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Did the Nabataeans – the builders of Petra – speak Arabic? The Nabataeans emerge in the 4th c. BCE, at the southern edge of the Levant, roughly in the area of the Iron Age kingdom of Edom. Theories of Nabataean origins usually regard them as immigrants from North or East Arabia.
There really isn't any good evidence for this. The earliest mention of the Nabataeans already situates them in the region. Perhaps the reason why many scholars have sought an origin in Arabia is because the Nabataeans seem to have been speakers of Arabic
Why do we think this? First, their personal names often have Arabic etymologies. For example: ʿabdu-ʾal-baʿali 'worshiper of Baal', wahbu-allāhi 'gift of Allāh'. Their primary god's name ḏū-sharē (Dusares) 'the one of the Shara (mountains)' is also Arabic.
Are names enough? After all, the Nabataeans wrote their inscriptions in Aramaic. Doesn’t that mean they spoke Aramaic? Aramaic was the written language across the Near East @ this time, so writing Aramaic isn't good evidence for speaking it. pic: http://goo.gl/ztQVWt
The Aramaic of the Nabataeans has an Arabic flavor, suggesting they were in fact speaking Arabic. Some good examples are loanwords: ġayr 'other than'; nasīb 'father-in-law'; wold 'offspring'. Sentence structure is also influenced by Arabic.
Nabataean Aramaic Papyri from the Cave of Letters (Naḥal Ḥever, Israel) include glosses in the Arabic language, suggesting that while they wrote legal documents in Aramaic, proceedings were in Arabic, e.g.: ṭarīqah 'custom'; maġnam 'profit'; ʿaqd 'contract', etc. pic: wiki.
But perhaps the most beautiful example of the use of Arabic among the Nabataeans is the ʿEn ʿAvdat inscription (En Avdat, Israel). This text records an offering to the god Obodas. The introduction and dedication are in Aramaic but the liturgical poem is in Arabic.
The Arabic translates as: ‘May he (the god) act that there be neither ransom nor scar; so be it that death would seek us, may he not aid its seeking; and so be it that a wound would desire (a victim) let it not desire us!’
And in the Nabataean Arabic:
fa yafʿal lā fidā wa-lā ʾaṯarā
fa-kon honā yabġenā al-mawto lā ʾabġā-h
fa-kon honā ʾarāda gorḥo lā yorednā
This has the same rhyme structure as the Baal Poem I previously tweeted
So if the Nabataeans were originally speakers of Arabic, were they Arabs? We don’t know if the Nabataeans used this term for self-identification, but outside peoples definitely referred to them that way. Maybe this is why the Romans called annexed Nabataea Provincia Arabia.
But even if the Nabataeans called themselves Arabs, we shouldn’t confuse this with the ethnic/nationalistic meaning of the term today. There is no evidence that they saw themselves as belonging to a larger group including other peoples from the Arabian Peninsula.
If the Nabataeans were Arabic speakers, does that mean they migrated from the Arabian Peninsula? Not necessarily. The earliest Arabic inscription, early 1st millennium BCE, comes from Jordan (in pic). The Assyrians fought battles with Arabs in this region in the same period.
Perhaps they were one of many indigenous Arabic-speaking groups on the East Bank of the Jordan, up to the Ḥawrān in the north and the northern Ḥigāz in the south, who became visible following the collapse of the Iron Age kingdoms of Jordan.
The last attestation of Nabataean Arabic occurs in the Petra Papyri, 6th c. CE. These documents record many Arabic words in Greek transcription from the city of Petra. After this period, it seems Nabataean Arabic was replaced by dialects coming from the Peninsula.
...
Nabataean Arabic is the dialect of Arabic used by the Nabtaeans, which we can partially reconstruct based on their inscriptions and Greek transcriptions. It is definitely not the amcestor of Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic, as it had already lost tanwin and (cont.)
Did not participate in grammatical innovations characterizing Higâzî, like the relative pronoun alladhî, etc. Hopefully more texts in Nab.Arabic will appear to help fill in the gaps in our knowledge.
...
The outcome of case in both varieties suggests that they stem from an ancestor that had tanwin, so not our earliest attested Nabataean Arabic. Proto Higâzî is probably the southern mosy peripheral dialect of Old Arabic, and it eventually gives rise to the central Arabian dialects
Though migration and settlement by Higazi nabataeans in places like qaryat al-faw and nagrân in the first few centuries CE. The evidence from the pottery supports nabataean settlement in these places.
...
Proto-Nabataeo-Higazi would be in my view Proto-Arabic.
source -->
As you can CLEARLY see, the ancient Nabateans were Arabs in today's ethnic terminology, and they most likely originated during the migration of these ancient Arab tribes in the 1st millennium BCE, not directly from the Arabian peninsula.
