Northwest Semitic languagesNorthwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite in the Middle Bronze Age.
SafaiticSafaitic (Arabic: ٱلصَّفَائِيَّةAl-Ṣafāʾiyyah) is a variety of the South Semitic scripts that was used by the Arabs in southern Syria and northern Jordan in the Ḥarrah region, to carve rock inscriptions in various dialects of Old Arabic and Ancient North Arabian. The Safaitic script is a member of the Ancient North Arabian (ANA) sub-grouping of the South Semitic script family, the genetic unity of which has yet to be demonstrated.
HismaicHismaic (Arabic: حسمائية) is a variety of the Ancient North Arabian script and the language most commonly expressed in it. The Hismaic script may have been used to write Safaitic dialects of Old Arabic, but the language of most inscriptions differs from Safaitic in a few important respects, meriting its classification as a separate dialect or language.
TaymaTayma (Arabic: تيماء, romanized: Taymāʾ; Taymanitic: 𐪉𐪃𐪑, tmʾ, vocalized as:Taymāʾ), also spelled Tema, is a Saudi city and governorate, in Tabuk Province, and major oasis with a long history of habitation. It is located in northwestern Saudi Arabia at the point where the trade route between Medina and Dumah (Sakaka) begins to cross in the western portion of the Nafud desert.
Old ArabicOld Arabic is the name for any Arabic language or dialect continuum before Islam. Various forms of Old Arabic are attested in scripts like Safaitic, Hismaic, Nabatean, and Greek, most of which seem to be concentrated in the southern Levant. Alternatively, the term has been used synonymously with "Paleo-Arabic" to describe the form of the Arabic script in the fifth and sixth centuries.Writing systems of pre-Islamic ArabiaThe writing systems of pre-Islamic Arabia comprise a diverse group of scripts used across the Arabian Peninsula and adjacent regions prior to the rise of Islam in the 7th century AD. These scripts reflect the position of Arabia as a crossroads between the , Mesopotamian, Iranian, and African cultural spheres, and they were employed for a range of functions including monumental inscriptions, religious dedications, administrative records, graffiti, and personal names.
Semitic languagesThe Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, Aramaic, Hebrew, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by more than 460 million people across much of West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Malta, and in large immigrant and expatriate communities in North America, Europe, and Australasia.
Proto-Semitic languageHypothetical reconstructed proto-language Proto-SemiticReconstruction ofSemitic languagesErac. 4500–3900 BCReconstructedancestorProto-Afroasiatic Lower-order reconstructions Proto-Arabic Proto-Semitic is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Semitic languages. There is no consensus among scholars regarding the location of its linguistic homeland: it may have originated in the Levant, the Sahara, the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, or northern Africa.Languages of pre-Islamic ArabiaThe languages of pre-Islamic Arabia were the spoken and written languages attested in the Arabian Peninsula and its frontier zones before the rise of Islam in the seventh century. Some languages are known from pre-Islamic inscriptions, and others are only known from short texts or later descriptions by Arabic scholars.
DadaniticDadanitic (once known as Lihyanite) is the script and possibly the language of the oasis of Dadān (modern Al-'Ula) and the kingdom of Liḥyān in northwestern Arabia, spoken probably some time during the second half of the first millennium BCE. NomenclatureDadanitic was originally referred to as Lihyanite. The term Dedanite was first used in 1932 by Hubert Grimme for some Lihyanite inscriptions.
Ancient North ArabianCollection of scripts and possibly a language Ancient North ArabianScript type Abjad Period8th century BCE to 4th century CELanguagesDadanitic, Taymanitic, Dumaitic, Thamudic, Safaitic, HismaicRelated scriptsParent systemsProto-Sinaitic scriptSouth Semitic scriptAncient North ArabianSister systemsAncient South ArabianISO 15924ISO 15924Narb (106), Old North Arabian (Ancient North Arabian)UnicodeUnicode aliasOld North ArabianUnicode rangeU+10A80–U+10A9F Languages and scripts in 1st century Arabia Ancient North Arabian (ANA) is a collection of scripts and a language or family of languages 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.
ThamudicThamudic, named for the Thamud tribe, is a group of epigraphic scripts known from large numbers of inscriptions in Ancient North Arabian (ANA) alphabets, which have not yet been properly studied. These texts are found over a huge area from southern Syria to Yemen. In 1937, divided those known at the time into five rough categories A, B, C, D, E. In 1951, some 9,000 more inscriptions were recorded in south-west Saudi Arabia which have been given the name Southern Thamudic.
SabaicSabaic, sometimes referred to as Sabaean, was a Ṣayhadic language that was spoken between c. 1000 BC and the 6th century AD by the Sabaeans. It was used as a written language by some other peoples of the ancient civilization of South Arabia, including the Ḥimyarites, Ḥashidites, Ṣirwāḥites, Humlanites, Ghaymānites, and Radmānites. Sabaic belongs to the South Arabian Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.