‫ۘۢٷڷ۠ٷۨۢۙ۝ۦۍڷۣۚڷۣۣ۠ۜۗۑڷۙۜۨڷۣۚڷۢ۝ۨۙ۠۠۩‪ψ‬‬ ‫ۧۙ۝ۘ۩ۨۑڷۢٷۗ۝ۦۚۆ‬ ‫ۍۑ‪ۛҖψ‬ۦۣ‪ۘۛۙғ‬۝ۦۖۡٷۗ‪۠ۧғ‬ٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞‪ҖҖ‬ۃۤۨۨۜ‬ ‫‪ỀặặẰếẴẹΝẺằΝếẳẰΝẮẳẺẺặΝẺằ‬ڷۦۣۚڷۧۙۗ۝۪ۦۙۧڷ۠ٷۣۢ۝ۨ۝ۘۘۆ‬ ‫‪ẽẴẰẹếẬặΝẬẹắΝằẽẴẮẬẹΝếỀắẴẰẾ‬‬ ‫ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۝۠‪Ө‬ڷۃۧۨۦۙ۠ٷڷ۠۝ٷۡٮ‬ ‫ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۝۠‪Ө‬ڷۃۣۧۢ۝ۨۤ۝ۦۗۧۖ۩ۑ‬ ‫ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۝۠‪Ө‬ڷۃۧۨۢ۝ۦۤۙۦڷ۠ٷ۝ۗۦۣۙۡۡ‪Ө‬‬ ‫ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۝۠‪Ө‬ڷۃڷۙۧ۩ڷۣۚڷۧۡۦۙے‬ ‫ۡ‪ۚʿ‬ٱڷۢۖڷ۠ۖۖېڷۙۜۨڷۣۚڷۘۢ۩ۣۦۛ۟ۗٷۖڷۗ۝ۨۙۢۙۛڷۙۜۨڷۢۍ‬ ‫۫ ٯ‪۠Ғ‬ٷڷۨٷۺۦٷۏڷۨٷڷۣۢ۝ۨۤ۝ۦۗۧۢ۝ڷ۪ۙٷۦۛ‬ ‫ۘٷ۠۠ٷ‪۠ҒЂ‬ۆڷۘٷۡۜۆ‬ ‫‪Ғ‬ڷڽڷۤۤڷۃۀڽڼھڷۦۙۖۡۙۨۤۙۑڷ‪Җ‬ڷۙ۠ۗ۝ۨۦۆڷ‪όẴẽẾếạẴẰỂ‬ڷ‪Җ‬ڷۧۙ۝ۘ۩ۨۑڷۢٷۗ۝ۦۚۆڷۘۢٷڷ۠ٷۨۢۙ۝ۦۍڷۣۚڷۣۣ۠ۜۗۑڷۙۜۨڷۣۚڷۢ۝ۨۙ۠۠۩‪ψ‬‬ ‫ڽھ‬ ‫ۀڽڼھڷۦۙۖۡۙۨۤۙۑڷۀڼڷۃۙۢ۝ۣ۠ۢڷۘۙۜۧ۝۠ۖ۩ێڷۃۀھ‪Ң‬ڼڼڼۀڽﯥۀۀۂڽۀڼڼۑ‪Җ‬ۀڽڼڽ‪ғ‬ڼڽڷۃٲۍ‪ө‬‬ ‫ۀھ‪Ң‬ڼڼڼۀڽﯥۀۀۂڽۀڼڼۑٵۨۗٷۦۨۧۖٷ‪ۛҖ‬ۦۣ‪ۘۛۙғ‬۝ۦۖۡٷۗ‪۠ۧғ‬ٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞‪ҖҖ‬ۃۤۨۨۜڷۃۙ۠ۗ۝ۨۦٷڷۧ۝ۜۨڷۣۨڷ۟ۢ۝ۋ‬ ‫ۃۙ۠ۗ۝ۨۦٷڷۧ۝ۜۨڷۙۨ۝ۗڷۣۨڷۣ۫ٱ‬ ‫ۨٷڷۣۢ۝ۨۤ۝ۦۗۧۢ۝ڷ۪ۙٷۦۛڷۡ‪ۚʿ‬ٱڷۢۖڷ۠ۖۖېڷۙۜۨڷۣۚڷۘۢ۩ۣۦۛ۟ۗٷۖڷۗ۝ۨۙۢۙۛڷۙۜۨڷۢۍڷۘٷ۠۠ٷ‪۠ҒЂ‬ۆڷۘٷۡۜۆ‬ ‫ۣۢڷۙ۠ۖٷ۠۝ٷ۪ۆڷۃۧۙ۝ۘ۩ۨۑڷۢٷۗ۝ۦۚۆڷۘۢٷڷ۠ٷۨۢۙ۝ۦۍڷۣۚڷۣۣ۠ۜۗۑڷۙۜۨڷۣۚڷۢ۝ۨۙ۠۠۩‪ψ‬ڷ‪ ۫ғ‬ٯ‪۠Ғ‬ٷڷۨٷۺۦٷۏ‬ ‫ۀھ‪Ң‬ڼڼڼۀڽﯥۀۀۂڽۀڼڼۑ‪Җ‬ۀڽڼڽ‪ғ‬ڼڽۃ۝ۣۘڷۀڽڼھڷۍ‪ӨЂ‬‬ ‫ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۝۠‪Ө‬ڷۃڷۣۧۢ۝ۧۧ۝ۡۦۙێڷۨۧۙ۩ۥۙې‬ ‫ۀڽڼھڷۨۗۍڷۀڽڷۣۢڷہڿڽ‪ғ‬ۀڼھ‪ғ‬ۂھھ‪ғ‬ھڿڽڷۃۧۧۙۦۘۘٷڷێٲڷۃۍۑ‪ۛҖψ‬ۦۣ‪ۘۛۙғ‬۝ۦۖۡٷۗ‪۠ۧғ‬ٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞‪ҖҖ‬ۃۤۨۨۜڷۣۡۦۚڷۘۙۘٷۣۣ۠ۢ۫‪ө‬‬ Bulletin of SOAS, Page 1 of 21. © SOAS, University of London, 2014. doi:10.1017/S0041977X14000524 On the genetic background of the Rbbl bn Hfʿm grave inscription at Qaryat al-Fāw1 Ahmad Al-Jallad Leiden University a.m.al-jallad@hum.leidenuniv.nl Abstract It is widely believed that the Rbbl bn Hfʿm grave inscription found at Qaryat al-Fāw is the earliest example of Old Arabic. The ten-line inscription – written in the Sabaic script – attests the common Arabic definite article, ʾl, plus several other non-Sabaic linguistic features. I argue that the definite article is not a suitable diagnostic of genetic affiliation, and other features, such as mimation, the conjunction ʿdky, and more, should also be given consideration. Through a close linguistic examination based on the principle of shared morphological innovations, I demonstrate that none of the morphological innovations which characterize Arabic are attested in this inscription. As such, its language is probably not a descendant of proto-Arabic. Our results further suggest that the ʾl- article, which has previously been used as a marker of Arabic, was simply one of many definite article forms which spread to Arabic, and other Semitic languages of Arabia, through areal diffusion. Keywords: Arabic, Ancient North Arabian, Linguistic classification, Pre-Islamic Arabia, Semitic linguistics, Ancient South Arabian 1. Introduction Old Arabic has been defined as the corpus of Arabic inscriptions produced in the pre-Islamic period. Like Old Aramaic, the Old Arabic corpus exhibits considerable internal diversity, and many features attested in these inscriptions preclude them from being the predecessors of Classical Arabic.2 Macdonald (2000: 61) defined this corpus as consisting of the inscriptions shown in Table 1. The list in Table 1 includes all specimens that were composed fully in the Arabic language, in any script. Macdonald’s original list was reduced in his (2008) contribution to the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, 1 Abbreviations: ASA = Ancient South Arabian; ANA = Ancient North Arabian; PS = Proto-Semitic; CS: Central Semitic; PCS: Proto-Central Semitic; QCT = Quranic Consonantal Text (the rasm). I thank John Huehnergard, Michael C.A. Macdonald and Na’ama Pat-El for their helpful comments and improvements on an earlier draft of this paper. I also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful insights and improvements. Any errors are of course my own. 2 For example, the word ršw (=/rāsū/ <*raʾasū) ‘they became chief men’ in the Namāra inscription (328 CE) indicates that the glottal stop has already disappeared in this dialect, ruling out the possibility of it being ancestral to Classical Arabic, which retains this feature. 2 AHMAD AL-JALLAD Table 1. Traditional Corpus of Old Arabic texts (following Macdonald 2000: 61) Inscription Script Location and date ʿIgl bn Hfʿm JSLih 384 ʿēn ʿAvdat lines 4–5 Namara inscription Umm al-Jimāl Zebed Jabal Usays Harrān Psalter (Psalm) fragment Ancient South Arabian Dadanitic Nabataean Nabataean Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Greek Qaryat al-Faw 1st c. BC (?) Dadan Pre-1st c. AD (?) ʿēn ʿAvdat, Negev (?) Al-Namāra, S. Syria AD 328 Umm al-Jimāl, Jordan 6th c. Zebed, N. Syria AD 512 S. Syria AD 528 Lejā, S. Syria AD 568 Syria ? (?) in which he followed Mavroudi’s (2008) dating of the Psalm fragment to the ninth century.3 Hoyland (2010: 39–40) has recently been able to show that the Jabal Ramm inscription4 should be omitted from the corpus of Old Arabic. It turns out that the text was composed in formulaic Nabataean.5 The Umm al-Jimāl inscription is certainly pre-Islamic, as it is at the base of one end of an arch of a pre-Islamic church, but the stone is in such bad condition that it has so far been impossible to produce an accurate reading from the photographs alone.6 In this article, I will discuss the language of the Rbbl bn Hfʿm epitaph and reassess its status as an example of Old Arabic. 2. How to determine genetic affiliation Up to now all scholars have accepted the Rbbl grave inscription’s place in the Old Arabic category, perhaps on account of the article ʾl and its assimilation to sibilants, along with a few other non-Sabaic features. M.C.A. Macdonald has already expressed doubts about the adequacy of the article as a diagnostic of genetic classification, and argued that other features should be taken into account.7 Besides the article, it is clear that the remaining features of this text sufficiently distinguish it from ASA, but are they enough to call it Arabic? 3 For a detailed discussion of the dating of the fragment, along with its linguistic characteristics, see Al-Jallad (in preparation). 4 Most scholars before Hoyland considered this inscription a form of Old Arabic, but Macdonald expressed reservations in his 2000 article (n. 171), and omitted it from his corpus of Old Arabic. 5 The graffiti at Jabal Ramm is in a transitional form of the Nabataean script. Hoyland’s most recent reading follows: (1) . . . w br ʿlyw ktb (2) ydh b-ʾrm (3) ḥbybw br . . . b-šlm w-b-ṭb (1) . . . son of ʿlyw wrote (2) with his hand at Iram (3) ḥbybw son of . . . in peace and wellbeing (Hoyland 2010: 39). 6 See Hoyland (2010: 40–41) for the most recent photograph (courtesy of the late Geraldine King). A recent survey of the literature on this inscription can be found in Mascitelli 2006: 171 ff. Note that the readings and interpretations discussed there are highly speculative. 