# Semitic origin of the Greek and Latin scripts



## berndf

*This has been split from another thread:*

*Franz rod** wrote:*



stultus said:


> The original Latin alphabet was derived from the strong regional alphabet which came before it: Greek, which in turn borrowed from the Phoenician alphabet (which is also used more or less by Aramaic and Hebrew).


And Phoenician alphabet came from an alphabet used in Sinai.




stultus said:


> Aleph became alpha became "A" (*א*-> *Α*/*α* -> *A*).


Reading this, it seems that Latin letters came from Hebrew ones. But, for example, the "original form" of "a" is not this "א" but it is like an overturned A.


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## berndf

franz rod said:
			
		

> Reading this, it seems that Latin letters came from Hebrew ones. But, for example, the "original form" of "a" is not this "א" but it is like an overturned A.


The "A" definitly is derived from the Hebrew/Phoenician Aleph. This confusion here comes from the fact that since more than 2000 years Hebrew is not spelled with Hebrew letters any more but with a variant of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet. The shape of the Aleph _א _is Imperial Aramaic and not Hebrew. Because of this confusion, the original Hebrew alphabet is therefore usually called "Paleo-Hebrew".


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## berndf

> *Franz rod replied*:
> 
> 
> 
> The "A" definitly is derived from the Hebrew/Phoenician Aleph. This confusion here comes from the fact that since more than 2000 years Hebrew is not spelled with Hebrew letters any more but with a variant of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mhh, we can say that "a" definitly derived from a letter of sinaitic alphabet which was deeply influenced but egiptian one.
Click to expand...


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## berndf

Phoenician is derived from Proto-Sinaic. In this respect you could. But the Phoenician or (Paleo-)Hebrew alphabet is probably more significant because Greek is directly derived from it and all Western-Semitic alphabets before Arabic differ from Phoenician only in character shape. Number (22), names, sequence and numeric value of all of them (including Aramaic alphabets) are identical.


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## mataripis

The Phoenician symbols are the origin of Greek alphabets.The greeks invented the Alphabet because Consonants and Vowels were written in order unlike the system of syllabic alphabets in most regions.The Latin use the Greek Alphabet with few alterations and changes.


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## berndf

mataripis said:


> The Phoenician symbols are the origin of Greek alphabets.The greeks invented the Alphabet because Consonants and Vowels were written in order unlike the system of syllabic alphabets in most regions.The Latin use the Greek Alphabet with few alterations and changes.


The Phoenician alphabet was phonemic and not syllabic. Phonemic spelling is *not *a Greek invention. Greek added the spelling of vowels by re-using some consonants as vowel signs. Modern Semitic writing system do this in part, too.


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## Ihsiin

berndf said:


> Phoenician is derived from Proto-Sinaic. In this respect you could. But the Phoenician or (Paleo-)Hebrew alphabet is probably more significant because Greek is directly derived from it and all Western-Semitic alphabets before Arabic differ from Phoenician only in character shape. Number (22), names, sequence and numeric value of all of them (including Aramaic alphabets) are identical.



You could also include the Arabic alphabet with this. The 'extra' six letters are, orthographically, just dotted varieties of some 'original' letters.



			
				 		mataripis said:
			
		

> The Phoenician symbols are the origin of Greek alphabets.The greeks  invented the Alphabet because Consonants and Vowels were written in  order unlike the system of syllabic alphabets in most regions.The Latin  use the Greek Alphabet with few alterations and changes.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mater_lectionis


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## Abu Rashid

berndf said:
			
		

> Because of this confusion, the original Hebrew alphabet is therefore usually called "Paleo-Hebrew".



I think the alphabet is understood to be Phoenician (Canaanite), but was borrowed by Hebrews and Aramaic speakers as well to use for their languages. The fact it has only 22 graphemes, when Hebrew & Aramaic both clearly had more phonemes at the time, tends to cement this fact.



			
				berndf said:
			
		

> all Western-Semitic alphabets before Arabic differ from Phoenician only in character shape. Number (22), names, sequence and numeric value of all of them (including Aramaic alphabets) are identical.



How about Ugaritic?


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> I think the alphabet is understood to be Phoenician (Canaanite), but was borrowed by Hebrews and Aramaic speakers as well to use for their languages.


Paleo-Hebrew is identical to Phoenician. The Imperial Aramaic script is an evolution with different shapes.


Abu Rashid said:


> How about Ugaritic?


It had more than 22 letters (31) and not the same order.


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## Abu Rashid

berndf said:


> Paleo-Hebrew is identical to Phoenician. The Imperial Aramaic script is an evolution with different shapes.



