3. In view of this confusion I would suggest that 1976. the terms ‘North Arabic’ and ‘South Arabic’ be abandoned altogether, since they are not even useful to describe the dialects of spoken Arabic References found in the north and south of the Peninsula, 1. When first mentioning a term I shall use diacri- for which the terms ‘northern/southern Arabic tical marks, when appropriate, to indicate pro- dialects’ are better used. In French too, Chris- nunciation or etymology. However, in subse- tian Robin has led a move away from the tradi- quent references I shall follow normal practice tional terms ‘nord-arabe’ and ‘sud-arabe’ in fa- and omit these marks. In transliterations of texts vour of ‘nordarabique’ and ‘sudarabique’. Un- I use the following editorial sigla: a letter be- fortunately, such a distinction is not possible in tween { } is a doubtful reading; a letter between German where ‘arabisch’ is used for both ‘Ara- [ ] is restored; ∞.± represents signs or marks bian’ and ‘Arabic’. Nevertheless, a clear diffe- which are considered extraneous to the text and rentiation is still possible, see below. which have been omitted from the reading; a 4. See Figs 1 and 2. letter between ( ) is an emendation when a text is 5. See Fig. 1. known only from a hand-copy; and - - - mark a 6. W. W. Mu¨ ller, following Caskel, used the term missing or unreadable passage, regardless of its ‘Fru¨ hnordarabisch’ for these texts. However, he length. One / represents a word-divider, two // did so in the belief ‘daß die Sprache der thamu- the end of a line. Inseparable particles and en- dischen, lihyanischen, safaitischen und hasai- clitic pronouns are attached by a hyphen to the tischen Inschriften eine Vorstufe des Altara- following or preceding word respectively. With bischen bildet’ (Mu¨ ller WW. Das Altarabische the exception of Dadanitic, most North and und das klassische Arabisch. In: Fischer W, ed. South Arabian texts are written entirely without Grundriß der Arabischen Philologie, 1. Wiesbaden: matres lectionis, I have therefore not vocalized Reichert, 1982: 17). More than a decade and a names in the translations. Finally, Alexander half later, I am not sure that he would maintain Sima has pointed out to me that the ancient name this view, and it is one with which I cannot of the oasis now called al-‘Ula¯ was almost cer- agree. It is clear that in pre-Islamic Syria and tainly pronounced Dadan (thus uruda-da-nu in the Arabia there were two North Arabian dialect Nabonidus Stelae from Harran H2,A and H2,B, groups, one using h- (or possibly zero) as the de- both i: 26, and the Septuagint’s rendering of He- finite article and one using $l-. It is only the latter brew deda¯nbyDadau. The Hebrew transcription, which is the direct ancestor of the Arabic known deda¯n, (from which English ‘Dedan’ derives) is from the Islamic period, and it is this which I the result of two sound shifts characteristic of have called ‘Old Arabic’ and to which I would Hebrew: /a/±/a¯/ in an accented syllable (He- suggest the term ‘Altarabisch’ be restricted. I 63 M. C. A. MACDONALD

would therefore propose that the term ‘Fru¨ hnor- these languages, see Robin, L’Arabie antique: darabisch’ be replaced by ‘Altnordarabisch’, 95–100. which has the advantage of consistency with the 17. See Robin, L’Arabie antique: 96: 122–125. well-established parallel term ‘Altsu¨ darabisch’, 18. That is, the latter part of ZI 11 and Ja 2353 describing those Sayhadic and non-Sayhadic (Jamme A. Miscellaneés d’ancient (sic) arabe,2. languages of ancient South Arabia known at pre- Washington, DC: [privately produced], 1971: sent, none of which was the lineal ancestor of any 86), see Beeston AFL. Languages of Pre-Islamic of the Modern South Arabian tongues. It is also Arabia. Arabica 28: 1981: 180–181 (where the easily recognizable as the equivalent of the En- page numbers in n. 6 should read 194–195); and glish and French terms, ‘Ancient North Arabian’ Beeston, Apologia: 14 (where ZI II should read and ‘nordarabique ancien’. ZI 11). 7. See the discussion of Hismaic and Hasaitic 19. See al-Shahw rı¯ AAM. Recent Epigraphic Discove- below. ries in Dhofar. PSAS 21: 1991: 173–191, and al- 8. For all these terms, see below. Shahw rı¯ AAM. Kayfa ibtadayna¯ wa-kayfa irtaqayna¯ 9. Formerly ‘Thamudic E’. See the discussion of bi-l-h`w adw a¯rati l-insa¯niyyati min sˇibhi l-gˇazı¯rati l-cara- this term below. biyyati. Zw afa¯ru, kita¯ba¯tu-ha¯ wa-nuqu¯sˇu-ha¯ l-qadı¯- 10. I owe this term to Christian Robin. matu. [Privately published. Printed by al-Ghu- 11.W.W.Mu¨ ller used this term to cover both ANA rair, Dubai], 1994: 61–145, and the discussion and Old Arabic (Das Altarabische und das klas- below. sische Arabisch: 17–36), see note 6 above. Ho- 20. This does not rule out the possibility of some wever, I would suggest that the present, more links between some members of each group. restricted definition provides greater clarity, See, for instance, the final paragraph of and that ‘Nordarabisch’ be used as the overall Frantsouzoff S. Regulation of Conjugal Rela- term for ANA (ΩAltnordarabisch), Old Arabic tions in Ancient Raybu¯ n. PSAS 27: 1997: 123. (ΩAltarabisch) and (Middle, Classical, Modern 21. This is a new term, which I owe to Christian Standard and Spoken dialect-) Arabic (ΩAra- Robin, for what is commonly called the ‘South bisch). Semitic script’. The term ‘Arabian’ is appropriate 12. See Fig. 2. since this branch of the alphabet was, to all in- 13. On the analogy of Old English, Old French and tents and purposes, confined to Arabia, apart Old Arabic. As noted above, there is no such from the one case of expansion into Ethiopia. close connection between the Sayhadic lan- 22. In its earliest form, in Ugaritic, the order was guages and Modern South Arabian. See, for ins- $bghd. However, since Phoenician, from which tance, Porkhomovski V. Modern South Arabian all the North-West Semitic alphabets derived, Languages from a Semitic and Hamito-Semitic lacked the phoneme /h/ and therefore had no Perspective. PSAS 27: 1997: 219–223. We still sign to represent it, the order became $bgd. know too little of the non-Sayhadic languages 23. The hlhw m order was used in the South Arabian to decide whether they are ‘related’ in any lineal scripts and still survives in a modified form in sense to Modern South Arabian. Ethiopic (see Ryckmans J. L’ordre des lettres de 14. For a fuller explanation of this term see Beeston l’alphabet sud-se´mitique. Contribution a` la AFL. Apologia for ‘Sayhadic’. PSAS 17: 1987: question de l’origine de l’ećriture alphabe´tique. 13–14. L’Antiquite´ classique 50: 1981: 698–706; Ry- 15. That is, what was formerly called ‘Minaean’ or ckmans J. L’ordre alphabe´tique sud-se´mitique et ‘Minaic’. It is the language of the pre-Minaean ses origines. In: Robin C, ed. Me´langes linguisti- inscriptions in the area which was to become ques offerts a` Maxime Rodinson par ses e´le`ves, ses the kingdom of Mac¯ın, and which the Minaeans colle`gues et ses amis. (Comptes Rendus du (who probably spoke something quite different) GLECS. Supple´ment, 12). Paris: Geuthner, 1985: appear to have adopted and used (more or less 343–359; Macdonald MCA. ABCs and Letter competently) as their written language. The Order in Ancient North Arabian. PSAS 16: 1986: term was first proposed by Christian Robin. For 154–156, n. 145; Irvine AK & Beeston AFL. New a fuller explanation see Robin C. L’Arabie Evidence on the Qatabanian Letter Order. PSAS antique de Karib$ˆıla` Mahomet. Nouvelles don- 18: 1988; and Ryckmans J, Mu¨ ller WW & Ab- neés sur l’histoire des Arabes graˆce aux inscrip- dallah YA. Textes du Ye´men antique inscrits sur tions. Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Me´diter- bois (with an English Summary). Avant-Propos raneé, 61: 1991: 98. de J.-F. Breton. Louvain-la-Neuve: Publications 16. For a brief, clear and very useful discussion of de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, 43: 1994: 64 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

