Editing Arabic (section)

=== Old Arabic ===
{{Main|Old Arabic}}
Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the [[Arabian Peninsula]], as perceived by geographers from [[ancient Greece]].<ref name="Al-Jallad"/><ref>{{Cite book|last=Macdonald|first=Michael C. A.|chapter=Arabians, Arabias, and the Greeks_Contact and Perceptions|pages=16–17|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/4593009|title=Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia|isbn=9781003278818|language=en}}{{Dead link|date=November 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> In the southwest, various [[Central Semitic languages]] both belonging to and outside the [[Old South Arabian|Ancient South Arabian]] family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It is believed that the ancestors of the [[Modern South Arabian languages]] (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern [[Hejaz]], [[Dadanitic]] and [[Taymanitic]] held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In {{Lang|ar-latn|[[Najd]]|italic=no}} and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested.<ref name="Al-Jallad"/>

In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in a script derived from ASA attest to a language known as [[Hasaitic]]. On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as [[Thamudic B]], Thamudic D, [[Safaitic]], and [[Hismaic]] are attested. The last two share important [[isogloss]]es with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered [[Old Arabic]].<ref name="Al-Jallad">{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/18470301|chapter=Al-Jallad. The earliest stages of Arabic and its linguistic classification |title=Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, forthcoming |isbn=9781315147062|access-date=2016-07-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023221343/http://www.academia.edu/18470301/Al-Jallad._The_earliest_stages_of_Arabic_and_its_linguistic_classification_Routledge_Handbook_of_Arabic_Linguistics_forthcoming_|archive-date=23 October 2017|url-status=live|last1=Al-Jallad|first1=Ahmad}}</ref>

Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic", a collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the [[Iron Age]].<ref name="Stefan Weninger 2011">Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston, 2011.</ref> Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in [[Sabaic|Sabaic script]] at {{Lang|ar-latn|[[Qaryat al-Faw]]|italic=no}}, in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as the conversion of Semitic [[mimation]] to [[nunation]] in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Al-Jallad|first=Ahmad|title=Al-Jallad. 2014. On the genetic background of the Rbbl bn Hfʿm grave inscription at Qaryat al-Fāw|url=https://www.academia.edu/8770005|journal=BSOAS|date=January 2014|volume=77 |issue=3 |pages=445–465 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X14000524|language=en}}</ref>

It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced—[[epigraphic]] [[Ancient North Arabian]] (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after the towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic).<ref name="Stefan Weninger 2011" /> However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Al-Jallad|first=Ahmad|title=Al-Jallad (Draft) Remarks on the classification of the languages of North Arabia in the 2nd edition of The Semitic Languages (eds. J. Huehnergard and N. Pat-El)|url=https://www.academia.edu/38721216|language=en}}{{Dead link|date=July 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to the fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic.<ref name="Al-Jallad" />

The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an [[Nabataean alphabet|ancestor of the modern Arabic script]] are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in [[Avdat|En Avdat, Israel]], and dated to around 125 CE.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Al-Jallad|first=Ahmad|title=One wāw to rule them all: the origins and fate of wawation in Arabic and its orthography|url=https://www.academia.edu/33017695|language=en}}</ref> This is followed by the [[Namara inscription]], an epitaph of the {{Lang|ar-latn|[[Lakhmids|Lakhmid]]|italic=no}} king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From the 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Nehmé|first=Laila|title=&quot;A glimpse of the development of the Nabataean script into Arabic based on old and new epigraphic material&quot;, in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed), The development of Arabic as a written language (Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 40). Oxford: 47–88.|work=Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies |url=https://www.academia.edu/2106858|date=January 2010|language=en}}</ref> There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ([[Zabad inscription|Zabad]], [[Jebel Usays inscription|Jebel Usays]], [[Harran inscription|Harran]], {{Lang|ar-latn|[[Umm el-Jimal]]|italic=no}}). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of the Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into "[[Classical Arabic]]".<ref name="Stefan Weninger 2011" />