Right, my point being the alphabet was Phoenician (actually Canaanite, Phoenician is just a Greek name for the Canaanites), the Hebrews merely copied it, as did most others in the area. As they later copied the Aramaic script. There is no script that is uniquely or originally Hebrew as far as I'm aware.

*Note: Just noticed you also mistook my mentioning of Aramaic for a reference to the Imperial Aramaic script. Early Aramaic was also written in the Phoenician script, that was what I was referring to.



berndf said:


> It had more than 22 letters (31) and not the same order.



And that's exactly why I mentioned this. You stated all pre-Arabic West-Semitic scripts shared those characteristics, Ugaritic clearly did not.

As for the order, the Ugaritic script has been found in two differing orders, one is identical to the Phoenician, with the exception that the Phoenician is missing several letters. The fact Ugaritic did not just "tack them on the end" indicates the Phoenician order was most likely borrowed from Ugaritic.

The other is almost identical to the South Semitic (al-Musnad) order.


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## berndf

Ihsiin said:


> You could also include the Arabic alphabet with this. The 'extra' six letters are, orthographically, just dotted varieties of some 'original' letters.


Yes, but it first lost a few. There are less than 22 non-dotted letters.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> Right, my point being the alphabet was Phoenician (actually Canaanite,  Phoenician is just a Greek name for the Canaanites), the Hebrews merely  copied it


Hebrew IS a Canaanite dialect, right?


Abu Rashid said:


> There is no script that is uniquely or originally Hebrew as far as I'm aware.


That is right.


Abu Rashid said:


> And that's exactly why I mentioned this. You stated all pre-Arabic West-Semitic scripts shared those characteristics, Ugaritic clearly did not.


Right, that was inaccurate. I meant and should have said "all *later* Western-Semitic alphabets before Arabic differ from Phoenician only  in character shape. Number (22), names, sequence and numeric value of  all of them (including Aramaic alphabets) are identical."


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## Abu Rashid

berndf said:


> Hebrew IS a Canaanite dialect, right?



In the broad sense, yes, but then again so is Ugaritic according to some Semitists.

Hebrew was clearly distinct from the Canaanite dialects for which the script was contrived, as it had a different phonemic repertoire. I really don't think the Hebrew connection to that script was any more significant than the Aramaic connection. 



berndf said:


> Right, that was inaccurate. I meant and should have said "all *later* Western-Semitic alphabets before Arabic differ from Phoenician only  in character shape. Number (22), names, sequence and numeric value of  all of them (including Aramaic alphabets) are identical."



That is correct.



berndf said:


> Yes, but it first lost a few. There are less than 22 non-dotted letters.



I think there's also some Musnad influence on the modern Arabic script. It is not purely an adaptation of Nabataean Aramaic.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> I really don't think the Hebrew connection to that script was any more significant than the Aramaic connection.


Ok, maybe, maybe not; but that doesn't really matter for the argument. My comparison to which you responded was between *Paleo*-Hebrew and *Imperial *Aramaic only.


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## Ihsiin

berndf said:


> Yes, but it first lost a few. There are less than 22 non-dotted letters.



I was under the impression that as the Arabic alphabet developed, perhaps as a result of its joint-up nature, various letters normalised to identical shapes and eventually were distinguished from each other with the use of dots, as with Syriac in the distinction between daleth and resh. So, for example, though qaf and fa look identical in certain positions, except for their dots, they're clearly derived from distinct letters and that distinction is maintained.
The one letter that I will concede Arabic lost is samek, whose position is of course occupied by sin.


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## apmoy70

Don't you think that saying "Greek and Latin scripts" is a redundancy, since the Latin script is the Euboean Chalcidic Greek alphabet of Cumae and Neapolis in Campania?


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## tFighterPilot

Ihsiin said:


> I was under the impression that as the Arabic alphabet developed, perhaps as a result of its joint-up nature, various letters normalised to identical shapes and eventually were distinguished from each other with the use of dots, as with Syriac in the distinction between daleth and resh. So, for example, though qaf and fa look identical in certain positions, except for their dots, they're clearly derived from distinct letters and that distinction is maintained.
> The one letter that I will concede Arabic lost is samek, whose position is of course occupied by sin.


Me too. With a few exceptions like Shin and Sin. You might as well say that the Hebrew ה and ר are actually the same letter.


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## berndf

Ihsiin said:


> The one letter that I will concede Arabic lost is samek, whose position is of course occupied by sin.