7 For a discussion of some other Arabic isoglosses, see Macdonald 2000: 49. I will argue in this article that the collapse of triphthongs to ā is not a suitable diagnostic feature of Arabic. THE RBBL BN HFʿM GRAVE INSCRIPTION 3 The uncritical identification of this inscription as Arabic seems to have been influenced by a belief that there were only two languages in Arabia in the pre-Islamic period – ASA and Arabic – and that any given inscription must be either one or the other.8 Although our knowledge of pre-Islamic Arabia’s linguistic diversity is still in its infancy, it is now clear that the Arabian Peninsula was home to a wide variety of non-Arabic Semitic languages. Thus the identification of the language of this epitaph as a variety of “Old Arabic” must rest on the identification of isoglosses unique to Arabic rather than features which are simply absent in ASA.9 This brings us to the crux of linguistic classification: which features are relevant for linguistic diagnosis? Most of the grammatical features – the suffix conjugation, clitic pronouns, broken plurals, the preposition mn – are retentions from an earlier stage common to many Semitic languages, not just Arabic, and as such are irrelevant for classification. In the mid-1970s Hetzron re-examined the classification of the Semitic languages, giving priority to morphological innovations over phonological changes, vocabulary and typological similarities.10 Hetzron emphasized the importance of morphological developments which appear in only a segment of a group of related languages. These languages are then assumed to have shared a common ancestor in which these innovations first occurred. Languages that do not exhibit these developments, then, could not have shared the same common ancestor, and are thus considered more remotely related. Moving forward in this way, linguists are able to determine the sub-grouping of a language family. This methodological approach is crucial when examining languages known only from the epigraphic record, as the data are never plentiful and almost always ambiguous.11 Thus, a linguistic definition of “Arabic” is the sum of innovations that distinguish all varieties of Arabic from other sub-groupings of Semitic, including ASA and the languages of the epigraphic North Arabian scripts (ANA).12 8 The same incorrect assumption has influenced the classification of Northwest Semitic inscriptions, namely, that any language must be either Aramaic or Canaanite, as if these were the only two options. On this, see Huehnergard 1991. 9 Some scholars in the past have referred to the Ancient North Arabian languages as “proto-Arabic”. This label is misleading since these languages are in no sense the common ancestor of the Arabic dialects, either modern or ancient. Proto-Arabic must exclusively refer to the reconstructed common ancestor of all varieties of Arabic. 10 These are Hetzron 1974; 1975; 1976. For a balanced discussion of the literature on the internal classification of Semitic, see Huehnergard and Rubin 2011. 11 With the medieval Arabic lexicons handy, it is possible to interpret almost any short inscription as Arabic, if certain grammatical oddities are overlooked. For this reason, morphological features must take precedence over lexical features. One cannot first assume the language of an inscription is Arabic then, after having interpreted it using the Arabic lexica, declare the language to be Arabic. 