The Nabataean script is an

abjad An abjad ( or abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving the vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels. The term was introd ...

(

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

al alphabet) that was used to write

Nabataean Aramaic Nabataean Aramaic is the extinct Aramaic variety used in inscriptions by the Nabataeans of the Transjordan_(region), East Bank of the Jordan River, the Negev, and the Sinai Peninsula. Compared with other varieties of Aramaic, it is notable for ...

and

Nabataean Arabic Nabataean Arabic was the dialect of Arabic spoken by the Nabataeans in antiquity. In the first century AD, the Nabataeans wrote their inscriptions, such as the legal texts carved on the façades of the monumental tombs at Mada'in Salih, ancient ...

from the second century BC onwards.Omniglot
Important inscriptions are found in

Petra Petra (; "Rock"), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu (Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: or , *''Raqēmō''), is an ancient city and archaeological site in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit systems, P ...

(in

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

), the

Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai ( ; ; ; ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Afri ...

(now part of

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

Bosra Bosra (), formerly Bostra () and officially called Busra al-Sham (), is a town in southern Syria, administratively belonging to the Daraa District of the Daraa Governorate and geographically part of the Hauran region. Bosra is an ancient cit ...

and Namara (in

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

), and other

archaeological sites An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

including Abdah (in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

) and Mada'in Saleh (Hegra) (in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

). Nabataean is only known through inscriptions and, more recently, a small number of papyri. It was first deciphered in 1840 by Eduard Friedrich Ferdinand Beer. 6,000 – 7,000 Nabataean inscriptions have been published, of which more than 95% are extremely short inscriptions or

graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

, and the vast majority are undated, post-Nabataean or from outside the core Nabataean territory. A majority of inscriptions considered Nabataean were found in Sinai, and another 4,000 – 7,000 such Sinaitic inscriptions remain unpublished. Prior to the publication of Nabataean papyri, the only substantial corpus of detailed Nabataean text were the 38 funerary inscriptions from Mada'in Salih (Hegra), discovered and published by Charles Montagu Doughty, Charles Huber, Philippe Berger and Julius Euting in 1884-85. * Charles Doughty ubl. with E. Renanbr>Documents épigraphiques recueillis dans le Nord de l'Arabie
Paris, Impr. nat. 1884 * Philippe Berger
Nouvelles inscriptions nabatéénes de Medain Salih
Extrait des Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres (Séance du 29. Aout 1884). Paris 1884 * Coin of Aretas IV and Shaqilath

History

The alphabet is descended from the

Aramaic alphabet The ancient Aramaic alphabet was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian peoples throughout the Fertile Crescent. It was also adopted by other peoples as their own alphabet when empires and their subjects und ...

. In turn, a cursive form of Nabataean developed into the

Arabic alphabet The Arabic alphabet, or the Arabic abjad, is the Arabic script as specifically codified for writing the Arabic language. It is a unicase, unicameral script written from right-to-left in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters, of which most ...

from the 4th century, which is why Nabataean's letterforms are intermediate between the more northerly Semitic scripts (such as the Aramaic-derived

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

) and those of Arabic. Nabataean alphabet tablet - 2018430

Comparison with related scripts

As compared to other Aramaic-derived scripts, Nabataean developed more loops and

ligature Ligature may refer to: Language * Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy) * Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words Medicine * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...

s, likely to increase speed of writing. The ligatures seem to have not been standardized and varied across places and time. There were no spaces between words. Numerals in Nabataean script were built from characters of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20, and 100. , ʾ , , 01_aleph

, ܐ , א , ﺍ , ʾ , - , bēt , _{_}} , b , , 02_bet

, ܒ , ב , ﺏ , b , - , rowspan="2" , tāw , rowspan="2" , _{_}} , rowspan="2" , t , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , 22_ta

, rowspan="2" , ܬ , rowspan="2" , ת , ت , t , - , ث , ṯ , - , gīml , _{_}} , g , , 03_gimel

, ܓ , ג , ﺝ , j , - , rowspan="2" , ḥēt , rowspan="2" , _{_}} , rowspan="2" , ḥ , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , 08_ha

, rowspan="2" , ܚ , rowspan="2" , ח , ح , ḥ , - , خ , ḵ , - , rowspan="2" , dālet , rowspan="2" , _{_}} , rowspan="2" , d , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , 04_dal

, rowspan="2" , ܕ , rowspan="2" , ד , د , d , - , ذ , ḏ , - , rēs, reš , _{_}} , r , , 20_ra

, ܪ , ר , ﺭ , r , - ,

zayin Zayin (also spelled zain or zayn or simply zay) is the seventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''zayn'' 𐤆, Hebrew ''zayīn'' , Aramaic ''zain'' 𐡆, Syriac ''zayn'' ܙ, and Arabic ''zāy'' . It represents the sound . It ...