And what about Heth? Arabic used Gimmel for _g_, _7_ and _kh_, later distinguished by dots. I don't think that was a merger but a loss.


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## Ihsiin

I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility for the Nabataean 7eth to have been rotated by 90 degrees in Arabic whilst becoming joint up. This would make it similar to both the Nabataean and Syriac (and ultimately Arabic) gimel, and the similarity would have led to identicallity (the kha glyph is, of course, a development from from 7a).


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## tFighterPilot

This picture sums most of it up
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Ph%C3%B6nizisch-5Sprachen.svg


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## berndf

Ihsiin said:


> I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility for the Nabataean 7eth to have been rotated by 90 degrees in Arabic whilst becoming joint up. This would make it similar to both the Nabataean and Syriac (and ultimately Arabic) gimel, and the similarity would have led to identicallity (the kha glyph is, of course, a development from from 7a).


With a lot of imagination. But whatever the process was: the result was a reduction of number of distinguishable letters in early Arabic before the dots were added.


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## berndf

tFighterPilot said:


> You might as well say that the Hebrew ה and ר are actually the same letter.


This analogy doesn't fit. ה was never written the same as ר but خ and ج were once written like ح. Disambiguation by dots happened later. See here a page from the famous `Uthman  Quran written in early non-dotted Kufic calligraphy.


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## berndf

apmoy70 said:


> Don't you think that saying "Greek and Latin scripts" is a redundancy, since the Latin script is the Euboean Chalcidic Greek alphabet of Cumae and Neapolis in Campania?


If you took such a high-level, abstract view ignoring all subsequent independent developments, you might equally call it a "redundancy" to speak of a "Greek alphabet" because these early versions of the Greek alphabet were almost identical to the Phoenician original.


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## Ihsiin

berndf said:


> With a lot of imagination. But whatever the process was: the result was a reduction of number of distinguishable letters in early Arabic before the dots were added.



A lot of imagination. Perhaps. It's just an idea of mine, I don't have any evidence for the transition.
I would say, though, that's pretty much the same process as Nabataean to Arabic 3ayn: link to عـ which is somewhat more obvious.

It's true that the letters were physically indistinguishable before dots, but they still existed as distinct letters in reality, and I think the fact that they derived from distinct letters is important in this distinction. They share with other Semitic alphabets many of the criteria you talked about earlier: name, numerical value, position in the classic abjad hawaz.

In any regard, I think we're just arguing about very minor differences in ideas, and we're veering somewhat off topic.


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## berndf

Ihsiin said:


> In any regard, I think we're just arguing about very minor differences in ideas


Absolutely. I never meant to contradict you, only to add a little annotation. I mainly replied because you spoke of "[t]he 'extra' six letters". If someone cared to count, he would find that there are more than six letters disambiguated from their respective base forms by dots and I wanted to explain why.


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## Abu Rashid

berndf said:


> And what about Heth? Arabic used Gimmel for _g_, _7_ and _kh_, later distinguished by dots. I don't think that was a merger but a loss.



Actually I think you'll find that when you look at the progressive forms from Nabataean to Arabic, that similar looking letters slowly merged together, until it ended up with the 15~ distinct shapes, which were then distinguished by dots.

"The scribal solution was to merge the letter shapes into just over a dozen forms, and to distinguish them with obligatory patterns of dots; the dots reflect letter history (distinguishing those whose basic shapes had converged) and, for the newly accommodated consonants, phonetic similarity." (The Semitic languages)



berndf said:


> With a lot of imagination.



Not really, the Nabataean Haa looks very similar to the Arabic Haa, especially with certain scripts.



			
				tFighterPilot said:
			
		

> This picture sums most of it up
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-5Sprachen.svg



Actually that image seems to mix quite a few things up, and doesn't really illustrate much at all regarding the development of Arabic. Arabic developed out of a cursive form of the Nabataean innovations of the Aramaic script, as well as being influenced by the Musnad script.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> Actually I think you'll find that when you look at the progressive forms from Nabataean to Arabic...


Does this "progression" involve Syriac influence? Letter shapes would make this plausible. Do you know of any evidence for such an influence?


Abu Rashid said:


> Not really, the Nabataean Haa looks very similar to the Arabic Haa, especially with certain scripts.


Which scripts in particular?


Abu Rashid said:


> ...as well as being influenced by the Musnad script.


Given the fact that Musnad has been found in N.Arabic inscriptions as well, this sounds prima facie plausible. Do you have examples of such an influence? I haven't come across such claims and letter shapes don't make such influence obvious.