12 Ancient North Arabian refers first and foremost to the northern varieties of the South Semitic script. As a language family, the term can only be considered a working hypothesis. There are great differences between these languages, and to date no shared innovations linking the members of this category have been identified. The original basis of this category was the shape of the definite article, h-, but this feature is obviously no grounds for the establishment of a new branch. For a discussion on the linguistic classification of the various ANA languages, see Al-Jallad 2015. 4 AHMAD AL-JALLAD Before we approach the inscription itself, two caveats merit discussion: areal features and parallel developments. Areal features are linguistic traits that spread through contact and diffusion, rather than being inherited from a common ancestor. A good example is the conditioned sound change, s1 > h, in CS. Correspondences in the 3 ms clitic pronoun Proto-Semitic *-su Arabic -hu Hebrew -hū13 Sabaic hw14 Minaic -s1(w) This sound change did not operate in the same environments in Minaic, Qatabanic and Hadramitic, but was active in their closest relative, Sabaic. PS *s shifted to h in similar environments elsewhere in CS, in Arabic, Canaanite, Ugaritic, Aramaic, etc. Because this sound change was probably the result of a very early areal phenomenon, one cannot argue on this basis that Sabaic is more closely related to Aramaic than, for example, to Minaic. Areal diffusion is not restricted to phonological phenomena, but can also spread to some classes of morphological features. A good illustrative example is the loss of the /t/ in the feminine ending *at in the CS languages. The shift of *at to ah or ā is relatively common in the CS languages, but it cannot be reconstructed for PCS. In most dialects of Arabic, *at goes to ah, including other later reflexes such as a, e, i, in nouns but not in the 3fs of the suffix conjugation, e.g. katabat, but in some Yemeni dialects, the sound change has spread to verbs as well.15 In Hebrew, it affects both nouns and verbs, in Phoenician it applies to verbs only, and only nouns are affected in Aramaic. The sound change did not operate in Ugaritic, most ANA dialects (except for Dadanitic), the old Tayyi dialect of Arabic, and ASA. This distribution suggests that the sound change *at > ah is the result of diffusion and, as such, cannot be used as an indicator of genetic affiliation. In other words, languages which exhibit this change do not constitute a more closely related group to the exclusion of languages which preserve the final t.16 The importance of distinguishing between innovations and retentions from the proto-language is clearly demonstrated by an example Huehnergard provides in his fundamental article “What is Aramaic?”.17 He points out that Aramaic possesses a 1cs pronoun ʾanā, which more closely resembles Arabic and Ethiopic ʾanā than Hebrew ʾănî and ʾānôkî. On this basis one might argue that Aramaic was more closely related to Arabic, and one would, in fact, be wrong, as the form *ʾanā can be reconstructed to PS. The presence of the same form in Arabic and Aramaic simply reflects independent continuations of an original feature rather than an innovation of a common ancestor shared by Arabic, Aramaic and Ethiopic but not Hebrew. This example will bear on 13 This form occurs after long vowels. 