43–44, pl. 1A and B). However, among the hundreds in northern Yemen since 1970. See Ry- North Arabian scripts it is only known in Dada- ckmans et al. Textes du Ye´men antique, especially nitic, the alphabet of an urban society where 12–14, 31–33 and the works by J. Ryckmans writing was probably taught in schools (see cited in the bibliography there, pp. 18–19. Macdonald, ABCs: 112–115 and note that Fig. 5 28. The linguistic material contained in a proper (on p. 113) has been printed upside-down). The name does not, of course, identify the language Safaitic script, on the other hand, which seems of its bearer; only the linguistic context in which to have been used almost exclusively by no- it occurs can do that. Even a graffito consisting mads, appears to have been spread informally solely of a single name would have had a lin- from one individual to another with no fixed guistic context within the mind of the writer, alphabetic order, the letters being grouped but this, of course, is irretrievable. roughly according to shape, with the groupings 29. Thus the language of a text in the Safaitic script being different in each case (see most recently is called ‘Safaitic’ unless there is evidence that Macdonald MCA, al-Mu$azzin M & Nehme´ L. it is in another language/dialect (see the exam- Les inscriptions safaı¨tiques de Syrie, cent qua- ples quoted below under the hn- dialects and rante ans apre`s leur dećouverte. CRAIBL 1996: Safaeo-Arabic). 439–443 and references there). For Hismaic, we 30. This is the script (and the dialect normally ex- have an interesting ‘ABC’ more or less in the pressed in it) which Winnett originally called $bgd order, but with differences which are very ‘Thamudic A’ (Winnett FV. A Study of the Li- significant for the early letter-orders of the hyanite and Thamudic Inscriptions. Toronto: Arabic script (see Macdonald, ABCs: 105–112, University of Toronto Studies, Oriental Series, 117–130 [note that, in that article, Hismaic was 3: 1937: 20–28, 50, pl. III). After further work wrongly called ‘South Safaitic’]; and Macdonald on the texts, he isolated the dialect and script MCA. On the placing of sw in the Maghribi abjad sufficiently for it to be removed from the Tha- and the Khirbet al-Samra¯$ ABC. JSS 37: 1992: mudic Restklassenbildung and named it ‘Tayma- 155–166). nite’ (Winnett FV & Reed WL. Ancient Records 24. See DietrichM&LoretzO.Die Keilalphabete. Die from North Arabia. Toronto: University of To- pho¨nizisch-kanaanaïschen und altarabischen Alpha- ronto Near and Middle East Series, 6: 1970: 69– bete in Ugarit.Mu¨ nster: Abhandlungen zur Lite- 70, 89–93; Winnett FV. A Reconsideration of ratur Alt-Syrien-Pala¨stinas, 1: 1988, for a discus- Some Inscriptions from the Tayma Area. PSAS sion of the evidence for the Ugaritic and Phoe- 10: 1980: 133–140). nician orders. Their discussion of the Arabian 31. Called by Winnett ‘Jawfian’ (Winnett & Reed, order has been overtaken by subsequent disco- Ancient Records: 69, 73, 80–81 (nos. 21–23), pls 1, veries, see the important paper by Bordreuil P & 3, 12). So far only three texts in the Dumaitic Pardee D. Un abeće´daire du type sud-se´mitique script have been published, but the forms of d, dećouvert en 1988 dans les fouilles archeólogi- z and dw show them to be distinct from texts ques françaises de Ras Shamra-Ougarit. which can be classified as Taymanitic or Dada- CRAIBL 1995: 855–860, and references there. A nitic. See Fig. 3 and the more detailed discus- partial hlhw m has also been found in the so-called sion below. ‘short’ Ugaritic alphabet at Beth-Shemesh in Pa- 32. On these see Ephcal I. The Ancient Arabs. Nomads lestine, some 500 km south of Ugarit (see the on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent 9th-5th Centu- discussion and references in Bordreuil & ries B.C. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1982: 112–117. In Pardee, Un abeće´daire). Macdonald MCA & King GMH. Thamudic. EI, 25. See de Maigret A & Robin C. Les fouilles ita- (new edition), 10. Leiden: Brill, 1998: 437, this liennes de Yalaˆ (Ye´men du nord): nouvelles script is referred to as ‘Old North Arabian’. This donneés sur la chronologie de l’Arabie du sud should be corrected to ‘Oasis North Arabian’. preíslamique. CRAIBL: 1989: 286–291. Note that 33. For instance the distinctive Taymanitic b for bn the authors very properly base their conclusions in the ONA text on the Vienna seal 1247 (see on the lower of the calibrated dates produced, Sass B. Studia Alphabetica. On the Origin and while noting that any date within the range is Early History of the Northwest Semitic, South Se- equally possible. mitic and Greek Alphabets. Freiburg Schweiz: 26. See under Hasaitic below in the second section Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, 102: 1991: Fig. 33) of this paper. and in the text (s1lmn // b hw fn) on the seal im- 27. Represented by the private documents incised pression in the E´ cole Biblique (Sass, Studia Al- on sticks which have been appearing in their phabetica: 65–66, Fig. 41). 65 M. C. A. MACDONALD

34. These are conveniently listed and illustrated in and the Thamudic D text HU 453 (? Sass, Studia Alphabetica: 38–66, Figs. 8–41, to ncmtbml(t)md ?). Of course, there may be other which should be added Robin 5 (Robin C. Do- reasons why the ethnicon tmd is so rare in these cuments de l’Arabie antique, 3. Rayda¯n 6: 1994: texts and I repeat that this paucity of occur- 86–87, pl. 46). rences cannot be taken as proof that members 35.ThisnamewasgiventothembyW.F.Albright, of the Thamu¯ ddidnot use these scripts. It on the basis of an extremely speculative argu- shows only that, at present, we have very little ment in which he assumed that the Chaldaeans evidence that they did. The name tmd also oc- brought the script to Babylonia ‘from an unde- curs twice in a dating formula in Safaitic: s1nt termined part of East Arabia, to which it had hw rb gs2m $ltmd‘the year of the war [between] spread from cOmaˆn[scil. Dhofar]’, (Albright Gs2m and the $l Tmd’ (WH 3792a) and s1nt hw rb WF. The Chaldaean Inscriptions in Proto-Arabic gs2mtmd(WH 3792c). In this case, an identifica- Script. BASOR 128: 1952: 44–45). tion with a tribe called Thamu¯ d known from 36. See Burrows E. A New Kind of Old Arabic Wri- outside sources is more plausible, though un- tingfromUr.JRAS 1927: 795–806. provable. 37. See Sass, Studia Alphabetica: 58–65. 40. Conveniently expounded in van den Branden 38. Several unpublished seals in private collections A. L’unite´ de l’alphabet thamoude´en. Studia are said to have come from Saudi Arabia. See Islamica 6: 1957: 5–27, and van den Branden A. Golding M. Artefacts from Later Pre-Islamic Oc- Histoire de Thamoud. Beirut: Publications de cupation in Eastern Arabia. ATLAL 8: 1984: 166, l’universite´ libanaise – Section des e´tudes histo- who illustrates one such seal with the legend riques, 6: 1960 (2nd edition, 1966). See also klbm in South Arabian letters (pl. 135b). Jamme A. Miscellane´es d’ancient arabe,5. 39. One or more tribes called Thamu¯ d are known Washington, DC: [privately produced], 1974: from the Annals of the Assyrian King Sargon II 19–20. (722–705 BC); from Classical sources (dating 41. King GMH. Early North Arabian Thamudic E. A from between the second century BC and the Preliminary description based on a new corpus of fifth century AD); from the Qur$a¯n and from inscriptions from the Hw isma¯ desert of southern Islamic commentators and historians (seventh Jordan and published material. Ph.D. thesis sub- century AD onwards), with nothing from the mitted to the School of Oriental and African periods in between. While it is perfectly pos- Studies, University of London, 1990. sible that some members of a tribe or tribes 42. In the past, I have argued strongly for the reten- called Thamu¯d used one or more of the scripts tion of Winnett’s original label, ‘Thamudic E’, as which have been placed in the ‘pending file’ we against his revised term ‘Tabuki Thamudic’ and call ‘Thamudic’, there is pitifully little evidence Knauf’s proposed ‘South Safaitic’. The latter is that they did so. In the approximately 11,000 entirely inappropriate since King’s study has ‘Thamudic’ texts the name tmd occurs only four shown that in script, linguistic features and times (all in Thamudic B), with another two content these inscriptions form a distinct group possible cases (one each in Thamudic B and which is markedly different from Safaitic. See the Thamudic D) where the reading is doubtful or discussion below, plus Macdonald MCA. Sa- can only be obtained by emending the copy. faitic. In: EI, (new edition), 8. Leiden: Brill, 1995: Moreover, it is perfectly possible that in some, 760–762, and Macdonald & King, Thamudic: or all, of these occurrences tmd was not voca- 437–438. I therefore regret my temporary adop- lized ‘Thamu¯ d’ and/or did not refer to the tion of Knauf’s nomenclature in Macdonald, tribe(s) of that name known to history. The four ABCs; and in Macdonald MCA. Inscriptions, Sa- more or less secure occurrences are as follows: faitic. In: Freedman DN, ed. The Anchor Bible Dic- JSTham 280 ($hw s1dt h-tmd(y) ‘$hw s1dt the tionary, 3. New York: Doubleday, 1992: 418–423 Tmd(aean)’) and 300 (lb$tr h-tmd[y] ‘By B$tr the (submitted in 1988). My objection to the term ‘Ta- Tmd[aean?]’), HU 172 (h $lh tmd rllkgc? ‘O god buki Thamudic’ was that it suggested that the of Tmd ....?’), Doughty 51/2 (s1t h-tmd nm h(l)sw t main concentration of these texts was in the re- ‘Lady of the Tmd. By H(l)sw t?’). It will be seen gion of Tabuk, and that it was ‘the type of Tha- that although the letters t-m-d are clear in each mudic’ native to that area. Such a term runs peri- of these inscriptions the reading and/or inter- lously close to endorsing van den Branden’s pretation of the whole text is in each case far discredited theory,which denies that ‘Thamudic’ from secure. Even more uncertain are the Tha- is an artificial Restklassenbildung and claims ins- mudic B text JSTham 339 (? lcgtmdrktmgr{hw } ?) tead that there was only one ‘Thamudic alpha- 66 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

bet’ with various geographical variations. I the- lation and a corrected version of his translitera- refore argued that the neutral term ‘Thamudic E’ tion of a text (now lost) from the same site (see which had no such implications was to be pre- Beeston AFL. [Note on an inscription from ferred, and it was under this label that Geraldine Sharja]. In: Wilkinson JC. Water and Tribal Settle- King analyzed the script and dialect. However, ment in South-East Arabia. A Study of the Afla¯j of as a result of her study it would now be confu- Oman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1977: 135, n. 6). sing to continue referring to the script and dialect 49. See, for instance, Robin, L’Arabie antique: 118– as ‘Thamudic’, and for this reason a new name is 119, or Mu¨ ller, Das Altarabische und das klas- required. sische Arabisch: 25–26. 43. This spelling (ie. with alif maqsw u¯rah) is the one 50. Robin, L’Arabie antique: 136 and see the table in the Official Standard Names Gazetteer for on 137, contradicting his statement on pp. 118– Jordan (Department of the Interior, Washington 119. DC). 51. Loftus WK. Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and 44. Macdonald and King, Thamudic: 437–438. Susiana. London: Nisbet, 1857: 233. 45. Formerly Jabal al-Duru¯ z (le Djebel Druze) or 52. If a North Arabian script had been native to Jabal Hw awra¯n, Roman Auranitis. southern Mesopotamia – an area of obsessive 46. See below and, for a detailed discussion, Mac- literacy which has been explored by archaeolo- donald MCA. Nomads and the Hw awra¯ninthe gists for almost two centuries – one would ex- late Hellenistic and Roman Periods: A Reassess- pect far more texts to have been found and a far ment of the Epigraphic Evidence. Syria 70: 1993: greater consistency in the scripts employed in 305–310, 377–382. them. 47. These texts were first identified as representing 53. It would appear that Robin’s idea of a connec- a separate group by F.V. Winnett (A Himyaritic tion between the Hasaitic and the Dispersed Inscription from the Persian Gulf Region. Oasis North Arabian scripts may derive ultima- BASOR 102: 1946: 6). The name ‘Hasaean’ was tely from a misunderstanding of a remark by J. originally suggested by R. le B. Bowen (The Ryckmans that the script of Ja 1049 (ΩJamme, Early Arabian Necropolis of Ain Jawan. A Pre- Sabaean and Hw asaean Inscriptions: 6: Fig. 18), a Islamic and Early Islamic Site on the Persian Gulf. rock graffito found near al-Hw asa¯, was in a script New Haven, CT: BASOR Supplementary Stu- ‘proche de certains cachets trouve´senMe´sopo- dies, 7–9: 1950: 5, 25) and taken up by A. Jamme tamie’ (Ryckmans J. Review of Jamme, Sabaean (Sabaean and Hw asaean Inscriptions from Saudi and Hw asaean Inscriptions. BiOr 26: 1969: 246). Arabia. Rome: Studi semitici, 23: 1966: 66). Ho- However, Ja 1049 is known only from a rough wever, W.W. Mu¨ ller has called for them to be and incomplete hand-copy and the unusual renamed ‘Hasaitic’ to preserve the -ic/aean dis- letter-forms it contains must inevitably be sus- tinction mentioned above (Das Altarabische pect. Thus, for instance, the triangle which Gar- und das klassische Arabisch: 26). There is no bini compared with letters in some Dispersed complete corpus of all the Hasaitic texts known ONA texts (Garbini G. Le iscrizioni proto-arabe. to date, but useful collections can be found in AION 36 [N.S. 26]: 1976: 170–171) could well be- Potts DT. The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity.2.Ox- long to a d of the normal South Arabian form ford: Clarendon 1990: 69–85, with a good dis- the stem of which was missed by the copyist. cussion and abundant references but with only Note also that the forms of $ are South Arabian one figure (showing four facsimiles) and no rather than ONA, see Figure 3 here. Moreover, photographs. However, there are generally ex- if Ja 1049 were in one of the Dispersed ONA cellent illustrations in Livingstone A. A Lin- scripts this would automatically exclude its guistic, Tribal and Onomastical Study of the Ha- being Hasaitic, since the scripts of the Dispersed saean Inscriptions. ATLAL 8: 1984: pls 85–90, ONA texts are very clearly different from that although unfortunately the text of this article of the known Hasaitic texts (see Fig. 3). has been rendered unusable by numerous prin- 54. See Ryckmans G. Inscriptions sud-arabes. Vingt- ters’ errors. et-unie`me se´rie [Ry 687–688]. Le Muse´on 76: 1963: 48. Eg. at Warka in southern Mesopotamia (CIH 420–422, pl. VI;ΩJa 1046 (Jamme, Sabaean and 699) or on the Oman Peninsula, at Mleiha in Hw asaean Inscriptions: 72–73, pl. XVI). Sharja, UAE (Robin-Mulayhw a I, see Robin, Do- 55. See Ryckmans, Inscriptions sud-arabes. Vingt- cuments de l’Arabie antique, 3: 80). Note that in et-unie`me se´rie: 422–423, pl. VI;ΩJa 1047 (Jamme, the same article Robin republishes, under the Sabaean and Hw asaean Inscriptions: 73–74, pl. XVI). siglum ‘Wilkinson-Mulayhw a 1’, Beeston’s trans- 56. Pirenne J. Quoted in Altheim F & Stiehl R. Die 67 M. C. A. MACDONALD