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## Abu Rashid

berndf said:


> Does this "progression" involve Syriac influence? Letter shapes would make this plausible. Do you know of any evidence for such an influence?



Well I'm sure Nabataean & Syriac probably evolved in a similar fashion, as both were scripts that developed around different communities of Aramaic speakers. Therefore they may have influenced one another. What's rarely taken into account though is that the oldest Nabataean inscriptions predate the oldest Syriac ones.



berndf said:


> Which scripts in particular?



I have a few fonts that use a similar shape to this, I can create some images if you like, or send you the fonts.



berndf said:


> Given the fact that Musnad has been found in N.Arabic inscriptions as well, this sounds prima facie plausible.



Not just found, it was the script used by all Arabs for many centuries before the introduction of Aramaic-based scripts. It was still even in use by some Arabs during the early Islamic period. I've seen some dual musnad/arabic inscriptions that are in Islamic times.



berndf said:


> Do you have examples of such an influence? I haven't come across such claims and letter shapes don't make such influence obvious.



This article gives some explanation about the influences of Musnad on modern Arabic script.


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## berndf

Thank you for the information Abu Rashid. I would be grateful, if you could produce images and post them here. They might be interesting for other people as well.


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## mugibil

The article Abu Rashid linked to is typical, albeit relatively polished case of internet crackpot material - nationalistically motivated as usual, of course. The author, one S. A., holds credentials as a type designer and librarian (and has signed his article as a member of the staff of Baruch College, CUNY, except that the position he has held there is  "Director of Technology"). He is making even wilder claims than the ones that Abu Rashid revealed. S.A. doesn't just say, as Abu Rashid suggested, that the Arabic script, while Nabatean-derived, was also partly "influenced" by the South Arabian script (musnad). No sir, he flatly *denies* that the Arabic script originated from the Nabatean one and instead argues bluntly that it is descended from the South Arabian script. This "revolutionary" theory totally contradicts the generally accepted view among modern scholars (as S.A. himself acknowledges). On the other hand, it just happens to be extremely convenient from a nationalistic point of view, wherein one wants to prove that nothing has ever changed: "We have always had the same alphabet/language/culture/religion/territory, we haven't changed, we haven't borrowed, we haven't been influenced", etc.. By claiming that the South Arabian script as identical to the Arabic one, Arabs can increase the sense of continuity and proud autochtonous development: "we Arabs have always used our own, Arab script(s)!" - just like it would be nice if one could argue that the Ancient Yemenites and the Nabateans were somehow kind-of sort-of Muslims "just like us", which I'm sure somebody out there has already done. 

But of course, it would be even sweeter if one could argue that, far from the Arabs' present-day script originating from "non-Arab scripts", it was those "non-Arab scripts" that originated from an "Arab script"! And sure enough, S.A. does suggest, albeit hesitantly (deferring to "experts" from the dawn of Oriental studies sharing his view), that the Phoenician alphabet and the Greek alphabet are both descendants of the South Arabian script! Of course, by slyly choosing to refer to the entire region, including Canaan, as the "Greater Arabian Peninsula", he has made sure from the start that all alphabets are, in  some sense at least, Arabian.

Having established the double unreliability of the "witness" in terms of both expertise and  interest, I will not dwell on the actual merits of his arguments - I'm not a specialist and I don't want to spend time on nitpicking either.


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## Abu Rashid

mungu said:


> The article Abu Rashid linked to is typical, albeit relatively polished case of internet crackpot material - nationalistically motivated as usual, of course.


 
Come now, don't be so harsh mungu. I admit that the entire article is not necessarily believable, but he does make a few good points. And there's clearly some Arabic letters that do resemble their Musnad counterparts, not their northern Semitic counterparts, like the letter "raa".



mungu said:


> just like it would be nice if one could argue that the Ancient Yemenites and the Nabateans were somehow kind-of sort-of Muslims "just like us", which I'm sure somebody out there has already done.



Actually.. now you mention it, worshippers of a single deity, rahman, who called themselves hunafa, did arise in Yemen prior to the Islamic period.



mungu said:


> Of course, by slyly choosing to refer to the entire region, including Canaan, as the "Greater Arabian Peninsula", he has made sure from the start that all alphabets are, in  some sense at least, Arabian.



Well it is just the edge of the Arabian "sub-continent" where it meets with the mediterranean, isn't it? The current distinction is not really one rooted in ancient realities. And I think there's no doubting the inhabitants of Canaan had their Semitic origins in the desert-bedouin culture (Arabian if you will) that they were existing on the edge of.



mungu said:


> Having established the double unreliability of the "witness" in terms of both expertise and  interest, I will not dwell on the actual merits of his arguments - I'm not a specialist and I don't want to spend time on nitpicking either.