14 Old Sabaic exhibits -h. 15 The 3fs forms katabah and katba are recorded alongside forms preserving the final /t/ (Behnstedt 1985, I, map 71) and even in III-y verbs as subject to this change, e.g. ramah < *ramat ‘she threw’ (ibid., map 95). 16 On the features of CS, see Huehnergard 2005. 17 Huehnergard 1998. THE RBBL BN HFʿM GRAVE INSCRIPTION 5 our interpretation of the features of this inscription, especially the status of the suffix pronouns -h and -hm. 2.1. The role of the article Most scholars would not consider the article a feature of PS, or even of PCS for that matter.18 The article is absent in Ugaritic, in the eighth century BCE Deir ʿAllā and Zincirli inscriptions, in Hismaic, and is relatively rare in early Hebrew poetry and early Aramaic.19 Where it is encountered, the article exhibits such a wide range of morpho-phonological forms that a straightforward reconstruction is unlikely. In Classical Arabic, language of the ANA inscriptions and the Canaanite languages, the article is a prefix, while in ASA and Aramaic it is a suffix. Just as the phonological form of the feminine ending is not suitable for genetic classification, the grammaticalized position of the article – whether a prefix or a suffix – cannot suggest a closer relationship between Aramaic and ASA on the one hand and Arabic, ANA and Canaanite on the other. Instead, these facts point towards the areal diffusion of the definite article following the diversification of PCS.20 If the grammaticalized position of the article does not carry any classificatory weight, then can one really argue that the phonological shape of the article does? Even if one wished to appeal to the peculiar assimilation rules of the article in Arabic, the next question must be: which Arabic? Almost all forms of the CS article exhibit some assimilation. The coda of the h- article assimilates in all environments in Canaanite and most ANA varieties; however, in Dadanitic, the final nasal remains unassimilated before laryngeals.21 If Southern Thamudic in fact attests a hl article, then it would appear that the coda might have shifted to l.22 Thus, it is difficult to consider the phenomenon of assimilation, in and of itself, significant. Within Arabic, there is considerable variation with regard to both the shape and the assimilatory patterns of the article. The Arabic of the grammatical tradition assimilates the coda of the article to coronals, and this became the standard in the imperial language; the ʾal article of the pre-Islamic northern dialects, on the other hand, does not seem to exhibit any assimilation.23 The coda of the article assimilates to both /k/ and /g/ in 18 Pace Voigt 1998; Zaborski 2000. 19 Huehnergard and Rubin 2011: 269; Gzella 2006. 20 See Huehnergard and Rubin (2011: 269–70) on the areal status of the article. Rubin (2005) believes that the article is derived from two PCS demonstratives, while Tropper (2001) traces them back to a single morpheme. Al-Jallad (forthcoming) derives all forms of the article from PCS *han. Pat-El (2009) also argues for an original *han-/ *hal pair and provides an original syntactic explanation for the development of the article. 21 See Ullendorff (1977: 169) for a discussion of these forms. Note also the nonassimilation of the /n/ before q in hnqbr ḏh ‘this grave’ (Winnett 1970: 124). 