Araber in der Alten Welt, 3. Berlin: de Gruyter, 65. This appears to me to be less ugly and more 1966: 60–61. easily pronounced than ‘Safaitico-Arabic’! 57. For a discussion of the whole problem of South 66. Robin first suggested calling these ‘pseudo-Sa- Arabian chronologies see de Maigret & Robin, be´en’ but, as he recognized, this risks confusion Les fouilles italiennes de Yalaˆ: 255–278; and for with the ‘Pseudo-Sabaic’ texts of Abyssinia and the archaeological evidence from C14 dating, he therefore proposed the label ‘qahw tw a¯nite’ ibid. 286–291. For a very clear and concise expo- (L’Arabie antique: 97). However, it is dangerous sition of the problems and an argument for to name a language or a habit of writing after a adopting a modified long chronology see Robin, historical political entity or social group, since L’Arabie antique: 49–51. this immediately implies a connection with, and 58. Pirenne, in: Altheim & Stiehl: 60. limitation to, such an entity or group. It was for 59. This may seem to contradict the view given this reason that Robin proposed the new name above that the Hasaitic texts are ‘written in the ‘Madhabic’ to replace ‘Minaic’, and that I have monumental South Arabian alphabet (albeit suggested replacing ‘Dedanite’ and ‘Lihyanite’ with occasional unusual letter-forms) or in one with ‘Dadanitic’. Furthermore, the name ‘qahw tw a¯- closely derived from it’, but see the hypothesis nite’ does not immediately suggest the mixed advanced below. nature of these texts and would artificially sepa- 60. The site of Tha¯gˇ, where a number of these texts rate them from texts of the same sort in other were found, has been dated roughly to between scripts. However, as I explain below, no texts of the late fourth century BC and late first century this kind have yet been identified, although it AD (see Potts, The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity,2: is likely that when all the inscriptions from Qa- 44 and 203), but this provides only the most un- ryat al-Faw are published some will fall into certain of evidence for dating the inscriptions. this category. It is for this reason that I have 61. For more detailed discussions see Macdonald placed the term between [ ]. MCA. The Form of the Definite Article in Clas- 67. That is, texts in Aramaic scripts and dialects sical Arabic. Some Light from the Jahiliya. JSS other than Nabataean. (forthcoming); and my forthcoming book, Old 68. J. Ryckmans gives an instructive example of Arabic and its legacy in the later language. Texts, this. ‘A graffito in South Arabian writing which linguistic features, scripts and letter-orders. we found in 1952 in Nafu¯ d Musamma¯, about 62. In a Psalter fragment from a Damascus genizah, 10 km north-east of Kawkab [south-west Saudi the Septuagint text of Psalm 78 (LXX, 77) and Arabia] reads: ‘‘Hw ugr bin cAmr, malik Kiddat an Arabic gloss written in Greek letters, are ar- [ie. Kinda]’’. Had the royal title been left out, ranged in parallel columns. The fragment was one would normally have added these names first published in Violet B. Ein zweisprachiges to the late Sabaean, and not Central Arabian, Psalmfragment aus Damascus. OLZ 4: 1901: col. stock of personal names.’ (Ryckmans J. Alpha- 384–403, 425–441, 475–488 and I have recently bets, Scripts and Languages in Pre-Islamic Ara- restudied it in Macdonald, The Form of the De- bian Epigraphical Evidence. In: al-Ansary AT, finite Article, and Macdonald, Old Arabic, where ed. Studies in the History of Arabia.2:Pre-Islamic I have argued that it dates to the pre-Islamic Arabia. (Proceedings of the Second International period. Symposium on Studies in the History of Arabia, 63. That is, the five pre-Islamic inscriptions in Juma¯da¯ I, 1399 A.H./April 1979). Riyadh: King what is recognizably the Arabic script, so far Saud University Press, 1984: 74). known. For descriptions, references, discussion 69. See Beeston AFL. On the Correspondence of and illustrations see Grohmann A. Arabische Hebrew s´ to ESA s2. JSS 22: 1977: 51. Pala¨ographie. Wien: Denkschriften. O¨ ster- 70. This point is discussed more fully in Macdonald reichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. MCA. Some Reflections on Epigraphy and Wien. Philosophisch-historische Klasse 94.1–2: Ethnicity in the Roman Near East. In: Clarke G, 1967–1971: 2, 14–17, Taf. I-II; and, for more reed. Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean in cent references, Gruendler B. The Development Antiquity. Proceedings of a Conference held at of the Arabic Scripts From the Nabatean Era to the Humanities Research Centre in Canberra the First Islamic Century According to Dated 10–12 November, 1997. Mediterranean Archaeo- Texts. Atlanta, GA: Harvard Semitic Series, 43: logy 11: 1998: 177–190. 1993: 13–14. 71. Even the several hundred inscriptions found in 64. For a list of all known Old Arabic texts see Mac- Dhofar by A.A.M. al-Shahw rı¯ and G.M.H. King donald, The Form of the Definite Article. are unlikely to redress the balance. They are in 68 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

a previously unknown form of the Arabian rences. Three letters (‘LNV’) in the Latin al- script and have so far defied decipherment but, phabet on an amphora fragment were found in even when eventually they can be read, the Area Z of ed-Dur (Potts DT. In: Boucharlat R, short, informal nature of the texts suggests that Haerinck E, Lecomte O, Potts DT & Stevens KO. they may not be particularly informative. For The European Archaeological Expedition to ed- excellent colour illustrations see al-Shahw rı¯, Kayfa Dur, Umm al-Qaiwayn (U.A.E.). An Interim Re- ibtadayna¯.: 61–145. port on the 1987 and 1988 Seasons. Mesopotamia 72. If, as seems likely, the drawing of a chariot with 24: 1989: 26–27, Fig. Y); and Papadopoulos JK. a caption in Thamudic B represents an Assyrian A Western Mediterranean amphora fragment vehicle, this could date from any time from the from ed-Dur. AAE 5: 1994: 276–279. invasions of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BC) to 75. For example, r with a hook at the top (Ja 1044/ those of Ashurbanipal (668–627 BC). See Mac- 1, see the photograph on ATLAL 8: 1984: pl. donald MCA. Hunting, Fighting, and Raiding. 89A), d back-to-front (Ja 1044/2, ibid.), f as a The Horse in Pre-Islamic Arabia. In: Alexander circle with a horizontal bar to the right or left DG, ed. Furusiyya: The horse in the art of the Near (Ja 1048/1, 2, 3, see Jamme, Sabaean and Hw asaean East, 1. Riyadh, 1996: 76–79 (and the corri- Inscriptions: pl. XVII). genda). Note that on Illustration IIa in this work 76. See, for instance, Potts, The Arabian Gulf in Anti- the right-hand section of the composition has quity, 2: 219–221, 227, 278; Naveh J. The Inscrip- been omitted. However, a reproduction of the tions from Failaka and the Lapidary Aramaic complete drawing can be found on pp. 224–225 Script. BASOR 297: 1995: 1–4, with references of the book. there (Aramaic lapidary); Sznycer M. L’inscrip- 73. See the discussion, references and lists in Potts, tion arameénne sur un vase inscrit du Museé The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, 1: 217–219 and de Bahrain. Syria 61: 1984: 109–118 (cursive?); 305–307 (Bahrain); 284–290 and 292–297 (Fai- Teixidor J. Une inscription arameénne prove- laka), to which add Eidem J. In: Højlund F & nant de l’e´mirat de Sharjah (E´ mirats Arabes Andersen H, eds. Qala’at al-Bahrain. 2. The Cen- Unis). CRAIBL 1992: 695–707 (the longest text, tral Monumental Buildings. Århus: Jutland see below) and, on the coin legends, Maraqten Archaeological Society Publications, 30.1: 1997; M. Notes on the Aramaic script of some coins and, for the largest single find so far (some from East Arabia. AAE 7: 1996: 304–315; and twenty tablets, thirty inscribed fragments and Macdonald MCA. Queens in Pre-Islamic Eas- several bullae), see Andre´-Salvini B & Lombard tern Arabia? Another Look at the so-called P. La dećouverte e´pigraphique de 1995 a` Qalcat ‘Abiel’ Coin Legends. (Forthcoming). al-Bahrein: un jalon pour la chronologie de la 77. See Teixidor, Inscription arameénne: 696 and phase Dilmoun Moyen dans le Golfe arabe. the discussion below. PSAS 27: 1997: 165–170. 78. In the same article, Teixidor published a small 74. See Roueche´ C & Sherwin-White SM. Some As- fragment of a bronze plaque with part of a text pects of the Seleucid Empire: The Greek Inscrip- in the same script (pp. 705–706). tions from Failaka, in the Persian Gulf. Chiron 79. See the interesting paper by Alessandra Avan- 15: 1985: 1–39; Marcillet-Jaubert J. Une inscrip- zini in the proceedings of the workshop on ‘Ci- tion grecque de Tell Khazneh. In: Calvet Y & vilisations de l’Arabie preíslamique’, Aix-en- Salles J-F, eds. Failaka, fouilles françaises 1984– Provence, 1996, when these are eventually pu- 1985. Lyon: Travaux de la Maison de l’Orient, blished. 12: 1986: 265–267; Marcillet-Jaubert J. Une nou- 80. Thus, to take only one example, Christian Robin velle inscription grecque a` Failaka. In: Calvet dates texts in the South Arabian script from Y & Gachet G, eds. Failaka, Fouilles françaises Faw on the same palaeographical grounds as 1986–1988. Lyon: Travaux de la Maison de those from Yemen (L’Arabie antique: 114ff). l’Orient, 18: 1990: 193–195; Marcillet-Jaubert J. 81. See Ryckmans et al. Textes du Ye´men antique: 35– Ste`le fune´raire du museé de Bahrein. Syria 67: 39. 1990: 665–673; Piejko F. The Inscriptions of 82. Some 3,000 South Arabian graffiti were re- Icarus-Failaka. Classica et Mediaevalia 39: 1988: corded in southern Saudi Arabia by the Philby- 89–92; and Potts, The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, Ryckmans-Lippens Expedition in 1951, see Ry- 2: 183–194. The longest of these is the so-called ckmans G. Graffites sabeéns releve´s en Arabie ‘Ikaros inscription’ from Failaka (forty-four Sacudite. Scritti in onore di Giuseppe Furlani. RSO lines), on which see Potts, The Arabian Gulf in 32: 1957: 557–563. Antiquity, 2: 186–193 for discussion and refe- 83. The Philby-Ryckmans-Lippens Expedition re- 69 M. C. A. MACDONALD

