Ancient North Arabian

Ancient North Arabian
Ancient North Arabian;
Script type	Abjad
Period	8th century BCE to 4th century CE
Languages	Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Dumaitic, Thamudic, Safaitic, Hismaic
Related scripts
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic script South Semitic script Ancient North Arabian; ;
Sister systems	Ancient South Arabian
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Narb (106), Old North Arabian (Ancient North Arabian)
Unicode
Unicode alias	Old North Arabian
Unicode range	U+10A80–U+10A9F

This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.

Ancient North Arabian (ANA)^[2]^[3] is a collection of scripts and a language or family of languages^[4] under the North Arabian languages branch along with Old Arabic that were used in north and central Arabia and south Syria from the 8th century BCE to the 4th century CE.^[5] The term "Ancient North Arabian" is defined negatively. It refers to all of the South Semitic scripts except Ancient South Arabian (ASA) regardless of their genetic relationships.^[6]

Classification

Many scholars believed that the various ANA alphabets were derived from the ASA script, mainly because the latter was employed by a major civilization and exhibited more angular features. Others believed that the ANA and ASA scripts shared a common ancestor from which they both developed in parallel. Indeed, it seems unlikely that the various ANA scripts descend from the monumental ASA alphabet, but that they collectively share a common ancestor to the exclusion of ASA is also something which has yet to be demonstrated.^[7]

The hypothesis that all ANA 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. As a hypothetical language or group of languages, Ancient North Arabian forms one branch of the North Arabian group, the other being Proto-Arabic. They are distinguished from each other by the definite article, which in Arabic is ʾal-, but in ANA is h-. They belong to a different branch of the Semitic languages than the Ancient South Arabian languages.^[5]

The validity of this hypothesis has been called into question.^[7] This is particularly the case for Taymanitic, which has been determined to be a Northwest Semitic language.^[8] Safaitic and Hismaic are also now considered forms of Old Arabic due to shared features.^[9]

Geographical distribution

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 aka Thamudic F) of central and northern Arabia.^[10]

Table of letters

Ancient North Arabian script has a one-to-one correspondence with the Arabic alphabet except for 𐪏‎ and 𐪊‎ which correspond to س‎.

Letter^[11]	Phoneme	IPA	Corresponding letter in
Letter^[11]	Phoneme	IPA	Ancient South Arabian^[11]	Arabic	Phoenician
𐪀	h	[h]	𐩠	ه‎	𐤄‎
𐪁	l	[l]	𐩡	ل‎	𐤋‎
𐪂	ḥ	[ħ]	𐩢	ح‎	𐤇‎
𐪍	ḫ	[x]	𐩭	خ‎	𐤇‎
𐪃	m	[m]	𐩣	م‎	𐤌‎
𐪄	q	[q]	𐩤	ق‎	𐤒‎
𐪅	w	[w], [uː]	𐩥	و‎	𐤅‎
𐪛	ṯ	[θ]	𐩻	ث‎	𐤔‎
𐪆	s² (ś)	[ɬ]	𐩦	ش‎
𐪊	s¹ (š)	[ʃ]	𐩪	س‎
𐪏	s³ (s)	[s]	𐩯	س‎	𐤎‎
𐪇	r	[r]	𐩧	ر‎	𐤓‎
𐪈	b	[b]	𐩨	ب‎	𐤁‎
𐪉	t	[t]	𐩩	ت‎	𐤕‎
𐪋	k	[k]	𐩫	ك‎	𐤊‎
𐪌	n	[n]	𐩬	ن‎	𐤍‎
𐪜	ẓ	[θˤ]	𐩼	ظ‎	𐤑‎
𐪎	ṣ	[sˤ]	𐩮	ص‎
𐪓	ḍ	[dˤ]	𐩳	ض‎
𐪐	f	[f]	𐩰	ف‎	𐤐‎
𐪑	ʾ	[ʔ]	𐩱	ا‎	𐤀‎
𐪒	ʿ	[ʕ]	𐩲	ع‎	𐤏‎
𐪖	ġ	[ɣ]	𐩶	غ‎	𐤏‎
𐪔	g	[g]	𐩴	ج‎	𐤂‎
𐪕	d	[d]	𐩵	د‎	𐤃‎
𐪗	ṭ	[tˤ]	𐩷	ط‎	𐤈‎
𐪘	z	[z]	𐩸	ز‎	𐤆‎
𐪙	ḏ	[ð]	𐩹	ذ‎	𐤆‎
𐪚	y	[j], [iː]	𐩺	ي‎	𐤉‎

Unicode

Old North Arabian script was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.