More on their origins: http://etc.ancient.eu/interviews/nabataeans-ancient-arabia/
There really isn't any good evidence for this. The earliest mention of the Nabataeans already situates them in the region. Perhaps the reason why many scholars have sought an origin in Arabia is because the Nabataeans seem to have been speakers of Arabic
Why do we think this? First, their personal names often have Arabic etymologies. For example: ʿabdu-ʾal-baʿali 'worshiper of Baal', wahbu-allāhi 'gift of Allāh'. Their primary god's name ḏū-sharē (Dusares) 'the one of the Shara (mountains)' is also Arabic.
Are names enough? After all, the Nabataeans wrote their inscriptions in Aramaic. Doesn’t that mean they spoke Aramaic? Aramaic was the written language across the Near East @ this time, so writing Aramaic isn't good evidence for speaking it. pic: http://goo.gl/ztQVWt
The Aramaic of the Nabataeans has an Arabic flavor, suggesting they were in fact speaking Arabic. Some good examples are loanwords: ġayr 'other than'; nasīb 'father-in-law'; wold 'offspring'. Sentence structure is also influenced by Arabic.
Nabataean Aramaic Papyri from the Cave of Letters (Naḥal Ḥever, Israel) include glosses in the Arabic language, suggesting that while they wrote legal documents in Aramaic, proceedings were in Arabic, e.g.: ṭarīqah 'custom'; maġnam 'profit'; ʿaqd 'contract', etc. pic: wiki.
But perhaps the most beautiful example of the use of Arabic among the Nabataeans is the ʿEn ʿAvdat inscription (En Avdat, Israel). This text records an offering to the god Obodas. The introduction and dedication are in Aramaic but the liturgical poem is in Arabic.
The Arabic translates as: ‘May he (the god) act that there be neither ransom nor scar; so be it that death would seek us, may he not aid its seeking; and so be it that a wound would desire (a victim) let it not desire us!’
And in the Nabataean Arabic:
fa yafʿal lā fidā wa-lā ʾaṯarā
fa-kon honā yabġenā al-mawto lā ʾabġā-h
fa-kon honā ʾarāda gorḥo lā yorednā
This has the same rhyme structure as the Baal Poem I previously tweeted
So if the Nabataeans were originally speakers of Arabic, were they Arabs? We don’t know if the Nabataeans used this term for self-identification, but outside peoples definitely referred to them that way. Maybe this is why the Romans called annexed Nabataea Provincia Arabia.
But even if the Nabataeans called themselves Arabs, we shouldn’t confuse this with the ethnic/nationalistic meaning of the term today. There is no evidence that they saw themselves as belonging to a larger group including other peoples from the Arabian Peninsula.
If the Nabataeans were Arabic speakers, does that mean they migrated from the Arabian Peninsula? Not necessarily. The earliest Arabic inscription, early 1st millennium BCE, comes from Jordan (in pic). The Assyrians fought battles with Arabs in this region in the same period.
Perhaps they were one of many indigenous Arabic-speaking groups on the East Bank of the Jordan, up to the Ḥawrān in the north and the northern Ḥigāz in the south, who became visible following the collapse of the Iron Age kingdoms of Jordan.
The last attestation of Nabataean Arabic occurs in the Petra Papyri, 6th c. CE. These documents record many Arabic words in Greek transcription from the city of Petra. After this period, it seems Nabataean Arabic was replaced by dialects coming from the Peninsula.
...
Nabataean Arabic is the dialect of Arabic used by the Nabtaeans, which we can partially reconstruct based on their inscriptions and Greek transcriptions. It is definitely not the amcestor of Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic, as it had already lost tanwin and (cont.)
Did not participate in grammatical innovations characterizing Higâzî, like the relative pronoun alladhî, etc. Hopefully more texts in Nab.Arabic will appear to help fill in the gaps in our knowledge.
...
The outcome of case in both varieties suggests that they stem from an ancestor that had tanwin, so not our earliest attested Nabataean Arabic. Proto Higâzî is probably the southern mosy peripheral dialect of Old Arabic, and it eventually gives rise to the central Arabian dialects
Though migration and settlement by Higazi nabataeans in places like qaryat al-faw and nagrân in the first few centuries CE. The evidence from the pottery supports nabataean settlement in these places.
...
Proto-Nabataeo-Higazi would be in my view Proto-Arabic.
source -->
As you can CLEARLY see, the ancient Nabateans were Arabs in today's ethnic terminology, and they most likely originated during the migration of these ancient Arab tribes in the 1st millennium BCE, not directly from the Arabian peninsula.
More on their origins: http://etc.ancient.eu/interviews/nabataeans-ancient-arabia/