, _{_}} , z , , 07_zayn

, ܙ , ז , ﺯ , z , - , śāmek , _{_}} , ś , , 15_sin

, ܣ , ס , س , s , - , šīn , _{_}} , š , , 21_shin

, ܫ , ש , ش , š , - , rowspan="2" , ṣādē , rowspan="2" , _{_}} , rowspan="2" , ṣ , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , 18_sad

, rowspan="2" , ܨ , rowspan="2" , צץ , ص , ṣ , - , ض , ḍ , - , rowspan="2" , ṭēt , rowspan="2" , _{_}} , rowspan="2" , ṭ , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , 09_taa

, rowspan="2" , ܛ , rowspan="2" , ט , ط , ṭ , - , ظ , ẓ , - , rowspan="2" , ʿayin , rowspan="2" , _{_}} , rowspan="2" , ʿ , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , 16_ein

, rowspan="2" , ܥ , rowspan="2" , ע , ع ء , ʿ , - , غ , ḡ , - , pē , _{_}} , p , , 17_fa

, ܦ , פף , ف , f , - , qōp , _{_}} , q , , 19_qaf

, ܩ , ק , ﻕ , q , - , kāp , _{_}} , k , , 11_kaf

, ܟ , כך , ﻙ , k , - , lāmed , _{_}} , l , , 12_lam

, ܠ , ל , ﻝ , l , - , mēm , _{_}} , m , , 13_meem

, ܡ , מם , ﻡ , m , - ,

nūn Nun is the fourteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''nūn'' 𐤍, Hebrew ''nūn'' , Aramaic ''nūn'' 𐡍‎, Syriac ''nūn'' ܢ, and Arabic ''nūn'' (in abjadi order). Its numerical value is 50. It is the third letter ...

, _{_}} , n , , 14_noon

, ܢ , נן , ﻥ , n , - , he , _{_}} , h , , 05_ha

, ܗ , ה , ه , h , - ,

wāw Waw ( "hook") is the sixth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''wāw'' 𐤅, Aramaic ''waw'' 𐡅, Hebrew ''vav'' , Syriac ''waw'' ܘ and Arabic ''wāw'' (sixth in abjadi order; 27th in modern Arabic order). It is al ...

, _{_}} , w , , 06_waw

, ܘ , ו , ﻭ , w , - , yod , _{_}} , y , , 10_yaa

, ܝ , י , ي , y * The correspondence between the letters is based on phoneme proximity, since for example Arabic ḍād corresponds to Aramaic ʿayn not to Aramaic ṣādē . * The table is based on the Hijāʾī order of the Arabic alphabet. * Aramaic is not derived from Syriac but it is a sister script that is still used by many churches across the Middle East, and it shares with Arabic its

cursive Cursive (also known as joined-up writing) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionality and m ...

style. * See Aramaic alphabet § Letters for a more detailed comparison of letterforms.

Corpora of inscriptions in Nabataean script

* Julius Euting, ''Nabatäische Inschriften aus Arabien'', Berlin, 1885
online
plates available

here Here may refer to: Music * ''Here'' (Adrian Belew album), 1994 * ''Here'' (Alicia Keys album), 2016 * ''Here'' (Cal Tjader album), 1979 * ''Here'' (Edward Sharpe album), 2012 * ''Here'' (Idina Menzel album), 2004 * ''Here'' (Merzbow album), ...

). * * Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, 190
Pars 2, Tomus 1, Fasc 3
Inscriptiones Aramaicae * Michael E. Stone, 1992. Rock Inscriptions and Graffiti Project: Catalogue of Inscriptions * File:Nabataean inscriptions in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum in Petra.jpg,

inscriptions as of 1902 File:Nabataean inscriptions in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum in the Sinai Peninsula.jpg,

inscriptions as of 1902 File:Nabataean inscriptions in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum in Wadi Mukattab.jpg,

Wadi Mukattab The Wadi Mukattab (Arabic for "Valley of Writing"), also known as the Valley of Inscriptions, is a wadi on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula near St Catherine's Monastery. It links the main road in the Wadi Feiran with the Wadi Maghareh's ancient turquoi ...

inscriptions as of 1902

Unicode

The Nabataean alphabet (U+10880–U+108AF) was added to the

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.

References

External links