The Unicode block for Ancient North Arabian is U+10A80–U+10A9F:

Old North Arabian^[1] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
U+10A8x	𐪀‎	𐪁‎	𐪂‎	𐪃‎	𐪄‎	𐪅‎	𐪆‎	𐪇‎	𐪈‎	𐪉‎	𐪊‎	𐪋‎	𐪌‎	𐪍‎	𐪎‎	𐪏‎
U+10A9x	𐪐‎	𐪑‎	𐪒‎	𐪓‎	𐪔‎	𐪕‎	𐪖‎	𐪗‎	𐪘‎	𐪙‎	𐪚‎	𐪛‎	𐪜‎	𐪝‎	𐪞‎	𐪟‎
Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 16.0

Notes

^ Al-Jallad, Ahmad (2018). "What is Ancient North Arabian?" (PDF). Colombus: The Ohio State University. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 October 2016. Retrieved 12 May 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Elsevier. 2010. p. 931. ISBN 978-0-08-087775-4.
^ Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Elsevier. 24 November 2005. ISBN 978-0-08-054784-8.
^ ^a ^b Macdonald, M. C. A. (2004). "Ancient North Arabian". In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Cambridge University Press. pp. 488–533. ISBN 0-521-56256-2.
^ Ahmad Al-Jallad, What is Ancient North Arabian?^{[permanent dead link]}, p. 4 n8.
^ ^a ^b Al-Jallad, Ahmad (2015). An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions. BRILL. ISBN 9789004289826.
^ Kootstra, Fokelien (6 September 2016). "The Language of the Taymanitic Inscriptions and its Classification". Arabian Epigraphic Notes. ISSN 2451-8875.
^ Al-Jallad, Ahmad (January 2018). "Al-Jallad. 2018. What is Ancient North Arabian?". Re-engaging Comparative Semitic and Arabic Studies Edited by Daniel Birnstiel and Na'ama Pat-El; Harrassowitz Verlag. Wiesbaden.
^ dan. "The Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia - The Ancient North Arabia scripts". krc.orient.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 29 May 2016.
^ ^a ^b "Official Unicode Consortium code chart" (PDF). Retrieved 8 June 2023.

Literature

Lozachmeur, H., (ed.), (1995) Presence arabe dans le croissant fertile avant l'Hegire (Actes de la table ronde internationale Paris, 13 novembre 1993) Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations. ISBN 2-86538-254-0
Macdonald, M.C.A., (2000) "Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia" Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 11(1), 28–79
Scagliarini, F., (1999) "The Dedanitic inscriptions from Jabal 'Ikma in north-western Hejaz" Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 29, 143-150 ISBN 2-503-50829-4
Winnett, F.V. and Reed, W.L., (1970) Ancient Records from North Arabia (Toronto: University of Toronto)
Woodard, Roger D. Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. Cambridge University Press 2008.

[1] Al-Jallad, Ahmad (2018). "What is Ancient North Arabian?" (PDF). Colombus: The Ohio State University. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

[2] "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 October 2016. Retrieved 12 May 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

[3] Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Elsevier. 2010. p. 931. ISBN 978-0-08-087775-4.

[4] Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Elsevier. 24 November 2005. ISBN 978-0-08-054784-8.

[CambridgeEncyclopedia-5] Macdonald, M. C. A. (2004). "Ancient North Arabian". In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Cambridge University Press. pp. 488–533. ISBN 0-521-56256-2.

[6] Ahmad Al-Jallad, What is Ancient North Arabian?^{[permanent dead link]}, p. 4 n8.

[:0-7] Al-Jallad, Ahmad (2015). An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions. BRILL. ISBN 9789004289826.

[8] Kootstra, Fokelien (6 September 2016). "The Language of the Taymanitic Inscriptions and its Classification". Arabian Epigraphic Notes. ISSN 2451-8875.

[9] Al-Jallad, Ahmad (January 2018). "Al-Jallad. 2018. What is Ancient North Arabian?". Re-engaging Comparative Semitic and Arabic Studies Edited by Daniel Birnstiel and Na'ama Pat-El; Harrassowitz Verlag. Wiesbaden.

[10] . "The Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia - The Ancient North Arabia scripts". krc.orient.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 29 May 2016.

[UnicodeChart-11] "Official Unicode Consortium code chart" (PDF). Retrieved 8 June 2023.

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