22 This form has so far only appeared in a personal name, and so does not constitute very strong evidence for the existence of a separate hl article. See Ryckmans 1956. 23 The non-assimilating article was first identified by Macdonald (2000: 51), and is argued for with extensive evidence in Al-Jallad (2015, §5.5). The non-assimilation of the article is unambiguous in Greek transcriptions of Arabic words in the pre-Islamic period, in which case one cannot argue for orthographic or transcriptional conventions, e.g. P. Ness 3, 79/51 Αλθουεθηλ /alṯuwetil/ and P. Petra II αλνααρ /alnahar/ (see Al-Jallad et al. 2013). 6 AHMAD AL-JALLAD Egyptian Arabic, to labials in Dhofar, and in all environments in some Yemeni dialects.24 If one takes the ʾam and ʾan articles as reflexes of an original *ʾal, then one would have to propose two further ad hoc sound changes.25 In no attested variety of Arabic are any such rules productive and therefore it would seem that they spread areally to Arabic with the article itself. Moreover, it is important to point out that the ʾl article is not restricted to Classical Arabic, but is also attested across the varieties written in the ANA scripts. Given the great diversity of article forms and assimilation patterns within Arabic itself, the fact that ʾl is not restricted to Arabic, and that the entire category is the result of areal diffusion, one is not on particularly strong grounds when using the phonological shape of the article as a diagnostic feature.26 Based on these principles, Huehnergard (forthcoming) presented a list of morphological features that should be considered part of the package of innovations which characterize Proto-Arabic.27 While the exact list is still being worked out, one important innovation relevant for our discussion of this inscription is the development of nunation on singular nouns. To this, I would also add the development of a new subordinating conjunction *tay and the form *ḥattay ‘until’ from *ḥadd ‘limit, edge’ + *tay ‘that’.28 The presence or absence of these features can help us determine if the language in question is in fact a descendant of Proto-Arabic.29 3. The inscription30 1 ʿgl/bn/hfʿm/bn/l-ʾh̬h/rbbl/bn/h ʿigl son of hfʿm built for his brother rbbl son of h2 fʿm/qbr/wlhw/wlwldhw/wm fʿm a tomb: both for himself and his child and his w3 rʾth/wwldhw/wwld/wldhm ife, and his children and their children’s children 24 On this form, and the nasal articles, see Behnstedt 2007. 25 /L/ never dissimilates to /m/ in Arabic, so the likely source of this article is the assimilation of n to m before labials, which is attested in Arabic. The invariable am- article, therefore, points towards an original *ʾan, with subsequent levelling. 26 For the same reasons, one does not use the h- article to diagnose a language as Canaanite. The eagerness to identify any language with the ʾl article as Arabic, even against more significant features, has led to the circular conclusion that ʾl only occurs in Arabic. A reassessment of the ANA inscriptions in which ʾl occurs reveals, instead, that it was simply a rarer form of the article, at least in terms of attestation, among these varieties. For further discussion, see below (h). 27 For an expanded list, see Al-Jallad (forthcoming). 28 This etymology is confirmed by a curious by-form which occurs in some Palestinian dialects of Arabic, la-ḥaddīt-ta ‘until’ (Piamenta 1966: 39). *Tay also forms cleft sentences in conjunction with interrogatives: Bsk laš-ta, kīf-ta ‘why’ (Abu-Haidar 1979: 116), and is of course a normal subordinating conjunction in many Arabic dialects. 