corded some 9000 ‘Thamudic’ graffiti, see Ry- (cbd-hl-czy) found in a graffito in South Arabian ckmans J. Aspects nouveaux du proble`me tha- script in southwestern Saudi Arabia (Ryckmans, moudeén. Studia Islamica 5: 1956: 5–17; and Aspects nouveaux: 11). The supposed examples below. Unfortunately, these have yet to be pu- of hl- in late Dadanitic (formerly ‘Lihyanite’) are blished. ‘ghosts’. JSLih 158 is an unfinished attempt to 84. For a discussion of the South Arabian languages write the alphabet in the Arabian hlhw m order, see the paper by Avanzini mentioned in note which was restarted in the second line (see 79. Mu¨ ller, Das Altarabische und das klassische 85. This dating is arrived at partly on palaeo- Arabisch: 22). Note also that JSLih 71, in which graphical grounds (Rabinowitz I. Aramaic an article with -l- occurs in b-l-hw gr and, follo- Inscriptions of the Fifth Century B.C.E. from a wing the preposed demonstrative adjective h- North-Arab Shrine in Egypt. JNES 15: 1956: 6, in h-l-mfl, is not Dadanitic but a Dadano-Arabic and n. 41) and partly by the quite arbitrary text (see below). A third ‘ghost’ is the supposed identification of Gsˇm (the patronym of one of article hl- in the name of a Dadanite woman the donors), with ‘Geshem the Arab’ mentioned mentioned in the so-called ‘hierodulenlisten’ in Nehemiah (2:19; 6:1 and cf. 6:2, 6). Gsˇm was, (see now the excellent edition by Bron F. Inven- of course, a common name in southern Syria taire des inscriptions sudarabiques. Tome 3. Paris: and northern Arabia in the pre-Islamic period Boccard/Rome: Herder, 1998: 106, no. Mac¯ın93 and there is no external evidence to suggest that (Gl. 1270/16); and see p. 116, no. 28/1270). The these two occurrences refer to the same person. name of the woman is written bmhl / czy and it 86. Robin, L’Arabie antique: 102. has been suggested that hl here is an example 87. Rabinowitz, Aramaic Inscriptions: 2, 4–5. W. of the definite article (cf. Ryckmans, Aspects Kornfeld (Onomastica aramaica und das Alte nouveaux: 11, n. 1). However, the position of Testament. Zeitschrift fu¨r die alttestamentliche the word-divider clearly shows that the name is Wissenschaft 88: 1976: 109–112) argues that the bmhl-czy which could be analyzed b-mhl-czy name sw hw $ may not be of Egyptian origin here ‘with the forebearance/ gentleness of czy’. on the grounds that the patronym (cbd-cmrw)is 91. For instance, hn-$fklt ‘the priestess’, JSLih 64/3, Semitic (he assumes it is ‘Qe¯da¯rite’, apparently and many others. There are as yet no instances because an entirely separate dedication at the of the article before a word beginning with the shrine was made by a king of Qe¯da¯r). However, glottal fricative /h/. the possible North Arabian etymologies for sw hw $ 92. For instance, hn-cnk ‘the foundation’, JSLih 54/ which he proposes, are not entirely satisfactory 3. There are as yet no clear instances in Dada- and there seems no reason why the name could nitic of the definite article before a word begin- not be Egyptian, in view of the purely Egyptian ning with the other pharyngal fricative /hw /. names of another dedicator (Rabinowitz I. Ano- Jamme read hn-hw s1 in JSLih 269/4 (see Jamme A. ther Aramaic Record of the North-Arabian God- Miscellaneés d’ancient arabe, 7. Washington, DC: dess Han-$Ilat. JNES 18: 1959: 154–155) and the [privately produced], 1974: 117, but note that geographical position of the shrine, near there is a misprint in his transliteration) and Egypt’s northeastern border, where one would compared hw s1 with ‘Ar. hw usaˆs ‘trace, vestige, expect just such an onomastic mingling of Egy- mark’ (ibid.). However, I cannot find such a ptian and North Arabian. The countless exam- meaning in the lexica and a more natural rea- ples of men and women with Greek or Latin ding is h-nhw s1. The context is a curse on anyone names and Semitic patronyms (and vice versa) who might damage the hw s1 or nhw s1 (using the in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East should same phraseology as in JSLih 276 and HE 1, see make us wary of the argument used below, which have s1fr in place of hw s1/nhw s1). by Kornfeld on this occasion. Thus a word meaning ‘writing’ or ‘inscription’ 88. Rabinowitz, Another Aramaic Record: 154–155. would be expected. It is possible that this text 89. Herodotus 1.131; 3.8. was engraved as a warning beside a bronze 90. Robin suggests that the form $Alila´t ‘pourrait plaque with a funerary inscription, similar to correspondre en principe a` une graphie se´mi- the one found at Mleiha (see Teixidor, Inscrip- tique *hal-Ila¯t ou *al-Ila¯t’ (L’Arabie antique: 102). tion arameénne, and the discussion below) and While, of course, this is theoretically possible, I that h-nhw s1 refers to this. Only an examination am not aware of any evidence for a definite ar- of the rock-face will reveal whether there are ticle hl- in Ancient North Arabian, although it signs that something was originally attached to appears to occur in a theophoric personal name the surface beside JSLih 269. 70 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

93 See, for instance, Mu¨ ller, Das Altarabische und 101. For the most recent treatment of this text and its das klassische Arabisch: 18, 22, 24; and Mu¨ ller significance see Macdonald MCA. Trade Routes WW. Some Remarks on the Safaitic Inscriptions. and Trade Goods at the Northern End of the PSAS 10: 1980: 69. ‘‘Incense Road’’ in the First Millennium B.C. In: 94. JSLih 81/2–3 hn-// qbr. It should be noted that Avanzini A, ed. Profumi d’Arabia. Atti del it is not clear from the published photograph convegno. Roma: Saggi di Storia Antica, 11: whether the first three lines of JSLih 81 are 1997: 338–340, and references there. really complete (see Jaussen A & Savignac M-R. 102. The text is damaged at the beginning of the list Mission archeólogique en Arabie, 2. Paris: Geu- of scripts. thner, 1914: pl. LXXXV). The article hn- appears 103. Lipinski E. De fenicische inscripties uit Karatepe. to be at the end of line 2 and qbr at the begin- In: Veenhof KR, ed. Schrijvend Verleden. Docu- ning of line 3. But the syntax of the text as re- menten uit het oude Nabije Oosten vertaald en toege- corded by Jaussen and Savignac is awkward licht. Leiden: Ex Oriente Lux, 1983: 54; and Li- and has not yet received a convincing interpre- pinski E. Phoenicians in Anatolia and Assyria. tation. The ends of lines 4–6 appear to be mis- OLP 16: 1985: 82. Luwian having no exact equi- sing (they are appreciably shorter than lines 1– valent to /sw /, s was used as the nearest approxi- 3) and it is possible that lines 1–3 are also in- mation. The late Jonas Greenfield suggested that complete. If this is so, the definite article hn- in the term ‘script of Tyre’ could have been used to line 2 would have referred to a noun no longer cover Aramaic as well as Phoenician since the visible at the ‘end’ of that line, rather than to distinction between the two alphabets would not qbr. Only a re-investigation of the original will have been obvious at this period (Greenfield J. Of solve this problem. In all other cases the article Scribes, Scripts and Languages. In: Baurain C, is h- before words beginning with q (h- qbr in Bonnet C & Krings V, eds. Phoinikeia Grammata. JSLih 79/2–3, h- qrt in JSLih 64/1, 366/2, JaL Lire et ećrire en Me´diterraneé. Actes du Colloque de 85d/1ΩJamme, Miscellaneés 7: 73–74, pl. 19). Lie`ge, 15–18 novembre 1989. Namur: Collection 95. LP 87. See Macdonald, Nomads and the Hw a- d’E´ tudes Classiques, 6: 1991: 179–180). wra¯n: 308 for this reading. 104. Greenfield, Of Scribes: 180–181 and, indepen- 96. NH 6.32.157 Avalitae (oppida Domata, Haegra). dently, Livingstone A. New light on the ancient 97. Thus the epithet of the goddess hn-$lt at Tell el- town of Taima¯. In: Geller MJ, Greenfield JC & Mashu¯ tw a and, in Hasaitic, the names $mt-hn-$lt Weitzman MP, eds. Studia Aramaica. New Sources (LivH A.13/2 Pl.87A), cwd-hn-$lt (LivH O.15/2–3 and New Approaches. Papers Delivered at the Pl.85D), $ws1-hn-$lt (Ry 155/2–3, see Ryckmans London Conference of the Institute of Jewish G. Inscriptions sud-arabes. Quatrie`me se´rie [Ry Studies University College London 26th-28th 155–202]. Le Museón 50: 1937: 239–240) and {.}rm- June 1991. Oxford: Journal of Semitic Studies hn-$lt (Ja 1043, see Jamme, Sabaean and Hw asaean Supplement, 4: 1995: 133–137. Inscriptions: pl. XV). One of the exceptions is the 105. I am most grateful to Professor David Hawkins, name hn-cbd in Ja 1044/2 (ATLAL 8: 1984: pl. who is publishing an edition of this text, for this 89A). The other is hn-$mlt, on which see below. information. He himself suggested that ta-i-ma- 98. JaS 162a (Jamme A. Safaitic Inscriptions from ni-ti referred to the Aramaean tribe of Te¯ma¯n the Country of cArcar and Ra$s al-cAna¯nı¯yah. In: in northern Mesopotamia, but this was mainly Altheim F & Stiehl R, eds. Christentum am Roten because he felt that it would be inconceivable Meer, 1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1971: 93, 634), cf. that Aramaic would not be among the scripts Ar. $imla ‘hope’. The letters l and n are clearly mentioned. However, as he points out, the be- differentiated in this text. ginning of the list is broken and we do not 99. Wilkinson-Mulayhw a 1 (Robin, Documents de know what has been lost. Moreover, he agrees l’Arabie antique 3: 80) which A.F.L. Beeston read with Greenfield that Yariris is unlikely to have nfs1 w-qbr Dryt fty $mlkn ‘gravestone and grave of distinguished between the Phoenician and Ara- Dhariyyat servant of the kings’. However, as maic scripts (pers. comm.). The gentilic form Robin rightly points out, $mlkn may be a personal Tayma¯$ is attested as tymny$ in Nabataean texts name equivalent to the Arabic clan name al- from Hw egra¯ (H 1/2, 12/2) although this, of Amlu¯k. course, is from a very much later period (first 100. As in Hismaic (see below), affiliation to a social century AD), see Healey JF. The Nabataean Tomb group is always marked by the phrase d $l ‘who Inscriptions of Mada$in Salih. Oxford: Journal of is of the lineage of’ and, so far at least, never by Semitic Studies Supplement, 1: 1993: 71. the nisba. 106. I have explored these relationships in Macdo- 71 M. C. A. MACDONALD

