Ancient North Arabian
| Ancient North Arabian |
|
|---|---|
| Type | |
| Languages | Old Arabic, Dadanitic, Taymanitic, unclassified |
|
Time period
|
8th century BCE to 4th century CE |
|
Parent systems
|
Proto-Sinaitic script
|
|
Sister systems
|
Ancient South Arabian script, Ge'ez script |
Ancient North Arabian (ANA) refers to all of the South Semitic scripts excluding Ancient South Arabian (ASA) used in central and northern Arabia from the 8th century BCE to the 4th century CE. To date, it has not been demonstrated that these scripts derive from an ancestor not also shared by the ASA scripts. The hypothesis that all of the non-ASA alphabets derive from a single ancestor gave rise to the idea that the languages which these scripts express constitute a linguistic unity, a so-called ANA language, the linguistic validity of which has been called into question.
From a linguistic perspective, the dialects expressed by the Safaitic inscriptions should be classified as forms of Old Arabic, as they contain several important isoglosses which characterize Arabic. Unlike Arabic, Dadanitic continues the anaphoric use of the 3rd person pronouns and does not appear to have leveled the at allomorph of the feminine ending. Taymanitic, on the other hand, exhibits the common Northwest Semitic sound change w > y, and merges *s3 with *ṯ, excluding a Proto-Arabic origin. At the moment, nothing can be said about the languages which stand behind the Thamudic inscriptions.
Many scholars believed that the various ANA alphabets were derived from the ASA script, mainly because the latter was employed by a major civilization and exhibited more angular features. Others believed that the ANA and ASA scripts shared a common ancestor from which they both developed in parallel. Indeed, it seems unlikely that the various ANA scripts descend from the monumental ASA alphabet, but that they collectively share a common ancestor to the exclusion of ASA is also something which has yet to be demonstrated.
The Ancient North Arabian scripts were used both in the oases (Dadanitic, Dumaitic, Taymanitic) and by the nomads (Hismaic, Safaitic, Thamudic B, C, D, and possibly Southern Thamudic) of central and northern Arabia.
Dadanitic was the alphabet used by the inhabitants of the ancient oasis of Dadan (Biblical Dedān, modern Al-`Ula in north-west Saudi Arabia), probably some time during the second half of the first millennium BC.
Dumaitic is the alphabet which seems to have been used by the inhabitants of the oasis known in antiquity as Dūma and later as Dumat Al-Jandal and al-Jawf. It lies in northern Saudi Arabia at the south-eastern end of the Wādī Sirḥān which leads up to the oasis of Azraq in north-eastern Jordan. According to the Assyrian annals Dūma was the seat of successive queens of the Arabs, some of whom were also priestesses, in the eighth and seventh centuries BC.
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