Origins
The Arabic alphabet evolved either from the Nabataean, or (less widely believed) from the Syriac. This table shows changes undergone by the shapes of the letters from the Aramaic original to the Nabataean and Syriac forms. Arabic is placed in the middle for clarity and not to mark a time order of evolution. It should be noted that the Arabic script represented in the table below is that of post-Classical and Modern Arabic, not 6th century Arabic script which is of a notably different form.
It seems that the Nabataean alphabet became the Arabic alphabet thus:
- In the 6th and 5th centuries BC, north-Semitic tribes emigrated and founded a kingdom centered around Petra, Jordan. These people (now named Nabataeans from the name of one of the tribes, Naba?u), probably spoke a form of Arabic.
- In the 2nd century AD, the first known records of the Nabataean alphabet were written, in the Aramaic language (which was the language of communication and trade), but including some Arabic language features: the Nabataeans did not write the language which they spoke. They wrote in a form of the Aramaic alphabet, which continued to evolve; it separated into two forms: one intended for inscriptions (known as "monumental Nabataean") and the other, more cursive and hurriedly written and with joined letters, for writing on papyrus. This cursive form influenced the monumental form more and more and gradually changed into the Arabic alphabet.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Arabic Alphabet
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