nald, Trade Routes. See also Liverani M. The western Arabia from Yemen (eg. Ph 212 a1, 2, 3; Trade Network of Tyre according to Ezek. 27. In: 212 d) to southern Syria (eg. C 3559, LP 273, Cogan M & Ephcal I, eds. Ah, Assyria... Studies in 495), while C and D texts are by no means Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Histo- concentrated in the Hw igˇa¯z. It therefore seems riography presented to Hayim Tadmor. Jerusalem: much safer to retain for these rough, provisional Scripta Hierosolymitana, 33: 1991: 65–79. subdivisions, the neutral ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, labels 107. Livingstone (incorrectly in my view) describes which do not carry any misleading overtones, it as ‘the old South Arabic script’ (New light: until such time as a more refined classification 136). However, it is clear that he is confusing is possible. It may be argued that the names the terms ‘South Arabic’ and ‘South Semitic’ (ie. ‘Taymanitic’ and ‘Hismaic’ for the two types ‘Arabian’) and that he makes no distinction be- which have been removed from ‘Thamudic’ risk tween the North Arabian and South Arabian creating similar confusion. However, it is now scripts since on p. 137 he refers to the script of clear that the major concentrations of these texts the seals found in Mesopotamia as ‘South Ara- are in the areas after which they have been la- bian’. belled, and the major distinctive features of 108. The inscription on the Vienna seal 1247 (ΩRES each have been identified. Thus, while the la- 2688, see Sass, Studia Alphabetica: Fig. 33) must bels may yet turn out to be misnomers, this is of be Taymanitic because of the use of b for bn less importance with well-defined groups than which is unique to this dialect. See Macdonald with texts which have yet to be clearly classi- MCA. HU 501 and the use of s3 in Taymanite. fied, and it is important to show by the label JSS 36: 1991: 20–21. that they are no longer in the ‘Thamudic’ 109. See Macdonald, HU 501. Restklassenbildung. 110. HU 501 and WTay 4, on which see Macdonald, 118. King, Early North Arabian Thamudic E: 65, n. 105. HU 501: 12–20. 119. JSTham 1 and JSNab 17. See now Healey JF & 111. WTI 22. Smith GR. Jaussen-Savignac 17 – The Earliest 112. WTI 21, 22 and 23. Dated Arabic Document (A.D. 267). ATLAL 12: 113. See below and Macdonald & King, Thamudic: 1989: pl. 46. 437–438. 120. Ryckmans, Aspects nouveaux. 114. King, Early North Arabian Thamudic E. 121. See, for instance, Knauf A. Su¨ dsafaitisch. ADAJ 115. Winnett, A Study. Roschinski created a new cate- 27: 1983: 587–596. gory, ‘F’, which he claims stands ‘in ihren 122. See King, Early North Arabian Thamudic E: 12– Schriftformen zwischen D und E’ and was 13; Macdonald, Safaitic: 762 and references contemporary with them (Roschinski HP. there; and Macdonald & King, Thamudic: 437. Sprachen, Schriften und Inschriften in 123. The complete list is as follows: the signs which Nordwest-arabien. In: Die Nabata¨er. Ertra¨ge represent t, g, hw , s2, tw, zw, in Hismaic are used for einer Ausstellung im Rheinischen Landesmu- dw , t, d, n (or l), hw , z respectively in Safaitic. seum Bonn 24. Mai – 9. Juli 1978. Bonn: Kunst 124. It is expressed by d $l and in one case each by und Altertum am Rhein, 106: 1981: 43, 45). Ho- mn $l (KJC 641) as in Nabataean, and d (AMJ wever, he does not explain the basis for creating 148ΩJobling WJ. Desert Deities: Some New Epi- this new category and the only two examples of graphic Evidence for the Deities Dushares and ‘F’ texts he gives (Roschinski, Sprachen, al-Lat from the Aqaba-Macan Area of Southern Schriften und Inschriften: 43, Abb. 3/24–25Ω Jordan. Religious Traditions 7–9: 1984–1986: 32– JSTham 98 and 97 respectively) are both Tha- 35; and see King, Early North Arabian Thamudic mudic C. There thus seems no reason to retain E: 622–623). this category. 125. See the remarks in Macdonald, Nomads and the 116. Winnett & Reed, Ancient Records: 69–70, 205. Hw awra¯n: 377–378. 117. It is clear from the work of Geraldine King that 126. Macdonald, Nomads and the Hw awra¯n. Thamudic C and D are distinct categories, 127. Beeston AFL. Arabian Sibilants. JSS 7: 1962: although Winnett’s identification of some letters 222–233. needs to be refined (pers. comm.). The geo- 128. See for instance LP 258, 260, WH 2411. graphical names given by Winnett in 1970 to the 129. See Beeston, Arabian Sibilants: 223–225; McDo- types are also confusing, since they suggest a nald MV. The Order and Phonetic Value of link between the script and a particular region Arabic Sibilants in the ‘‘Abjad’’. JSS 19: 1974: which is not borne out by the distribution pat- 42–43. terns. Thus Thamudic B texts are found all over 130. Healey, Nabataean Tomb Inscriptions: 59. 72 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

131. Some of these will be discussed in Macdonald, bischen Orthographie. 2. Die Schreibung der Old Arabic. Konsonanten. Or 49: 1980: 75–82, 87). Diem was 132. See Macdonald, On the placing of sw. forced to this bizarre hypothesis because his en- 133. For the most recent survey of Nabataean and a tire analysis is based on the anachronistic as- detailed discussion of the points made here, see sumption that pre-Islamic Arabic had a pho- Macdonald MCA. Inscriptions, languages and nemic repertoire identical to that of Modern scripts among the Nabataeans. In: Markoe G, ed. Standard Arabic. See the detailed discussions in Splendors of the Caravan Kingdom. Cincinnati, OH: Macdonald, ABCs: 149–151; The Form of the Cincinnati Art Museum, 2001 (in press). Definite Article; and Old Arabic. 134. See the classic expositions by Cantineau J. Le 139. I remain unconvinced by either J. T. Milik’s Nabateén. 2. Paris: Leroux, 1932: 177–180; and in highly speculative attempt to show that they greater detail in Cantineau J. Nabateén et arabe. came from eastern Arabia (Origines des Naba- Annales de l’Institut d’E´ tudes Orientales 1: 1934– teéns. In: Hadidi A, ed. Studies in the History and 1935: 77–97; more recently maintained by, for Archaeology of Jordan, 1. Amman: Department of example, Roschinski, Sprachen, Schriften und Antiquities, 1982: 261–265) or by the similar Inschriften: 31–33. proposals of D. F. Graf who does not seem to 135. See also the interesting analysis by M. have understood the implications of much of O’Connor (The Arabic Loanwords in Nabatean the material he cites (The Origin of the Naba- Aramaic. JNES 45: 1986: 213–229). The diffe- taeans. With an Appendix by D. F. Graf and H. rence between the number of loans in his list I. MacAdam. ARAM 2: 1990: 45–75). (15) and in mine (22–28) results from the fact 140. See King, Early North Arabian Thamudic E: 687. I that O’Connor restricted himself to examining have counted only those examples from sou- Cantineau’s list of loan-words (excluding JSNab thern Jordan (for the provenances of all the His- 17) whereas I have tried to search all the Naba- maic texts see King, Early North Arabian Tha- taean texts known to me. Moreover, I have in- mudic E: 603–607). There are only twenty-four cluded vocabulary from the Rawwa¯fa inscrip- invocations to Lt/$lt (twenty-three to lt and one tions which he discussed separately (O’Connor, to $lt) in the Hismaic inscriptions from the Wa¯dı¯ Arabic Loanwords: 228–229). Ramm region, as opposed to thirty-nine refe- 136. The exceptions are sw ryhw $ found at Petra (CIS ii rences to Dushara from the same area (thirty- 350/1 and RES 1432/1, 2) as well as at Hw egra¯ one to d-s2ry, four to d-s2r;twotods2ry;twoto (CIS ii 213/3, 4); and $l ‘lineage’ which is found ds2r). mainly in texts from the Hw awra¯n (x 6), close to 141. I have added to the number of invocations to lt the Safaitic inscriptions in which it is the normal a Hismaic text found by F. Zayadine and S. word for any social group, with one (possibly Fare`s-Drappeau in 1997 (and therefore not in two) texts from North Arabia (ARNA Nab 130/ King, Early North Arabian Thamudic E). It is on a 2 and JSNab 180/4?) and one from Madaba in stone built into one of the inner walls of the northern Jordan (Milik JT. Nouvelles inscrip- temple and is not strictly an invocation since tions nabateénnes. Syria 35: 1958: 244, no. 6/4). it states that the author bny bt lt, ie. ‘built (or 137. The stylized or calligraphic way in which these participated in the building of) the temple of conventional terms are often written, in contrast Lt’, see Zayadine F & Fare`s-Drappeau S. Two to the letter-forms of the rest of the text in which North-Arabian Inscriptions from the Temple of they occur, suggests that in many cases they La¯tatWa¯dı¯ Iram. ADAJ 42: 1998: 255–258; and may have been treated more as conventional Fare`s-Drappeau S. Wa¯dı¯ Iram: Un lieu du culte ‘frames’ for a name than as transcriptions of et de rassemblement des tribus arabes dans conscious statements, cf. ‘R.I.P’ on modern l’antiquite´. Les premiers re´sultats de la mission tombstones, or ‘... was here’ in modern graffiti. e´pigraphique 1997. Aram 8: 1996: 269–283. Both 138. Some of Diem’s theories of the development of these articles indulge in wild speculation as to orthographic conventions within Nabataean de- the significance of this text and the authors pend heavily on the idea that writers of graffiti ignore the fact that the inscription is not a mo- would etymologize the names and words they numental foundation text, but a simple graffito were writing and would choose to spell them on a stone placed in a position where it would not according to how they sounded but accor- not have been visible in antiquity. They are also ding to complicated rules of sound change be- apparently unaware that the word bny in ANA tween Arabic and Aramaic (eg. Diem W. Unter- is regularly used for ‘participation in the buil- suchungen zur fru¨ hen Geschichte der ara- ding’ of structures (usually burial cairns) and 73 M. C. A. MACDONALD