Thank you for sparing us.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> And I think there's no doubting the inhabitants of Canaan had their Semitic origins in the desert-bedouin culture (Arabian if you will) that they were existing on the edge of.


Nomadic tribes: yes (but this is true for every culture if you go far enough back in time).

Desert: no.


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## Abu Rashid

Why not desert?

The earliest Semitic inscriptions for instance are found in the deserts of the Sinai peninsula, the Amorites, Edomites, Ammonites, Aramaeans & Arabs etc. all lived in desert areas. The Akkadians were first described by the Sumerians as hailing from the deserts, and the Tanak clearly describes a people who wandered the deserts in bedouin style, living in tents, who finally settled in Canaan.

In the Middle East, you either have the fertile settled areas, or the nomadic desert areas. Nomadic: yes & Desert: no, just doesn't make sense.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> In the Middle East, you either have the fertile settled areas, or the nomadic desert areas. Nomadic: yes & Desert: no, just doesn't make sense.


Now you're jumping back and forth in time as it suits your argument. We are talking about the origin of Semitic cultures. Semitic cultures of the Fertile Crescent developed out of a Nomadic tribal lifestyles too. In the NW parts of the FC (i.e. from Canaan to Aram), large scale change to settled lifestyles happened in the 2nd millennium BC.


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## Abu Rashid

berndf said:
			
		

> Now you're jumping back and forth in time as it suits your argument.



Where am I jumping back and forth in time? I didn't mention any time period whatsoever. The fact is various Semitic peoples just "appeared" on the fringes of settled areas at various times down through history, first they began as "desert raiders" that would interrupt trade and were a menace to the civilisations of the ancient world (both Mesopotamian & Egyptian), and then slowly these people assimilated with the settled regions they formerly menaced.



			
				berndf said:
			
		

> Semitic cultures of the Fertile Crescent developed out of a Nomadic tribal lifestyles too. In the NW parts of the FC (i.e. from Canaan to Aram), large scale change to settled lifestyles happened in the 2nd millennium BC.



As far as I was aware they were generally considered to have originated from migration out of the deserts of Syria-Arabia.



			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> Migration from Arabia into the fertile crescent has been a constant pattern of human movement in the Middle East since antiquity. As such, the Arabian peninsula has long been accepted as the original Semitic _Urheimat_ by a majority of scholars...
> 
> A mainstream view nowadays maintains that the first wave of Semitic-speakers infiltrated Mesopotamia in the first half of the third millennium BC. A second Amorite wave is generally believed to have followed around 2000 BC...


Link

It then goes on to mention that the Aramaeans were the result of a wave of migration towards the fertile crescent in the second millennium B.C.E.


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## berndf

I am not arguing against the Arabian _Urheimat _hypothesis (nor am I advocating it). I am only doubting that the life style as desert nomads is what once unified all Semitic tribes. Semitic Migration waves from the Arabian Peninsula into the Fertile Crescent towards the end of the 3rd Millennium BC coincided with (and were probably caused by) a drastic climate change* towards the extremely arid climate we know today. People probably fled the advance of the desert into the last remaining temperate areas of Arabian Peninsula.

But whatever happened in those days, by the time the precursors of the Arabic alphabet emerged, this all was already ancient history.
____________________________________________________
_*__The 4,200 year BP [=Before Present] aridification event was one of the most severe climatic events of the Holocene period in terms of impact on cultural upheaval_, here p.4.


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## rayloom

Abu Rashid said:


> This article gives some explanation about the influences of Musnad on modern Arabic script.



Regarding this article, I think the influence of musnad is much overstated.

By the way, musnad here is mostly used to refer not to Epigraphic South Arabian, instead to Epigraphic North Arabian (which itself is derived from ESA). 
Another point, the author doesn't make it clear (throughout the article) whether Arabic  script descended from North Arabian musnad, which he uses to compare  with the shapes of Arabic letters, or cursive musnad of South Arabian (which is a cursive of ESA). There is no cursive musnad when it  comes to North Arabian musnad. Though the author assumes "Certainly, the development of a northern Musnad cursive style can not be ruled out", and even makes reference to a cursive Safaitic script "localized versions of cursive Musnad, particularly the Safawī style"
 (MCA Macdonald states (p.387) "There is no evidence whatsoever for a cursive Safaitic script", then he goes on to explain the ligatures between some letters in some of the inscriptions)

Unfortunately, the author disregards the striking similarity between the latest forms of Nabatean script to Arabic script, and instead focuses on certain Arabic letters and their similarity to musnad (ENA). 