29 Huehnergard (forthcoming) and Al-Jallad (forthcoming) list many more features, but considering how short and linguistically limited this text is, it is of no use to repeat them here. 30 I follow Beeston’s (1979: 1–6) interpretation. For alternatives, see Al-Ansari 1982; Kropp 1990; Robin 1992; Mascitelli 2006: 102–09. THE RBBL BN HFʿM GRAVE INSCRIPTION 7 4 wnslyhm/hryr/ḏwʾl/ġlwn/f and their women-folk, free members of the lineage of ġlwn so 5 ʾʿḏh/bkhl/wlh/wʿtṟ he has placed it under the protection of khl and lh and ʿtṟ 6 ʾs2rq/mn/ʿzzm/wwnym/w ʾs2rq from strong and weak and 7 s2rym/wmrthnm/ʾbdm purchase or pledge, for all time 8 bn/wkslm/ʿdky/tmṭ without loss, so long as rains 9 r/ʾslmy/dm/wlʾr the sky torrent and the earth 10 ḍ/s2ʿr (produces) herbage 3.1. Features a) Collapse of the triphthong in bn ‘he built’ < *banaya III-w/y verbs did not exhibit exceptional behaviour in PS. In Gəʿəz, these forms inflect normally, banaya -ʾatawa, and Safaitic bny and s2tw indicate that final triphthongs had not collapsed there either.31 The spelling of etymological banaya as bn in this inscription, on the other hand, suggests that *aya contracted to ā, which remained unexpressed in the orthography. This common sound change is by no means restricted to Arabic. It operates regularly in Hebrew and Aramaic, and in both ASA and Ugaritic forms with and without the final triphthong occur. The earliest Phoenician inscriptions preserve triphthongs, but they have collapsed in the later inscriptions. More importantly, however, many older forms of Arabic do not seem to have experienced this change. Consider, for example, the spelling of etymological *banaya in the QCT as bny ‫ﺑﻨﻰ‬, which must reflect either an underlying banē/ banay or banaya, but not banā.32 Indeed, the non-ā reflex is retained in some dialects well into the Umayyad period. One of the Muʿāwiyah dam inscriptions attests the form bny-h, for ‘he built it’, spelled unambiguously as ‫ﺑﻨﻴﻪ‬.33 Likewise, the spelling of the preposition ʿalā in the Jabal Says inscription as ʿly suggests that final tripthongs/diphthongs had not 31 See Macdonald 2004: 511. Safaitic exhibits some confusion with regard to III-w and III-y verbs, but there is no evidence for the collapse of either to ā. 32 Some scholars might suggest that the original form was banā and that the QCT reflects imālah of the final ā. Imālah is one of the most misused terms by Arabists. Imālah does not randomly apply to ā; it is a conditioned sound change that requires a conditioning environment, which is usually the presence of an i-class vowel or y. Calling unconditioned instances of ā > ē imālah is simply restating the problem and does not solve anything. Even if the glyph ‫ ى‬represents ē here, it would suggest that *aya and *awa remained distinct at the proto-stage, as the latter is represented differently, as ‫ا‬, in the orthography. 