that the most probable explanation of the text is some cases there was uncertainty over the pro- that its author was one of the labourers em- nunciation of the initial consonant. I know of ployed in the construction of the temple. It is only three examples in Safaitic of the etymologi- not impossible that he had a more important cally correct form, d-s2ry. role, but nothing in the text suggests this. Fi- 145. See Contini R. Il Hw awra¯n preislamico ipotesi di nally, they base wide-ranging speculation (pre- storia linguistica. Felix Ravenna Quarta serie sented as fact) on the author’s affiliation to the Fascicolo 1/2 – 1987 [1990] (CXXXIII-CXXXIV): ethnic group $d, which they identify without he- 25–79, for an excellent review of the evidence sitation with the tribe of cA¯ d mentioned in the (especially pp. 31–36). Qur$a¯n. While such a vocalization is perfectly 146. The same is true of the supposed attestation of possible, it is no more or less likely than c¯ıd, an ‘Arabic’ definite article which Livingstone cayd, cu¯d,orcawd. What can be said, however, is has identified in the phrase fANSˇE.a-na-qa-a-te that the presence of this text shows that at least a-di ANSˇE.ba-ak-[ka-ri-sˇi-na...] ‘she-camels, toge- some of the Hismaic inscriptions are likely to ther with their young’ (Annals of Tiglath-Pileser have been contemporary with the use of the III (733 BC) 142, 178, 188, 189), see Livingstone temple, even though it does not remove the A. An Early Attestation of the Arabic Definite theoretical possibility that the majority of the Article. JSS 42: 1997: 259–261. There are conside- Hismaic graffiti were written before the intro- rable problems with this and I discuss it in Mac- duction of the worship of Lt/$lt to the area. donald, The Form of the Definite Article. 142. This preponderance of the spelling d-s2ry shows 147. Kropp M. The Inscription Ghoneim AfO 27. that the deity was known principally in the 1980. Abb. 10: A Fortunate Error. PSAS 22: 1992: North Arabian form, with some writers 55–67. doubtful about whether the final sound was a 148. Robin, L’Arabie antique: 114–115. long vowel (which would not appear in His- 149. This occurs both where $lt seems to represent a maic orthography, hence d-s2r) or a consonant divine name (as in LP 709, quoted in the next (d-s2ry), and only four examples showing Ara- note, and C 1658 in the sentence h-gmln qsw yn l- maic influence (with d for d), although it should $lt w-l-rdw w ‘the two camels are dedicated to $lt be noted that even here half of the cases have and to Rdw w’) and where it represents the the final consonantal y of the North Arabian common noun for ‘goddess’ in the name of a form (thus ds2ry) and half presumably have the topical deity, eg. in Macdonald et al., Les final /a¯/ of the Aramaic form dwsˇr$ (thus ds2r). inscriptions safaı¨tiques de Syrie: 466, inscription Occasional use of d for d is found in the His- F: ... fh$lt h-nmrt s1lm ... ‘... and so, O goddess maic texts from this area, but never the reverse. of al-Nama¯ra, [grant] security ...’ or C 97 ‘... fh An unpublished text from Wa¯dı¯ Ramm uses d lt∞.±s1lm w h $lt $s1s1 nq$t l-d ycwr h-s1fr ... and for d consistently, thus d $l for d $l,anddkrt lt so,OLt∞.±[grant] security and O goddess of for dkrt lt. There is, of course, no way of disco- Usays [ie. Jabal Says, where the text was found] vering the reasons for this. Was the author of inflict nq$t [an unknown evil] on whoever scrat- this last text an Aramaeophone, or merely at- ches out the writing.’ tempting to imitate Aramaic phonology, 150. See, for instance LP 709 ... fhlts1lm w (h)rsw $l perhaps because it gave his text a superior or rm f $lt s1lm ‘... and so, O Lt. [grant] security. other ‘accent’? Note that the supposed occur- And he was on the lookout for Romans, and so, rence of d $n for d $l in the Hasaitic text Ja 1044/ $lt, [grant] security.’ 3 (see Jamme, Sabaean and Hw asaean Inscriptions: 151. The epithet h-$lt ‘the goddess’ (the exact equiva- Fig. 18) is the result of a copyist’s error. The lent in Safaitic of Arabic al-ila¯t)isfoundinan photograph (ATLAL 8: 1984: pl. 89A) shows d $l unpublished text from northeastern Jordan at this point. which reads l zryt w cwd b-h-$lt ‘By Zryt and 143. For an excellent discussion of the problems with he sought refuge in the goddess,’ and in such this etymology, but written before the Hismaic theophoric names as tm-h-$lt (C 263) and grm-h- examples were published, see Starcky J. Pe´tra et $lt (C 1984). la Nabate`ne. In: Pirot L & Robert L, eds. Supple´- 152. The short vowel is, of course, a reconstruction. ment au Dictionnaire de la Bible, 7: 1966: 986–987. 153. See, for instance, Robin C. Inventaire des inscrip- 144. In eighty-six (or 78%) of the Safaitic references tions sudarabiques.1.Inabba$, Haram, al-Ka¯fir, it appears as ds2r and in twenty-four (or 22%) Kamna et al-Hw ara¯shif. Paris: Boccard, 1992: 34. as ds2r. This suggests that it was most widely 154. It is hoped that this text will be published by its current in the pure Aramaic form but that in finder in the near future. 74 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

155. There is, of course, no reason why Old Arabic, fore sibilants leaving $-. There is no case in this which before the sixth century AD was a purely text where the article is both preceded by a par- spoken language, should not have been written ticle and followed by a sibilant. Robin assumes in the Safaitic script from time to time, and there that wlh in line 5 stands for ‘wa-∞Al±la¯h’ are indeed some examples of this, see below (L’Arabie antique: 116). However, as just noted, and Macdonald, The Form of the Definite Ar- the divine names Lh and Lt are known from Sa- ticle. faitic where they stand beside the common 156. See the excellent photograph in al-Ansary AT. nouns $lh (eg. bcls1mn $lh scc ‘Bcls1mn god of Sı¯c’ Qaryat al-Fau. A Portrait of Pre-Islamic Civilisation in CSNS 424) and $lt (see above), and the epi- in Saudi Arabia. London: Croom Helm, 1982: thets h-$lh (‘the god’, eg. WH 3923 as re-read in 146, and the translation and commentary in Macdonald MCA. Cursive Safaitic Inscriptions? Beeston AFL. Nemara and Faw. BSOAS 42: A Preliminary Investigation. In: Ibrahim MM, 1979: 1–2. In the period of its prosperity, Qaryat ed. Arabian Studies in Honour of Mahmoud Ghul: al-Faw must have been one of the most cosmo- Symposium at Yarmouk University December 8–11, politan centres in Arabia. Inscriptions in the Sa- 1984. Wiesbaden: Yarmouk University Publica- baic, ‘Thamudic’, Pahlavi and Nabataean tions: Institute of Archaeology and Anthropo- scripts have been found there and in the (Undif- logy Series, 2: 1989: 65–66, 73, 79) and h-$lt (‘the ferentiated) North Arabian, Old Arabic, Pa- goddess’, see above). hlavi, Nabataean and Sabaic languages (see An- 159. cIgl bn Hfcm line 1 where *bana¯ appears as the sary, Qaryat al-Fau: 19–20, 28, 73–74, 87–91, 99, second of the three bns in the line (no vowels 106, 118–119, 123, 129–133, 137, 141–147, and are represented in the Ancient South Arabian Ryckmans, Alphabets, Scripts and Languages: script). See Beeston’s excellent reading and 75). In the 1980s, Jacques Ryckmans (Alphabets, commentary (Nemara and Faw: 1–2). Scripts and Languages: 75) and Walter Mu¨ ller 160. Robin interprets bn in line 8 as the South Ara- (Das Altarabische und das klassische Arabisch: bian preposition (L’Arabie antique: 116) and re- 33–34) published admirable summaries of the marks on its curious co-existence with Old evidence from Faw, and a few more texts have Arabic mn in line 6. However, Beeston’s expla- been recognized since then (see Kropp, The nation of bn from Arabic bayn ‘in its primary Inscription Ghoneim; Robin, L’Arabie antique: sense of ‘‘separation, parting’’ [±‘without’]’ 97, 103, 113–116). Faw was the centre of the (Nemara and Faw: 2) is surely preferable, both North Arabian tribes of Kinda, Madhw igˇ and in the sense it gives and as an explanation of Qahw tw a¯n. See the tombstone of Mcwyt bn Rbctmlk the presence of bn at this point in the text. qhw tw n w-mdhw g (Ansary, Qaryat al-Fau: 144/2); the 161. The two examples of the 3rd person pl. enclitic Sabaic text from Mahw ram Bilqı¯sı¯, Ja 635 (Jamme pronoun (lines 3 and 4) are also North Arabian A. Sabaean Inscriptions from Mahw ram Bilqıˆs -hm rather than Sabaic -hmw. (Maˆrib). Baltimore: PAFSM, 3: 1962: 136–138), 162. However, see Beeston, Nemara and Faw: 1, n. 1 lines 25–28 of which mention rbctd-$ltwrmmlk for one possible explanation of this feature, and kdt w qhw tw n at Qrytm dt Khl (ie. Qaryat al-Faw); see below for another. and Ja 2110, also originally from Marib (Doe 163. Mu¨ ller, Das Altarabische und das klassische DB & Jamme A. New Sabaean Inscriptions from Arabisch: 32–33. South Arabia. JRAS 1968: 15–16) lines 8–9 of 164. See Drewes AJ. The Phonemes of Lihyanite. In: which read Mlkm bn bd mlk kdt w mdhw gm, Robin C, ed. Me´langes linguistiques offerts a` although this text does not specifically link him Maxime Rodinson par ses e´le`ves, ses colle`gues et ses with Faw. The adoption of Qahw tw a¯n as the an- amis. Paris: GLECS Supple´ment, 12: 1985: 165– cestor of all the ‘southern’ Arab tribes seems to 173. Contra Drewes, only final /a¯/ and /u¯ /and have been a later development (see Fischer A & the diphthong /ay/ in final position are consis- Irvine AK. Kw ahw tw a¯n. In: EI, (new edition), 4. tently expressed in this way (by –h,–w and –y Leiden: Brill, 1978: 448). respectively). Final /ı¯/ and medial vowels and 157. So Robin, L’Arabie antique: 115–116, on palaeo- diphthongs seem rarely, if ever, to have been graphic grounds. represented. Drewes assumes that, because 158. See Macdonald, The Form of the Definite Ar- diphthongs in medial position are not repre- ticle for a detailed analysis of the treatment of sented in Dadanitic (in accordance with the the definite article in this text. The /$/ is assimi- normal practice in all the ANA scripts), the lated when it is preceded by an inseparable par- diphthongs /aw/ and /ay/ must have been ticle, leaving l-, while the /l/ is assimilated be- monophthongized. This argumentum e silentio, 75 M. C. A. MACDONALD

