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Ancient Arabic written in different scripts by Ahmad al-Jallad

Toppo900

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The history of the Arabic language that was written down in many ancient scripts other than Arabic:

Arabic in Didanite script - 5th century BCE:
"In the northern Ḥigāz, Arabic was occasionally written in the Dadanitic alphabet. There are only a couple of Arabic texts in this script, probably ad hoc attempts at writing the language."
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Arabic in modified Greek alphabet:
"And very rarely, speakers of Arabic wrote their language in Greek letters. If this tradition caught on, Arabic could have developed a scripted based on a modified form of the Greek alphabet, comparable to Coptic."
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Arabic in Hismaic and Safaitic scripts:
"Arabic was often written in the Hismaic script, like this inscription from Madaba (right). By the end of the 1st millennium BCE, the Safaitic script was used from the Ḥawrān to northern Saudi Arabia to express dialects of Old Arabic (left)"
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"Are there religious texts in Arabic before Islam? Yes! In 2015, I deciphered an ancient poem, in a form of the Safaitic script, recounting the cosmic battle between Mōt, the god of death, and Baʿal, the storm god, echoing the ancient Canaanite Baal Cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal_Cycle "
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Pre-Islamic Arab pilgrimage to their ancient Semitic gods.

"Let’s begin with Safaitic (2st BCE (maybe earlier) until at least the 3rd c. CE). The inscription B.Renv.a 1 is dated sanata baṭala ḥagg seʿīʿ ‘the year the pilgrimage to Seʿīʿ failed’. Seʿīʿ is a town in s. Syria (https:///2OKAX1y ). Why a pilgrimage to this place?"
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"The author of MA 1 asks from something more concrete: ṭahora wa ḏabaḥa le-roḍay wa-ġannama nāqata ‘he purified himself and made an animal sacrifice to Roḍay (a god) so may he grant (him) a she-camel’."

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Source:
 
In Safaitic Inscription KRS 306, a certain Ḍoḥay son of ʾAswar states: ʿanawa ʾagīra fa-hā roḍaw badded-oh me-ʾograt-oh 'He toiled obediently as a hired man so, O Roḍaw (name of a god), grant him his share of pay'! -- Happy Labor Day weekend!
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l ʼbs¹lm bn qymy d ʼl gs²m w dkrt-n lt w dkrt ltws²yʽ-n kll-hm. Let's vocalize it and talk about why this is such an interesting discovery.

le-ʾab-salām ben qayyāmē dī ʾāl Gośam wa-dakarat-nā allātu wa-dakarat allātu aśyāʿa-nā kelāla-hom.
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The text translates as: By Absalām son of Qayyāmē of the lineage of Gosham; and may Allāt be mindful of us and may Allāt be mindful of all our companions.

The phrase ḏakarat allāt 'may Allāt be mindful of...' is rather common in Hismaic inscriptions. The basic formula..

survives into the 6th c. CE Christian Arabic inscriptions in the form ḏakara al-ʾilāh 'may God be mindful of'. Now, what is so remarkable here is that the author spelled the verb ḏakarat''may she be mindful of' twice as dakarat. That is: ذكرت as دكرت.
 

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