The Arabic Language

3.4 The beginnings of Arabic
Thus far, we have looked at texts in languages related to Arabic (the North Arabian 
inscriptions) and texts in other languages, but with interference from spoken 
Arabic (the Nabataean and Palmyrene inscriptions). The value of the latter group 
for the history of Arabic is limited, since they are not written in Arabic, but in 

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34
The Arabic Language
Map 3.1 North Arabia and the Fertile Crescent before Islam
(after Robin 1992: 12, 36)
the official language of that period, Aramaic. It is only because they were written 
in an environment in which Arabic was the colloquial language of most people 
that they can tell us something about this spoken language. The same limitation 
applies to Arabic proper names and loanwords in South Arabian texts.
Some early inscriptions in these scripts, however, are written in a language that 
contains so many Arabic features that one could perhaps regard them as early 
forms of Arabic (proto-Arabic) (see Map 3.1). In South Arabia, a group of inscrip-
tions from Qaryat al-Faʾw (280 km north of Najrān), in Sabaean script, contains a 
language that is closely related to Arabic; they are collectively known as Qaḥṭānic 
or pseudo-Sabaean. The longest of these inscriptions is the tombstone of ʿIjl (first 
century 
bce). Here we find the ‘Arabic’ article, even with assimilation to some 
consonants as in Arabic: 
wlʾrḍ
(
wa-l-ʾarḍ
) ‘and the earth’, as against 
ʾsmy
(
as-samāʾ
) 
‘the heaven’. A few inscriptions in Liḥyānitic script also appear to have an article 
in the form 
ʾl-
and must, therefore, be regarded as Arabic, for example, an inscrip
-

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The Earliest Stages of Arabic 
35
tion from al-Ḫurayba (Macdonald 2008: 468). Likewise, a few isolated inscriptions 
in Nabataean script have been assigned to Arabic (Macdonald 2008: 470–1): two 
short inscriptions from ʾUmm al-Jimāl (± 250 ce) and from al-Ḥijr (267 ce
). They 
contain some instances of common nouns spelled with the ending 
-ū
, for example, 
ʾlqbrw
(
al-qabrū
) ‘the grave’, 
qbrw
(
qabrū
) ‘a grave’.
The most famous Arabic inscription in another script is undoubtedly that from 
an-Namāra (120 km south-east of Damascus, dating from 328 ce
and discovered 
in 1901). There is a general consensus that this relatively long text in Nabataean 
script was written in a language that is essentially identical with the Classical 
Arabic that we know. The inscription was made in honour of Mrʾlqys br ʿmrw, 
that is, Marʾulqays bar ʿAmrū (with Aramaic 
bar
for Arabic 
ibn 
‘son’). The text of 
the inscription, tentative vocalisation and translation are given here according to 
the version of Bellamy (1985):
1. 
ty nfs mr ʾlqys br ʿmrw mlk ʾlʿrb [w]lqbh ḏw ʾsd w[m]ḏḥj
2. 
wmlk ʾlʾsdyn wbhrw wmlwkhm whrb m<ḏ>ḥjw ʿkdy wjʾ
3. 
yzjh fy rtj njrn mdynt šmr wmlk mʿdw wnbl bnbh
4. 
ʾlšʿwb wwklhm frsw lrwm flm yblġ mlk mblġh
5. 
ʿkdy hlk snt 200 + 20 + 3 ywm 7 bkslwl ylsʿd ḏw wlwh
1. 
Tī nafsu Mriʾi l-Qaysi bar ʿAmrin maliki l-ʿArabi wa-laqabuhu Ḏū ʾAsadin 
wa-Maḏḥijin
2. 
wa-malaka l-ʾAsadiyyīna wa-buhirū wa-mulūkahum wa-harraba Maḏḥijw ʿakkaḏā 
wa-jāʾa
3. 
yazujjuh(ā) fī rutuji Najrāna madīnati Šammara wa-malaka Maʿaddw wa-nabala 
bi-nabahi
4.