combined with a reconstruction of Dedanitic correct explanation, this text is another example morphology which sometimes relies too heavily of the coexistence of Old Arabic in close proxi- on analogy with that of Classical Arabic, leads mity to other languages. him to conclude that in final position –w often 170. Negev’s dating of the text is based entirely on represents /–o¯/(∞/aw/) and –y almost always speculation (Negev A, Naveh J & Shaked S. represents /–e¯/(∞/ay/). For a different view, Obodas the God. IEJ 36: 1986: 60) and until see Macdonald MCA. Ancient North Arabian. more evidence is available the inscription In: Woodard RD, ed. The Cambridge Encyclopedia should be regarded as ‘undated’. of the World’s Ancient Languages. Cambridge: 171. The Jabal Ramm inscription appears to be Cambridge University Press, 2001 (in press). written in something between the Nabataean 165. Drewes, The Phonemes of Lihyanite: 167–169. and the Arabic script, but its interpretation is so 166. The fact that in JSLih 384 the subject of the verb uncertain that it is unsafe to try to classify its bnh is a woman is, of course, not a problem language. The only phrase which appears to be since, as Jaussen and Savignac point out, a femi- certain and which, curiously does not seem to nine subject preceded by a verb in the masculine have been recognized before, is b-$rm in the se- is not unusual in Arabic (Mission 2: 533). cond line, which presumably represents bi-$iram 167. See, for example, in JSLih 45/1 and HE 84/1. ‘in/at Iram’. This would be most appropriate 168. See the new transcription by A. Desreumaux given the provenance of the inscription. For a and the new reading and translation in different interpretation of the text, plus refe- Bordreuil P, Desreumaux A, Robin C & Teixidor rences to the earlier treatment see Bellamy JA. J. 205. Linteau inscrit: A.O. 4083. In: Calvet Y & Two Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions Revised: Robin C, avec la collaboration de F. Briquel- Jabal Ramm and Umm al-Jima¯l. JAOS 108: 1988: Chatonnet et M. Pic, Arabie heureuse Arabie de´- 370–372. Bellamy’s interpretation of the letters serte. Les antiquite´s arabiques du Muse´e du Louvre. b$rm as ba¯rim is unlikely since it assumes that Paris: Notes et documents des muse´es de the alif represents medial /a¯/, a feature which France: 1997: 265–269. Here, as in the inscription is entirely foreign to the orthography of both of cgl bn Hfcm, there is a sprinkling of features the Nabataean and the pre-Islamic Arabic taken over from the language normally asso- scripts. ciated with the script (ie. Nabataean Aramaic). 172. See Violet, Ein zweisprachiges Psalmfragment; In the Nama¯ra inscription these features are li- Macdonald, The Form of the Definite Article; mited to the use of br for bn in the name of the and Macdonald, Old Arabic. deceased, and the attachment of a final -w to 173. See below on the texts from Faw (Ghoneim, Ja certain proper names. However, in contrast to 2122, the tomb inscription of Mcwyt bn Rbct, the Nabataeo-Arabic text JSNab 17 and the late and Ansary, Qaryat al-Faw: 147/6) and those Nabataean text LP 41, the use of final -w in the from Haram which do not meet this criterion Nama¯ra inscription accords perfectly with clas- and which I have therefore labelled ‘Undifferen- sical Nabataean orthographic practice. tiated North Arabian’. 169. A six-line text in the Nabataean script of which 174. None of the uncertainties marked on the transli- the first three lines and the last are in Nabataean teration are serious and they most probably re- and lines 4 and 5 in Old Arabic. For a recent present mistakes by the copyist. interpretation and references to previous stu- 175. This translation is based on taking mbcy as the dies see Kropp M. A Puzzle of Old Arabic masw dar of bcy, in the accusative of hw a¯l. Bcy in Sa- Tenses and Syntax: The Inscription of cEn faitic means ‘to do harm to, make an attack on’ cAvdat. PSAS 24: 1994: 165–174, and see Macdo- with a direct object and this is one meaning of nald, Old Arabic. Bellamy has suggested that the equivalent verb in Classical Arabic (Lisa¯n 14: these lines are in verse and cites Epiphanius’ 75a). Cf. C 320 s1nt bcy $l cwd ncm $l cbd ‘the year statement that in the late fourth century the Na- the $l cwd attacked the flocks of the $l cbd’. bataeans at Petra sang hymns to the virgin mo- 176. These are the two great tribal confederations of ther of Dushara ’A|abikh˜ diale´kt}, ‘in the the hw arra, or basalt desert, east and southeast of Arabic language’ (Bellamy JA. Arabic Verses the Hw awra¯n, in the Roman period. from the First/Second Century: The Inscription 177 The word mcmn is as yet unexplained. of cEn cAvdat. JSS 35: 1990: 79, n. 13). Kropp 178. For a discussion of Dtn, see Macdonald et al., regards the lines as a magic charm which the Les inscriptions safaı¨tiques de Syrie: 474–475. reader was invited to recite and which had to 179. These are tutelary deities of the two great confe- be spoken in the Arabic language. Whatever the derations. 76 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

180. In Safaitic, the verb $s1lf almost always occurs in 3, respectively. The expression d $l appears to the context of a killing and a call for vengeance occur in JSLih 226. However, this number covers and, like its equivalent in Classical Arabic (see two separate inscriptions. The first (consisting of Lane 1408a-b), means ‘to do something (before line 1) is in the late Dadanitic script and appears the present time) which requires requital (either to read grms2ll. The second (consisting of lines 2– good or bad, at the present time)’. 3) is in the South Arabian script (note the forms 181. The meaning of s1hw r here is not clear. of $ and d) and clearly reads d $l //bny. Jaussen and 182. See Macdonald, The Form of the Definite Ar- Savignac treat the clan or family name as $l-bny, ticle; and Macdonald, Old Arabic. ie. with $l- representing the Arabic definite ar- 183. See, for example, l-ys2rq l-mdbr ‘in order to mi- ticle, and this is possible. However, their compa- grate to the inner desert’ (LP 180); or w rdf h-dw $n rison of this with the ethnicon bnyn (ie. with the l-mdbr ‘he urged [ie. walked behind] the sheep Sayhadic article -n) in CIH 287/7–8, is inappro- towards the inner desert’ (WH 582). priate since, in the latter text, bn-y is a nisba form 184. See Macdonald MCA. North Arabian Epi- and this is the reason that it has the article (ie. graphic Notes 1. AAE 3: 1992: 23–25. bn-y-n ‘the Bn-ite’). In JSLih 226, on the other 185. As opposed to Safaitic h-s1nt, in parallel hand, $l follows d and so, if it is the definite ar- contexts (eg. C 1629, 1851, etc.). As in C 2446, ticle, it must be part of the name (as it is in the the assimilation of the n of the preposition mn ‘tribal’ name which occurs in the forms hn-$hw nkt is a feature of Safaitic, not Old Arabic. and $l-$hw nkt). It is clear that the two parts of JSLih 186. As opposed to h-s1fr, which is very common in 226 do not belong together and it seems probable this context. However, note that the assimilation that at least lines 2–3 are part of a text the begin- of the n of the relative pronoun mn is typical ning of which is lost. of Safaitic not Old Arabic. This text which was 192. That is, in the Ghoneim inscription discussed discovered by the Basalt Desert Rescue Survey earlier (see Kropp, The Inscription Ghoneim; is to be published by Dr. G.M.H. King, to whom and Robin, L’Arabie antique: 114–115) and in I am most grateful for this information. On the the Sabaeo-North-Arabian inscription of survey and its discoveries see, in the meantime, unknown provenance, CIH 450/ 2–3 in relation King GMH. The Basalt Desert Rescue Survey to a woman: dt / $l / $l / $hw nkt, and in lines 5– and Some Preliminary Remarks on the Safaitic 6 in relation to a man: d-$l / $l / $l-$hw nkt. The Inscriptions and Rock Drawings. PSAS 20: 1990: word division suggests that the (presumably 55–78. Sabaeo-phone) engraver was unaware of the li- 187. See Macdonald, The Form of the Definite Ar- teral meaning of the ANA expression d $l or of ticle. Winnett and Harding translate w-bny $rgm the significance of the Old Arabic article $l.Ha- in WH 234 as ‘he built the cairn’ and cite this ving correctly separated dt and $l in lines 2–3 he as an example of a definite article $-. However, seems to have assumed that d$l in line 5 was the it is more likely that $rgm is the plural of rgm masculine form of dt, and so treated it as a and the sentence means ‘and he built some single word, and then repeated the pattern of cairns’. Winnett also finds a supposed $- article two $l’s between this and $hw nkt. On the other in WAMS 11 which he reads lyrbnghw r $-g{m}l hand, having incorrectly separated the definite ‘By Yr son of Ghw r is the camel’. But it is clear article $l- from $hw nkt in line 3, he correctly joined from the photograph that the text has been tam- the two in line 6. pered with and that the supposed $ was origi- 193. See for instance Robin, L’Arabie antique: 114– nally written as a h, the lower side stroke 115; Robin, IIS. 1: 54–55. (which turned it into a $)beingaddedbyadiffe- 194. In Ka¯fir 10 (Robin, IIS. 1: 135); Kamna 11/2 (ibid. rent hand. 181); RES 4133/6; and Ryckmans, Graffites sa- 188. HCH 193ΩHSIM 49218b (provenance unknown) be´ens: 560. ... fdt$ b-hw gr. 195. In Haram 33 and 36 (Robin, IIS. 1: 101–102 and 189. Naturalis Historia 32.157. 104–105 respectively). 190. See Drewes, The Phonemes of Lihyanite: 167– 196. In Ry 455/2 (Ryckmans G. Inscriptions sud- 168; and the discussion above. arabes. Neuvie`me se´rie [Ry 444–498]. Le Muse´on 191. See for example JSLih 75/2, HE 2, Stiehl R. Neue 64: 1951: 111), CIH 534/2, RES 4663/2, Haram lihw ya¯nische Inschriften aus al-cUdaib. I. Mit 53 (Robin, IIS. 1: 122–123). einem Nachtrag M. Ho¨fners. In: Altheim F & 197. Note that there is no case of *d- $hw nktn which Stiehl R, eds. Christentum am Roten Meer. 1. Berlin: would be the true equivalent of d $l hn-$hw nkt/d de Gruyter, 1971: 23 and 32, nos A18/2 and D5/ $l $l-$hw nkt. 77 M. C. A. MACDONALD