If you check the Namarah inscriptions, written in Nabatean script (in 328 C.E.), it's very very similar to Early Arabic script.
This is the Namarah inscription in Arabic script, the similarity with Nabatean script becomes even more apparent.
Another possible indicator of such descendance of Early Arabic script from Nabatean script, if you also check the same photo of the Namarah inscription, notice how 3amr (6th word) is spelled. It's spelled like it's spelled today in Arabic, with an extra (silent) waw in the end.
The first 7 words say: تي نفس مر القيس بر عمرو ملك العرب.... ty nfs mr 'lqys br 3mrw mlk 'l3rb..."This is the grave of Imru 'l-Qays son of 3amr king of the Arabs...". 

While on the other hand, Early Arabic script bears no resemblance to cursive musnad (or non-cursive for that matter). (and I don't think the slanting of the alif can be used to prove such resemblance). Please check this table.

Also the article includes some wrong information regarding the Nabateans. The Nabateans are mentioned in Classical Arabic literature of the 7th century, as normal urbanized Arabs (speaking Arabic) living to the North, not as "black, barefoot, with cloven heels". That description, included in the study and attributed to Ibn Al-Nadim, actually describes a dream!
Such instances of mentioning the Nabateans in Classical Arabic literature; from a long Hadith: بينا أنا أمشي في سوق المدينة ، إذا نبطي من نبط  أهل الشام ، ممن قدم بالطعام يبيعه بالمدينة . يقول : من يدل على كعب بن  مالك . قال فطفق الناس يشيرون له إلي . حتى جاءني فدفع إلي كتابا من ملك  غسان
"While I was walking in the market of Madina, there was a Nabatean from the Levant, who had come with food to sell in Madina, saying: Who can guide me to Ka'b bin Maalik. The people pointed him to me, until he reached me and gave me a letter from the Ghassanid king".
(There are other mentions of them in other Hadiths as well, searching for instances of نبط or نبطي in Classical Arabic poetry is really difficult since it would return a type of modern Arabic poetry called Nabati poetry)!
Other Arabs sometimes looked down on the Nabateans, mostly because they (the Nabateans) didn't know their tribal origins, or because they were more attached to the land.

Another wrong piece of information in the article: "The first line was translated as “this is the funerary monument of ´Umru´ al-Qays,” giving the impression that the Namārah stone was once placed on his grave, but the Arabic reading, on the other hand, was “tī nafs mru´ l-Qays”. The two do not match since tī is not an Arabic word for “this” and nafs in Arabic means “soul” not “grave.” Also, since the earlier Raqqūsh inscription had explicitly and extensively used the Arabic word qabrū for grave, why wouldn’t an inscription, only a few decades later, use this same word?". 
If you check an Arabic grammar book, you'd find that tī is in fact an Arabic (feminine) demonstrative pronoun, along with:
ذي، ذهْ، ذهِ ، ذهي، تا، تي، تهْ، تهِ، تهي، ذات . مع  هاء التنبيه : هذي ، هذهْ ، هذهِ ، هذهي     
  as feminine demonstrative pronouns (from online source on Arabic grammar). 
And regarding Nafs, it's used to mean "grave" also in other North Arabian funerary inscriptions, particularly Lihyanite and Hasaean. Anyways, there is an undeniable Aramaic influence on the Arabic of the inscription, as is apparent with br (instead of bn) and some other points, but the inscription remains Arabic. Unfortunately he considers this Arabic text "distantly resembling Arabic" and argues "it is hard to definitely claim it was a transformed Nabataean script based on a couple of inscriptions distantly resembling Arabic"!

In the conclusion of the his article, the author concludes that Jazm (Early Arabic script) is a localized cursive musnad itself!

(Sorry for the disorganized post...I'll return to it later!)


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## Abu Rashid

Thanks for that post rayloom. I also think the article overstates it a little, in that it claims there's a Musnad base, with just some Nabataean influence. I'd suggest it's the other way around.



			
				rayloom said:
			
		

> By the way, musnad here is used to refer not to Epigraphic South Arabian, instead to Epigraphic North Arabian (which itself is derived from ESA).



Of course.



			
				rayloom said:
			
		

> It's spelled like it's spelled today in Arabic, with an extra (silent) waw in the end.



That's because the language of the inscription is Arabic.


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## rayloom

Abu Rashid said:


> Thanks for that post rayloom. I also think  the article overstates it a little, in that it claims there's a Musnad  base, with just some Nabataean influence. I'd suggest it's the other way  around.



