History of The Arabic Alphabet - Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions

Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions

The first recorded text in the Arabic alphabet was written in 512. It is a trilingual dedication in Greek, Syriac and Arabic found at Zabad in Syria. The version of the Arabic alphabet used includes only 22 letters, of which only 15 are different, being used to note 28 phonemes:-

• Note that the letters in the first line are not Aramaic letters but rather the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet.

Around 50,000 Arabian inscriptions survive from the pre-Islamic era, most of which are in Ancient North Arabian languages. However these are written in alphabets borrowed from epigraphic South Arabian alphabets. Such as:

• The Thamudic, Lihyanic, Taymanitic, Dumaitic and Safaitic inscriptions in the north.
• Hasaitic in the eastern part of Arabia
• Hismaic in the southern parts of central Arabia.

Preclassical and Classical Arabic are attested in only a small number of inscriptions, and even fewer are in the Arabic alphabet. For example:

• Preclassical Arabic inscriptions dating to the 1st century BC from Qaryat Al-Faw, written in Epigraphic South Arabian alphabets.
• Nabataean inscriptions in Aramaic and Arabic. Written in Nabatean alphabets.
• Pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions in the Arabic alphabet: these are very few, with only 5 known for certain. These mostly do not use dots, making them sometimes difficult to interpret, as many letters are the same shape as other letters. I.e. they are written with rasm only.

Here are the inscriptions in the Arabic alphabet, and the inscriptions in the Nabataean alphabet that show the beginnings of Arabic-like features.

Cursive Nabataean writing changed into Arabic writing, likeliest between the dates of the an-Namāra inscription and the Jabal Ramm inscription. Most writing would have been on perishable materials, such as papyrus. As it was cursive, it was liable to change. The epigraphic record is extremely sparse, with only five certainly pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions surviving, though some others may be pre-Islamic.

The Nabataean alphabet was designed to write 22 phonemes, but Arabic has 28 phonemes; thus, when used to write the Arabic language, 6 of its letters must each represent two phonemes:
d also represented ð,
ħ also represented kh %,
ṭ also represented ẓ,
ayin also represented gh %,
ṣ also represented ḍ,%,
t also represented þ.
: In the cases marked %, the choice was influenced by etymology, as Common Semitic kh and gh became Hebrew ħ and ayin respectively.

As cursive Nabataean writing evolved into Arabic writing, the writing became largely joined-up. Some the letters became the same shape as other letters, producing more ambiguities, as in the table:

There the Arabic letters are listed in the traditional Levantine order but are written in their current forms, for simplicity. The letters which are the same shape have coloured backgrounds. The second value of the letters that represent more than one phoneme is after a comma. In these tables, ğ is j as in English "June".
In the Arabic language, the g sound seems to have changed into j in fairly late pre-Islamic times, and seems not to have happened in those tribes who invaded Egypt and settled there.

When a letter was at the end of a word, it often developed an end loop, and as a result most Arabic letters have two or more shapes.
b and n and t became the same.
y became the same as b and n and t except at the ends of words.
j and ħ became the same.
z and r became the same.
s and sh became the same.

After all this, there were only 17 letters which are different in shape. One letter-shape represented 5 phonemes (b t th n and sometimes y), one represented 3 phonemes (j ħ kh), and 5 each represented 2 phonemes. Compare the Hebrew alphabet, as in the table at .

(An analogy can be the Roman alphabet uppercase letters I and J: in the German Fraktur font they look the same but are officially different letters.)