198. Beeston AFL, Winnett FV, Ryckmans J & Ghul of each line in his transcription (L’Arabie MA. The Inscription Jaussen-Savignac 71. PSAS antique: 121). 3: 1973: 69. 212. When a photograph is published it may be pos- 199. There is possibly a third example in line 4, sible to verify this. where Beeston’s reading of the seventh letter as 213. Jamme A. The Pre-Islamic Inscriptions of the m seems to me impossible. The sign looks far Riyaˆdh Museum. OrAnt 9: 1970: 122. It was re- more like a l and is preceded by a clear $. Ho- cognized as North Arabian by J. Ryckmans wever, since what follows is partly destroyed, it (cUzza¯ et La¯t: 199; Alphabets, Scripts and Lan- remains uncertain whether or not this is another guages: 75). occurrence of the article. 214. Mu¨ ller WW. Ein Grabmonument aus Nagˇra¯n 200. See the photograph of the squeeze on Jaussen & als Zeugnis fu¨ r das Fru¨ hnordarabische. In: Savignac, Mission, 2: pl. XCII, their copy on pl. Degen R, Mu¨ ller WW & Ro¨llig W, NESE.3. CXXXV, and their description on p. 505. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1978: 152–157. 201. See Macdonald, The Form of the Definite Ar- 215. Jamme A. South-Arabian Antiquities in the ticle. U.S.A. BiOr 12: 1955: 152–153. See the discus- 202. There are a number of problems in this inscrip- sioninMu¨ ller, Ein Grabmonument: 154–155. tion which are still unresolved, and none of the 216. The name of the social group is $l-$hw nkt (see note treatments so far appears to me entirely satisfac- 192, above) but this, of course, cannot be used tory. However, it is clear that there are passages to identify the language of the text. which cannot be read as Aramaic and whose 217. See Kropp, The Inscription Ghoneim; and Robin, lexical and grammatical features are very close L’Arabie antique: 114. A. Sima has pointed out to to Classical Arabic. For an excellent photograph me that in this text the enclitic pronoun -h in of the text and the most recent discussion and mdqnt-h dt refers to Lt (ie. ‘this her portico’) and references see Healey & Smith, Jaussen-Savi- thus is the regular Sabaic 3gg.f. enditic pronoun gnac 17. A new edition and discussion will ap- rather than a North Arabian feature. Similary in pear in Macdonald, Old Arabic. CIH450, the only example of -h refers to nfs’ 203. See below. which is feminine in Sabaic. 204. The dating is very approximate, see Teixidor, 218. See the discussion of Old Arabic above and, in inscription arame´enne ... de Sharjah: 699. more detail, in Macdonald, Old Arabic. 205. There are a handful of cases where f meaning 219. Robin, IIS.1:34. ‘in’ has been identified in Safaitic, but these are 220. However, in Haram 32 (which Robin includes very rare and b- is the norm. in the list because of the omission of a medial 206. The name is also spelt Mnt in theophoric names -h-), the Sabaic preposition bn (rather than in Ancient North Arabian. However, since me- North Arabian mn) occurs in line 5. dial vowels of any quality are rarely if ever re- 221. Robin, IIS. 1: 33–34. He also mentions the word presented in these scripts it is impossible to $hlht which he takes as the Arabic $a¯lihah know how this was pronounced. (‘gods’) pl. of ila¯h, assuming the use of h to re- 207. The reading khl is uncertain since the word in present medial /a¯/ (in two texts). However, the the text is klh and the interpretation depends on useofamater lectionis for medial /a¯/ would assuming metathesis. surely be extraordinary in any pre-Islamic Se- 208. Jamme A. New Hw asaean and Sabaean Inscrip- mitic alphabet. tions from Saudi Arabia. OrAnt 6: 1967: 181– 222. See, for instance, hwfy in Haram 10/3, 8 and 13/ 183. It was correctly re-read and recognized as 10–11; hqny in 32/1; hhtw $ in 33/3–4, etc. This is North Arabian by J. Ryckmans (cUzza¯ et La¯t in contrast to the consistent use of the $f cl form dans les inscriptions sud-arabes: a` propos de in the Sabaeo-Arabic texts from Faw. deux amulettes me´connues. JSS 25: 1980: 199, n. 223. In a different work (L’Arabie antique: 97), Robin 3); see, most recently, Robin, L’Arabie antique: himself seems to have reached a conclusion si- 115. milar, though not identical, to this; see below. 209. Unlike Dadanitic, South Arabian orthography 224. In one of these (Haram 40) medial h is omitted does not employ matres lectionis, hence bn rather twice and medial $ once (see Robin, IIS:1: 34 and than bnh. 110), although these could as well be errors as 210. Ansary, Qaryat al-Fau: 144 no. 2; see Robin, dialectal features. L’Arabie antique: 121. 225. Beeston had suggested that they were in a sepa- 211. Kropp, The Inscription Ghoneim: 59. Robin also rate dialect which he termed ‘Harami’ (Beeston assumes a loss of one or more letters at the end AFL. A Descriptive Grammar of Epigraphic South 78 THE LINGUISTIC MAP OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

Arabian. London: Luzac, 1962: 9). However, as medial forms of b, y, n and t were identical, as he himself noted, this invited confusion since were those of f and q. there are other texts from Haram which are ex- 235. This situation is entirely different from that of pressed in pure Sabaic or Madhabic. Moreover, the Rawwa¯fa inscriptions which seem to have I am doubtful whether the language of these been composed on behalf of the nominal dedi- texts itself represents a dialect, rather than cants at the instigation of the governor of the contamination of standard Sabaic by elements Roman Province of Arabia. For this interpreta- of one or more other languages. Christian Robin tion of the inscriptions see Macdonald MCA. has called the language of these texts ‘pseudo- Quelques re´flexions sur les Sarace`nes, l’inscrip- sabeén’ (IIS. 1: 34) or ‘pseudo-sabeén qahw tw a¯nite’ tion de Rawwa¯fa et l’armeé romaine. In: Lo- (L’Arabie antique: 97), but on this see below. zachmeur H, ed. Pre´sence arabe dans le Croissant 226. Robin, L’Arabie antique: 97. He includes under fertile avant l’He´gire. Paris: ERC 1995: 98–101. this rubric one, unpublished, inscription from The inscriptions are in Nabataean Aramaic and Faw (that of Zaydwadd, ‘le seul exemple ve´rita- Greek, the ‘prestige languages’ of the indige- blement significatif’, L’Arabie antique: 120) and nous population on the one hand and of the im- the tomb inscription of Mcwyt bn Rbct (L’Arabie perium on the other, and they have a symbolic antique: 121). However, as stated above, I rather than practical function. Indeed, it is ques- would class the latter inscription as ANA tionable how many members of the tribe of (although within the ‘undifferentiated’ category Thamu¯ d (the nominal dedicants) were literate because we cannot yet assign it to a particular in these scripts or even whether they would dialect). Robin also, tentatively, includes a text have understood the languages in which they from Nagˇra¯n, Ja 2147 (Jamme A. Lihw yanite, Sa- were couched, if the texts had been read aloud. baean and Thamudic Inscriptions from Western 236. For the interpretation of sˇrkt as an army unit see Saudi Arabia (Pre-Islamic Arabic Documenta- Macdonald, Quelques re´flexions sur les Sara- tion, I). RSO 45: 1970: 91–94) despite the fact ce`nes: 98–100. that it ‘ne comporte aucun caracte`re linguis- 237. See Stiehl R. A New Nabataean Inscription. In: tique qui le classe de manie`re e´vidente soit Stiehl R & Stier HE, eds. Beitra¨ge zur alten comme sabeén, soit comme pseudo-sabeén....’ Geschichte und denen Nachleben. Festschrift F. (Robin, L’Arabie antique: 122 and cf. 97). Altheim. 2. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1970: 87–90. The 227. Robin, L’Arabie antique: 97. text dates to AD 357/8. 228. Robin, L’Arabie antique: 97. 238. The Lakhmids were not always Christian, as the 229. As suggested by Robin (IIS: 1: 59). stories of their sacrifices to al-cUzza` show, see 230. Macdonald, Nomads and the Hw awra¯n: 382–388. Macdonald MCA & Nehme´ L. Al-cUzza¯. EI, 231. For examples and a brief discussion see Macdo- (new edition). Leiden: Brill (forthcoming). nald et al., Les inscriptions safaı¨tiques de Syrie: 239. I am most grateful to Laı¨la Nehme´ and 480–487. Alexander Sima for kindly reading an earlier 232. See Macdonald MCA & Searight A. The Inscrip- version of this paper and for their many helpful tions and Rock-Drawings of the Jawa Area: A comments. Needless to say, they are not respon- Preliminary Report on the First Season of Field- sible for the use I have made of them. work of the Corpus of the Inscriptions of Jordan Project. ADAJ 26: 1982: 172. 233. See Macdonald, Old Arabic which will contain a Address: detailed study of the origins of the Arabic M. C. A. Macdonald script, with an edition of some previously un- Oriental Institute published inscriptions which display very Pusey Lane clearly the transition from Nabataean. Oxford, OX1 2LE 234. The forms of b and t, g and hw , z and r were indis- United Kingdom tinguishable in all positions, and the initial and e-mail: michael.macdonald/orinst.ox.ac.uk