1.
Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr
–
Imru al-Qays ibn Amr was the second Lakhmid king. His mother was Maria bint Amr, the sister of Kab al-Azdi and he was the first Lakhmid king to convert to Christianity. Al-Tabari states that he ruled for the Persians in all the land of the Arabs in Iraq, Hejaz and Mesopotamia. Imru al-Qays is called in his inscription, The king of all Arabs who owned the crown. The same inscription mentions that Imru al-Qays reached as far as Najran and besieged it from the king, some scholars have identified Imru al-Qays ibn Amr in some South Arabian inscriptions with that one. In those same inscriptions his name is mentioned along with Shammar Yahrish, the epitaph, the Namara inscription, is one of the earliest examples of Arabic
2.
Nabataean alphabet
–
The Nabataean alphabet is a consonantal alphabet that was used by the Nabataeans in the 2nd century BC. Important inscriptions are found in Petra, Jordan, and Sinai, the alphabet is descended from the Syriac alphabet, which was itself descended from the Aramaic alphabet. As compared to other Aramaic-derived scripts, Nabataean developed more loops and ligatures, the ligatures seem to have not been standardized and vary across time and space. There were no spaces between words, numerals in Nabataean script were built from characters of 1,2,3,4,5,10,20, and 100. Note that the Syriac and Arabic alphabets are always cursive and that some of their letters look different in medial or initial position, see Aramaic alphabet § Letters for a more detailed comparison of letterforms. The Nabataean alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0
3.
Arabic
–
Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
4.
Nabataean Arabic
–
The Nabataean language was the Western Aramaic variety spoken by the Nabataeans of the Negev, the east bank of the Jordan River and the Sinai Peninsula. During the early Islamic Golden Age, some Arab historians applied this terms collectively to other, eastern Aramaic languages in the Babylonian alluvial plain of Iraq, with the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire, the Aramaic language also increasingly lost importance as the lingua franca of the Near East. The Greek language now appeared beside it, the formerly unified written culture fell apart into local schools and the old dialects now also increased in importance as written languages. The Nabataean language was one of these local developments, the language of the Nabataean inscriptions, attested from the 2nd century BC, shows a local development of the Aramaic language. The Nabatean language was an offshoot of Imperial Aramaic, with increasing immigration of nomadic Arab tribes, the Nabatean language became increasingly influenced by Arabic. From the Islamic era, the Arabic influence became overwhelming, in a way that it may be said the Nabataean language shifted seamlessly from Aramaic to Arabic, scholars used to be divided over the origins of Arabic script. One school of thought dates the Arabic script to the Syriac script, the second school of thought, led by T. Noldeke, traces Arabic script to Nabatean. This thesis was confirmed and fully documented by J. Healey in his work on the Syriac, Nabatean language was always linguistically influenced by its historical and geographical context. Nabatean was initially used by Aramaic speakers, and therefore drew much influence from the Aramaic vocabulary. But at the beginning of the 4th century and it was increasingly used by Arab speakers, and therefore began to draw influence from Arabic. This, according to Semitists specialist Cantineau, marked to beginning of the end of the use of the Nabatean language. During this process, Nabatean seems to have emptied itself little by little of the Aramaic elements it had and this theory, while widely acknowledged, is contested. M. OConnor argues that while Cantineaus theory may be true, his method of research to reach such conclusion is lacking. There are further Nabataean texts from Qumran, the first Nabatean inscription was found in Elusa, which is now the Negev area in Israel. The inscription mentions Aretas, king of the Nabateans, therefore, some scholars claim the earliest Nabatean inscription was found in Petra, Jordan, which can be dated back to the late Hellenistic Era in the years 96 or 95 BCE. Over 4,000 excavated inscriptions have confirmed to be written in the Nabatean language. Most of the Nabatean inscriptions found are either burial designations or formal designations, the earliest inscription found to be written in cursive Nabatean was unearthed in Horvat Raqiq, close to the city of Beersheba, Israel. This inscription is not only because of its age
5.
Nabataeans
–
100, gave the name of Nabatene to the borderland between Arabia and Syria, from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. They were later converted to Christianity, jane Taylor, a writer, describes them as one of the most gifted peoples of the ancient world. The Nabataeans were one among several nomadic tribes roamed the Arabian Desert, moving with their herds to wherever they could find pasture. These nomads became familiar with their area as seasons passed, although the Nabataeans were initially embedded in Aramaic culture, theories about them having Aramean roots are rejected by modern scholars. Instead, historical, religious and linguistic evidence confirm that they are a northern Arabian tribe, the precise origin of this specific tribe of Arab nomads remains uncertain. One hypothesis locates their original homeland in todays Yemen, in the south-west of the Arabian peninsula, however, their deities, language, another hypothesis argues that they came from the eastern coast of the Peninsula. The Nabataeans might have originated there and migrated west between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE into northwestern Arabia and much of what is now modern-day Jordan. Nabataeans have been associated with other groups of people. Another misconception is their identification with the Nebaioth of the Hebrew Bible, unlike the rest of the Arabian tribes, the Nabataeans later emerged as vital players in the region during their times of prosperity. However, they later faded and were forgotten, the Nabataeans had already some tincture of foreign culture when they first appear in history. They occupied Hauran, and in about 85 BCE their king Aretas III became lord of Damascus, proper names on their inscriptions suggest that they were ethnically Arabs who had come under Aramaic influence. Starcky identifies the Nabatu of southern Arabia as their ancestors, onomastic analysis has suggested that Nabataean culture may have had multiple influences. Their arid country was their best safeguard, for the bottle-shaped cisterns for rain-water which they excavated in the rocky or clay-rich soil were carefully concealed from invaders, the extent of Nabataean trade resulted in cross-cultural influences that reached as far as the Red Sea coast of southern Arabia. The gods worshipped at Petra were notably Dushara and al-‘Uzzá, the Nabataeans used to represent their gods as featureless pillars or blocks. Their most common monuments to the gods, commonly known as god blocks, however, the Nabataeans became so influenced by other cultures such as those of Greece and Rome that their gods eventually became anthropomorphic and were represented with human features. The Nabataean alphabet itself developed out of the Aramaic alphabet. The Aramaic language was affected by the Arabic language, as Arab influence grew in the region over time. From the 4th century, the Arabic influence becomes overwhelming, in a way that it may be said the Nabataean language shifted seamlessly from Aramaic to Arabic, the Arabic alphabet itself developed out of cursive variants of the Nabataean script in the 5th century
6.
