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Safaitic
Script type
Abjad
Time period
1st century BCE to 4th century CE
Languages
Old Arabic
Related scripts
Parent systems
Proto-Sinaitic script
South Semitic script
Safaitic
Sister systems
Ancient North Arabian, Ancient South Arabian script, Ge'ez script
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Safaitic (Arabic: ٱلصَّفَائِيَّةAl-Ṣafāʾiyyah) is a variety of the South Semitic scripts used by the Arabs in southern Syria and northern Jordan in Ḥarrah region, to carve rock inscriptions in various dialects of Old Arabic and Ancient North Arabian. The Safaitic script is a member of the Ancient North Arabian (ANA) sub-grouping of the South Semitic script family, the genetic unity of which has yet to be demonstrated.[1]
Safaitic script with a figure of a camel on a red sandstone fragment, from es-Safa, currently housed in the British Museum
^Al-Jallad, Ahmad. An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions. Brill. pp. 1–22. doi:10.1163/9789004289826_002.
Safaitic (Arabic: ٱلصَّفَائِيَّة Al-Ṣafāʾiyyah) is a variety of the South Semitic scripts used by the Arabs in southern Syria and northern Jordan in Ḥarrah...
before Islam. Various forms of Old Arabic are attested in scripts like Safaitic, Hismaic, Nabatean, and even Greek. More occasionally, the term is used...
period as the Safaitic, i.e. first century BC to fourth century AD, though there is even less dating evidence in the case of Hismaic. Safaitic is the name...
may have been used to write Safaitic dialects of Old Arabic, but the language of most inscriptions differs from Safaitic in a few important respects,...
Petra and Madain Saleh (of which city he was the patron).[citation needed] Safaitic inscriptions imply he was the son of Al-Lat, and that he assembled in the...
Safaitic, and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and...
throughout the Hellenistic period. Many ancient scripts, such as Etruscan, Safaitic, and Sabaean, were frequently or even typically written boustrophedon....
Al-Jallad, "Script and Orthography", An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions (Brill, 2015), p. 26. Michael Everson and Michael Macdonald...
considered part of the definition of graffiti. The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched...
AD in the Greek alphabet in a dialect showing affinities to that of the Safaitic inscriptions shows that short final high vowels had been lost in at least...
into modern Arabic script around the 4th century. This is attested by Safaitic inscriptions (beginning in the 1st century BCE) and the many Arabic personal...
Some Bedouin still maintain their traditional way of life in the desert. Safaitic inscriptions, proto-Arabic texts written by literate Bedouin, are found...
in use. The most important of these alphabets and inscriptions are the Safaitic inscriptions, amounting to 30,000 inscriptions discovered in the Levant...
Nabataean Arabic Nabataean Script Ancient North Arabian Dadanitic Hismaic Safaitic Taymanitic Thamudic Aramaic Armazic Eastern Aramaic Western Aramaic Imperial...
linguistic variety that is not Arabic and not closely related to Hismaic or Safaitic, while it can tentatively be suggested that it was more closely related...
Arabia and Syria which not only recorded ancient forms of Arabic, such as Safaitic and Hismaic, but also of pre-Arabic languages previously spoken in the...
Greek transcriptions of Arabic from the area. This may have occurred in Safaitic as well, making it a possible Northern Old Arabic isogloss. Nabataean א...
(however, Safaitic and Hismaic are not strictly Arabic, but Ancient North Arabian dialects, and written Nabataean is an Aramaic dialect): Safaitic (over 13...
Proto-Arabic Old Arabic Ancient North Arabian Dadanitic Dumaitic Hasaitic Hismaic Safaitic Taymanitic Thamudic Nabataean Arabic Pre-classical Arabic Literary Classical...
Nabataean Arabic Nabataean Script Ancient North Arabian Dadanitic Hismaic Safaitic Taymanitic Thamudic Aramaic Armazic Eastern Aramaic Western Aramaic Imperial...
word-initially. Ancient North Arabian – Dadanitic, Dumaitic, Hasaitic, Hismaic, Safaitic, Taymanitic, and Thamudic Ancient South Arabian – Old South Arabian languages...
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