You're welcome 
Yeah me too. I think if there was an influence, then it was probably the other way round.

Interestingly, a strange thing about the history of  Classical Arabic (language), is that the oldest text in what's described as Pre-Classical  Arabic is actually written in Epigraphic South Arabian script, instead  of an Epigraphic North Arabian script (or for that matter Jazm or Nabatean script)!
The 1st century BC inscription of Qaryat Dhat Kaahil (unfortunately can't find a photo of the actual ESA text inscription):
عجل|بن|هفعم|بن|لأخه|رببل|بن|هـ
ـفعم|قبر|ولهو|ولولدهو|ومـ
ـرأته|وولدهو|وولد|ولدهم 
ونسيهم|وحرير|ذوأل|غلون|فـ
ـأعذه|بكهل|وله|وعثر|أشرق
 من|عززم|وونيم|و
شريم|ومرتهنم|أبدم 
بن|وكسم|عدكي|تمط
ـر|أسمي|دم|والأر
ض|شعر

Me conforming the text to Standard Arabic script spelling (+ mater lectionis):
عجل بن هفعم بنى لأخيه ربيب إل (ربيبيل) بن هفعم قبرا وله ولولده وامرأته وولدها وولد ولدهم ونسائهم وحرائر ذوي
  الغلوان فأعاذه بكاهل ولاه وعثار الشارق من عزيز ما وونيّ ما وشريّ ما ومرتهن ما أبدا ما 
 (بلا؟) وكسٍ ما عدكي تمطر السماء ديما والأرض شعيرا


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## Abu Rashid

rayloom said:


> Interestingly, a strange thing about the history of  Classical Arabic (language), is that the oldest text in what's described as Pre-Classical  Arabic is actually written in Epigraphic South Arabian script, instead  of an Epigraphic North Arabian script (or for that matter Jazm or Nabatean script)!



That's not really all that surprising. Arabs were influenced by different regions. In the south they were obviously influenced heavily by South Arabian civilisation, and in the north later by the Aramaic-based (including the Aramaic-speaking Arabs) civilisations.

I have even seen one dual Arabic/Musnad inscription that seems to be from the very early Islamic period.



rayloom said:


> The 1st century BC inscription of Qaryat Dhat Kaahil (unfortunately can't find a photo of the actual ESA text inscription):



You can find a picture and translation (to English) of that inscription here. It's more commonly known as Qaryat al-Faw inscription though.


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## rayloom

Abu Rashid said:


> You can find a picture and translation (to English) of that inscription here. It's more commonly known as Qaryat al-Faw inscription though.



Ah thanks for the link.


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## WadiH

rayloom said:


> Also the article includes some wrong information regarding the Nabateans. The Nabateans are mentioned in Classical Arabic literature of the 7th century, as normal urbanized Arabs (speaking Arabic) living to the North, not as "black, barefoot, with cloven heels". That description, included in the study and attributed to Ibn Al-Nadim, actually describes a dream!
> Such instances of mentioning the Nabateans in Classical Arabic literature; from a long Hadith: بينا أنا أمشي في سوق المدينة ، إذا نبطي من نبط أهل الشام ، ممن قدم بالطعام يبيعه بالمدينة . يقول : من يدل على كعب بن مالك . قال فطفق الناس يشيرون له إلي . حتى جاءني فدفع إلي كتابا من ملك غسان
> "While I was walking in the market of Madina, there was a Nabatean from the Levant, who had come with food to sell in Madina, saying: Who can guide me to Ka'b bin Maalik. The people pointed him to me, until he reached me and gave me a letter from the Ghassanid king".
> (There are other mentions of them in other Hadiths as well, searching for instances of نبط or نبطي in Classical Arabic poetry is really difficult since it would return a type of modern Arabic poetry called Nabati poetry)!
> Other Arabs sometimes looked down on the Nabateans, mostly because they (the Nabateans) didn't know their tribal origins, or because they were more attached to the land.



The references to _nbT _in Islamic literature are vague and cannot simply be taken as references to the Nabateans of Petra and Al-Hijr.  Mostly, it seems that the Muslims used _nbT _to refer to the Aramaic-speaking peoples of southern Iraq.  It was already a very old term at that time and it's likely that its meaning had already changed substantially and that its original meaning had been forgotten.  It may even be unrelated to the _nbT_ of the North Arabian inscriptions.