Aramaic
–
Aramaic is a language or group of languages belonging to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic language family. More specifically, it is part of the Northwest Semitic group, the Aramaic alphabet was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic alphabets. During its approximately 3000 years of history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires, therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language, each time and place rather has had its own variation. The Aramaic languages are now considered endangered, Aram is used as a proper name of several people in the Torah including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram, bordering northern Israel and now called Syria, is considered the epicenter of Aramaic. The language is often considered to have originated within Assyria. Interestingly, the Christian New Testament, for which the constituent texts are written in Koine Greek. The Hellenized Jewish community of Alexandria instead translated Aramaic to the Syrian tongue, a related language, Mlahsô, has recently become extinct. Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan Province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq and it is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Central Neo-Aramaic consists of Turoyo and the recently extinct Mlahsô, very little remains of Western Aramaic. All these speakers of Modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic are preserved in liturgical and literary usage. Each dialect of Aramaic has its own pronunciation, and it would not be feasible here to go into all these properties. Aramaic has a palette of 25 to 40 distinct phonemes. The open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel and it usually has a back counterpart, and a front counterpart. There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects, there is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short a and short e. In West Syriac dialects, and possibly Middle Galilean, the long a became the o sound, the open e and back a are often indicated in writing by the use of the letters א alaph or ה he. The close front vowel is the long i and it has a slightly more open counterpart, the long e, as in the final vowel of café. Both of these have shorter counterparts, which tend to be pronounced more open
7.
Typographic ligature
–
In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes or letters are joined as a single glyph. An example is the character æ as used in English, in which the letters a and e are joined, the common ampersand developed from a ligature in which the handwritten Latin letters e and t were combined. The origin of typographical ligatures comes from the invention of writing with a stylus on fibrous material or clay, the earliest known script, Sumerian cuneiform, includes many cases of character combinations that, over time, gradually evolve from ligatures into separately recognizable characters. Ligatures figure prominently in many manuscripts, notably the Brahmic abugidas. Medieval scribes who wrote in Latin increased their speed by combining characters. Others conjoined letters for aesthetic purposes, for example, in blackletter, letters with right-facing bowls and those with left-facing bowls were written with the facing edges of the bowls superimposed. In many script forms, characters such as h, m, scribes also used notational abbreviations to avoid having to write a whole character in one stroke. Manuscripts in the century employed hundreds of such abbreviations. In hand writing, a ligature is made by joining two or more characters in atypical fashion by merging their parts or by writing one above or inside the other. While in printing, a ligature is a group of characters that is typeset as a unit, for example, in some cases the fi ligature prints the letters f and i with a greater separation than when they are typeset as separate letters. When printing with movable type was invented around 1450, typefaces included many ligatures and additional letters, Ligatures began to fall out of use due to their complexity in the 20th century. Sans serif typefaces, increasingly used for text, generally avoid ligatures, though notable exceptions include Gill Sans. Inexpensive phototypesetting machines in the 1970s also generally avoid them, the trend was further strengthened by the desktop publishing revolution starting around 1977 with the production of the Apple II. Early computer software in particular had no way to allow for ligature substitution, as most of the early PC development was designed for the English language dependence on ligatures did not carry over to digital. Ligature use fell as the number of traditional hand compositors and hot metal typesetting machine operators dropped since the mass of the IBM Selectric brand of electric typewriter in 1961. A designer active in the period commented, some of the world’s greatest typefaces were quickly becoming some of the world’s worst fonts, Ligatures have grown in popularity over the last 20 years due to an increasing interest in creating typesetting systems that evoke arcane designs and classical scripts. One of the first computer typesetting programs to take advantage of computer-driven typesetting was Donald Knuths TeX program, now the standard method of mathematical typesetting, its default fonts are explicitly based on nineteenth-century styles. Many new fonts feature extensive ligature sets, these include FF Scala, Seria and others by Martin Majoor, mrs Eaves by Zuzana Licko contains a particularly large set to allow designers to create dramatic display text with a feel of antiquity
