The Arabic Language

Chapter 3
The Earliest Stages of Arabic
3.1 The Arabs
We do not know when the first nomads came to the Arabian peninsula, and we 
certainly do not know which language they spoke. It is usually assumed that the 
settlement of the peninsula took place in the second millennium 
bce
. In the south, 
advanced civilisations were established in the period between the thirteenth and 
tenth centuries 
bce
. They traded luxury goods such as incense across the Red 
Sea to the north and developed extensive commercial relations with the Near 
East. The languages used in the inscriptions of these civilisations belong to the 
group of South Semitic languages; they are related to Arabic, but did not partake 
in some of the innovations exhibited by Arabic (cf. above, pp. 21f.). The script of 
the South Arabian civilisations is related to some of the North Semitic scripts, 
such as Phoenician, and was probably imported from the Syro-Palestine region 
to the south. It is from the South Arabian script that the later North Arabian 
scripts are derived. The language of the South Arabian inscriptions is usually 
called Epigraphic (or Old) South Arabian, and is divided into several dialects or 
languages, the most important of which are Sabaean, Minaean and Qaṭabānian. 
These languages must have died out soon after the Islamic conquests. The 
present-day Modern South Arabian languages such as Soqoṭrī and Mehri, that are 
still spoken in a few linguistic pockets in South Arabia, are related to Epigraphic 
South Arabian, but do not derive from it directly (cf. below p. 44).
The inhabitants of the South Arabian empires did not call themselves ‘Arabs’. 
Towards the end of the second century 
bce
, some of the South Arabian inscrip
-
tions mention nomads called 
ʿrb
(plural ʾʿ
rb
), who are contrasted to the sedentary 
population of the south. The earliest attested use of this name stems, however, 
from a different region: in a cuneiform inscription dating from 853 bce
, the 
Assyrian king Salmanassar III mentions as one of his adversaries Gindibu from 
the land of 
Arbi
or 
Arbāya
. The name ‘Arabs’ as a people’s name is used somewhat 
later, for the first time by Tiglatpilesar III (745–727 bce
), and then more frequently 
by his successors, under the form 
Arabu
, 
Aribi
. For the Assyrians and the Babylo
-
nians, this term covered all kinds of nomadic tribes, some of them undoubt
-
edly Aramaic-speaking. Probably, it served as a collective name for all people 

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The Earliest Stages of Arabic 
27
coming from the desert who invaded the lands of the urban civilisations and who 
were alternately fought by the Assyrians or enlisted by them as allies against 
other enemies. In 715 
bce
, Sargon II attempted to end the opposition from the 
nomads by settling some tribes in the neighbourhood of Samaria; their names are 
mentioned in Sargon’s inscriptions as Tamudi, Ibadidi, Marsimani and Hayapa. 
Reliefs in the palace of King Assurbanipal in Niniveh show Arab camel-riders 
being fought and subdued by the Assyrians. The name ‘Arabs’ is also attested in 
the Hebrew Torah, for instance, in Jeremiah 25:24 (end of the seventh century 
bce
), where mention is made of all the kings of the 
ʿArab
and of the 
ʿEreb
that live 
in the desert. 
The etymology of the name ‘Arabs’ is unknown. In the cuneiform inscriptions 
from Mari (modern Tell Hariri in Syria), mention is made of the Ḫapiru, and 
according to some scholars these people are identical with the 
Aribi
; their name 
may be connected with the Sumerian word 
gab-bīr
‘desert’. According to another 
theory, the name ‘Arabs’ is related to the root 
ʿ-b-r
in the sense ‘to cross [the 
desert]’, from which the name of the Hebrews is also derived. Yet another theory 
links the name with a Semitic root meaning ‘entering into a dependency upon 
someone’ (cf. Akkadian 
ʾerēbum 
‘to enter’), referring to the Arabs’ role as allies (see 
Chapter 4, p. 42). Since we do not know which language was spoken by the various 
tribes indicated with the name 
Aribi
and similar names, these early mentions of 
Arabs do not tell us much about their linguistic prehistory.
The emergence of the Arabs in history is closely connected with the use of the 
camel. The abovementioned Gindibu had 1,000 camels at his disposal, and the 
reliefs show nomads attacking on camels. According to Bulliet’s (1990) study of 
the development of camel-breeding, the first domestication of this animal took 
place in the south of the Arabian peninsula, and from there it became known 
around 1200 
bce
in the north through the incense trade. It may be noted that 
this is around the time that, according to some scholars, Semitic-speaking groups 
from the fringes of the Syrian desert detached themselves from the sedentary 
civilisation and took off into the desert. According to Garbini (1984), the language 
that we call Arabic was developed in this process of nomadisation or Bedouinisa
-
tion (cf. above, Chapter 2, pp. 15f.).
When the nomads in the Syrian desert invented a new kind of saddle that 
enabled them to ride the hump of their camels, their range of movement became 
much larger, they could have herds and, most importantly, they could take control 
of the caravans from the south. This innovation must have taken place in the last 
centuries 
bce
, and it marks the beginning of the period of real Bedouinisation. 
The new fashion of riding also enabled the nomads to maintain regular contact 
with the urban civilisations in Syria and Iraq. A further refinement was reached 
in the second and third centuries 
ce with the invention of the saddle-bow, which 
led to the development of a society of rider-warriors, represented by the type of 
Bedouin tribes that we know from the period directly before Islam.

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28
The Arabic Language
When the land route for the trade between South Arabia and the Fertile 
Crescent became more important than the sea route, the nomads’ role in this 
trade became a factor to be reckoned with. All along the main route, settlements 
had been established by the South Arabians, but, when the power of the South 
Arabian civilisation waned, the nomadic tribes stepped in and began to control 
the flow of commerce themselves. The first stage of this new development was 
dominated by the caravan cities of Petra and Palmyra (Tadmur). The Nabataean 
kingdom of Petra was conquered by the Roman emperor Trajan in 106 
ce
. After 
the destruction of Petra, the Palmyrans of the oasis of Tadmur 200 km to the 
north-west of Damascus took over.
The conquest of Palmyra by the Roman emperor Aurelian in 272 
ce
marked 
the end of the great caravan oases. After the third century, the competition of 
the three powers of Byzantium, Persia and Ḥimyar, the last of the South Arabian 
empires, dominated the course of events. Each of these powers had its own ally 
among the Arab nomads: the Banū Laḫm supported the Persians; the Banū Ġassān 
the Byzantines; and the kingdom of Kinda was in the service of the Ḥimyarites. In 
the fifth and sixth centuries, however, the political scene changed considerably, 
first after the fall of the Ḥimyaritic kingdom in 525 ce
following an Ethiopian 
invasion, and then after the constant fighting between Persia and Byzantium, 
which weakened both. With the waning of the power of their patrons, the Arab 
allies lost their power too. This furthered the emergence of commercial centres 
inland, first, in Mecca, which had already become a cultural and religious centre 
for the nomadic tribes and now saw its chance to dominate the caravan trade. 
The Banū Qurayš, the dominant tribe of Mecca, became one of the most powerful 
tribes in the peninsula, and to some extent one could say that thanks to the 
mission of one of its members, the Prophet Muḥammad, it never lost this position 
throughout the entire history of the Islamic empire.