> If you check an Arabic grammar book, you'd find that tī is in fact an Arabic (feminine) demonstrative pronoun, along with:
> ذي، ذهْ، ذهِ ، ذهي، تا، تي، تهْ، تهِ، تهي، ذات . مع هاء التنبيه : هذي ، هذهْ ، هذهِ ، هذهي
> as feminine demonstrative pronouns (from online source on Arabic grammar).



Indeed and it is still in use today in southern Saudi Arabia.


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## Hulalessar

berndf said:


> The Phoenician alphabet was phonemic and not syllabic.



Gelb (_A Study of Writing_) argues to the contrary. He suggests that having regard to the systems which preceded it, each sign must have been conceived as basically or first representing _consonant + any vowel_. Whether he is right or wrong, the fact is that the morphology of Semitic languages is such that indicating all vowels systematically was (and indeed still is) not felt to be needed. From the point of view of the reader whether each sign is _consonant + any vowel_ or simply _consonant_ is academic since the vowel must be supplied.

With respect to the way this thread has developed Gelb is worth quoting:

"Many years ago I observed that wherever there is an extended discussion in the history of writing, involving dozens of divergent opinions on the formal derivation of a certain system, the basic assumption becomes suspicious. Either the discussion should be limited because the derivation is simple and generally accepted - as in the case of the derivation of Greek writing from some form of Semitic - or the listing of many differing opinions only tends to prove that no correct interpretation of a formal derivation exists, as in the case of the Germanic runes." (op. cit.)


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## rayloom

Wadi Hanifa said:


> The references to _nbT _in Islamic literature are vague and cannot simply be taken as references to the Nabateans of Petra and Al-Hijr.  Mostly, it seems that the Muslims used _nbT _to refer to the Aramaic-speaking peoples of southern Iraq.  It was already a very old term at that time and it's likely that its meaning had already changed substantially and that its original meaning had been forgotten.  It may even be unrelated to the _nbT_ of the North Arabian inscriptions.



Yes I agree. The term NabaT is used quite loosly in Early Arabic literature. There is a reference to Nabat Al-Iraq, and to Nabat Al-Sham (Nabat ash-sham).
Some ancient historians have attempted to trace their (the Nabat's) lineages back to Arameans, and that's probably due to the Nabat's speech being affected by Aramaic.

For a lack of a better source now, I'll cite this not-so-scientific article: "We must also take care to avoid confusing them with a Mesopotamian group  known among Arab historians as Nabat al-Irak. Our Nabateans, the great  desert traders who had their capital at *Petra*, who founded *Avdat* and other cities in the *Negev*, were the Nabat ash-Sham of Arab history. They made their first definite appearance in 312 BC".

Also (from a different article): "      Second, there were the Nabat al-Sham or Nabataeans of Damascus.       As you will discover later, the Nabataeans controlled Damascus       during the time of the Apostle Paul, and perhaps these Nabataeans       were descendants of the Nabataeans from Damascus. The distinction       between these two groups of Nabataeans is outlined very well       in an article in the Encyclopedia of Islam Volume VII, under       "Nabat.""

Unfortunately I can't reach the source of this information, which is David Graf's publications and articles (he has written the entry in Encyclopedia of Islam mentioned earlier). 
If anyone can reach the source, I would be really grateful.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> From the point of view of the reader whether each sign is _consonant + any vowel_ or simply _consonant_ is academic since the vowel must be supplied.


It would be completely new to me it every consonant had to be followed by vowel (and please, don't talk of a "phonemic null-vowel" in this context).


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## Hulalessar

berndf said:


> It would be completely new to me it every consonant had to be followed by vowel (and please, don't talk of a "phonemic null-vowel" in this context).




What I meant was: "From the point of view of the reader whether the system is a syllabary or a consonantal alphabet is academic since the vowel must be supplied."

If you are brought up with the roman script and approach the Phoenician script and find a significant, if not total, lack of vowel representation, you are going to describe it as consonantal compared to the roman script where all vowels are indicated. I think the point that Gelb is making is that each letter can be conceived as representing a consonant + any vowel but that, the system lacking any sign for vowel cancellation, each letter can where required be read as a consonant. In this respect it may be noted that there are instances of writing systems (notably the Akhadian syllabary as used to write Hittite and the Gurmukhi script as used to write Punjabi) where, in consonant clusters or at the end of syllables, syllabic signs not bearing any vowel cancellation sign are used to indicate consonants only. 

Gelb's argument is too long to set out, but essentially he is saying that when describing any writing system it needs to be considered in its historical context.

Anyway, the point of my previous post was not to argue that Gelb is right, but rather to point out that your view that the Phoenician alphabet was phonemic and not syllabic is not shared by all.


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