Proto-Arabic language

Proto-Arabic is the name given to the hypothetical reconstructed ancestor of all the varieties of Arabic attested since the 9th century BC.^[1][2] There are two lines of evidence to reconstruct Proto-Arabic:

• Evidence of Arabic becomes more frequent in the 2nd century BC, with the documentation of Arabic names in the Nabataean script as well as evidence of an Arabic substratum in the Nabataean language.
• The Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions were composed between the 1st century BC and the 4th century AD, in the basalt desert of the northwest Arabian Peninsula and the Southern Levant. They are also crucial to the reconstruction of Proto-Arabic, since they show many features that are shared by epigraphic Old South Arabian and Classical Arabic. The common features set them apart from languages that are documented further south, such as Dadanitic and Taymanitic (see Characteristics below).

Proto-Arabic
Reconstruction of	varieties of Arabic
Reconstructed ancestors	Proto-Afroasiatic Proto-Semitic

Old Arabic in the Nabataean script is first attested in the Negev desert in the 1st century BC, but it becomes more frequent in the region after the decline of Safaitic and Hismaic. From the 4th century AD, Old Arabic inscriptions are attested from Northern Syria to the Hejaz, in a script that is intermediate between cursive Nabataean and the Kufic script of Islamic times.

The urheimat of Proto-Arabic can thus be regarded as the frontier between northwest Arabia and the southern Levant.^[3]

Characteristics

There are several features shared by Classical Arabic, the varieties of Modern Arabic and the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions that are unattested in any other Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of the northern Hejaz. They are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor, Proto-Arabic. The following features can be reconstructed with confidence for Proto-Arabic:^[4]

1. negative particles m */mā/; lʾn */lā-ʾan/ > CAr lan
2. mafʿūl G-passive participle
3. prepositions and adverbs f, ʿn, ʿnd, ḥt, ʿkdy
4. a subjunctive in -a
5. t-demonstratives
6. leveling of the -at allomorph of the feminine ending
7. ʾn complementizer and subordinator
8. the use of f- to introduce modal clauses
9. independent object pronoun in (ʾ)y
10. vestiges of nunation

See also

• Classification of Arabic languages

References

1. Owens, Jonathan (1998). "Case and proto-Arabic, Part I". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 61: 51–73. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00015755. S2CID 204970487 – via ResearchGate.
2. Al-Jallad, Ahmad; Putten, Marijn van (January 2017). "(PDF) Al-Jallad. 2017. The Case for Proto-Semitic and Proto-Arabic Case: A reply to Jonathan Owens, w. Marijn van Putten | Ahmad Al-Jallad and Marijn van Putten - Academia.edu". Romano-Arabica Xvii (2017): Fictional Beings in Middle East Cultures.
3. Al-Jallad, Ahmad. "Al-Jallad. The earliest stages of Arabic and its linguistic classification (Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, forthcoming)". Academia.edu. Retrieved 2015-12-08.
4. Al-Jallad, A. (2015). An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions. Brill.

Further reading

• Fournet, Arnaud (2011). "Some Features of Proto-Arabic Phonemes and the Tenets of the Comparative Method". Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik (54): 5–26. JSTOR 10.13173/zeitarabling.54.0005.. Accessed 13 Feb. 2023.
• Owens, Jonathan (1998). "Case and Proto-Arabic, Part II". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. University of London. 61 (2): 215–27. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00013781. JSTOR 3107650. S2CID 124326340. Accessed 13 Feb. 2023.
• Zaborski, A. (2000). "Inflected Article in Proto-Arabic and Some Other West Semitic Languages". Asian and African Studies. 9 (1): 24–35. ISSN 1335-1257.