33 On this inscription, see Miles 1948. Ghabban (2008: 230) takes BNYH as a noun, binyat, but this contradicts the standard formula of such inscriptions, where the finite verb is used. 8 AHMAD AL-JALLAD contracted.34 The cognate of Classical Arabic suflā ‘lowest’ appears as σουwλη /suflē/ in P. Petra 17 (Al-Jallad et al. forthcoming); the name Φασαιελη /phasaielē/ (PAES 792.1) attested in a Greek epitaph from southern Syria likewise indicates that these sequences did not contract to ā as in Classical Arabic.35 There is other scattered evidence to suggest that triphthongs have not collapsed in other older forms of Arabic.36 Huehnergard and Rubin have correctly argued that the reduction of triphthongs is an areal sound change or the result of parallel development.37 Given the nature of this sound change and the fact that triphthongs occasionally collapse in ASA, this single attestation cannot stand as evidence for the genetic identification of this inscription. b) The spelling of the 3 ms pronoun as -h against Sabaic -hw This occurs in the forms l-ʾḫ-h, ʾʿḏ-h, and mrʾt-h. A final -h could suggest that the pronoun terminated with a final short vowel, -hu, or that it was in fact simply -vh; the latter solution, however, would require us to posit that final short vowels were lost in this dialect. Neither of these possibilities constitutes a suitable Arabic isogloss. In fact, the 3 ms clitic pronoun is represented as -h in nearly every consonantal Semitic script. The spelling hw in the same text may suggest the use of the Sabaic form as an ideogram, to be read in the local language.38 The same can explain the occurrence of both hm and hmw. c) The ʾ-causative The PS causative can be reconstructed as *s1aqtil-, the initial sibilant of which is preserved in Akkadian, Ugaritic and the non-Sabaic ASA languages. Sabaic, however, has undergone the sound change s1 > h, which operated in pronouns and other isolated situations, resulting in the form hqtl. H-forms also occur in Canaanite and sometimes in Dadanitic. A presumably secondary sound change h > ʾ occurred, which produced the form *ʾaqtvla from an earlier *haqtvla in the remainder of Ancient North Arabian, Arabic, Aramaic and Ethiopic. Dadanitic exhibits both, but the data are not plentiful enough to determine if these reflect different dialects of Dadanitic or if, indeed, h- and ʾ- forms were in free 34 The original diphthongal value of the final ā in ʿalā is detectable in Hebrew, where vya triphthongs collapse to ā´: PCS banaya > Hb banā´. If the preposition were originally ʿalaya, we would encounter the unattested **ʿalā´. The attested Hebrew form ʿalê is the normal reflex of an unstressed diphthong, *ʿalay. For a discussion of the literature on this reading, see Mascitelli (2006: 178–82). For a new reading of the first line, see Macdonald 2010. 35 The name *faṣay-ʾel ‘El has delivered’ is attested with various spellings, all equally indicating that the triphthong did not contract to ā: Φασηελη (PAES 57, 372, 383, 469, 593); Φασεελη (PAES 210); Φασηηλη (PAES 178) Φασηιλ (PAES 426). 36 For example, Sibawayh states, without specification, that the ʾalif-maqṣurah was realized as ay in pause by some Arabs. He also remarks that the ʾalif-maqṣurah was realized as *ay in Old Ḥ iǧāzī and among some of the Qays in a few words, e.g. ḥublay ‘pregnant’ for Classical Arabic ḥublā; ʾafʿay ‘adder’ for Classical Arabic ʾafʿā (Rabin 1951: 116). 37 The same sound change occurs in Tigré (Baka) and Mehri (Bakō), both from bakaya (Huehnergard and Rubin 2011: 268). 38 Compare this to the use of br in the northern Old Arabic inscriptions, which was surely read as ( ʾi)b(i)n. THE RBBL BN HFʿM GRAVE INSCRIPTION 9 variation.39 In any case, the appearance of an ʾ-form here distinguishes this dialect from any attested form of ASA, to be sure, but at the same time does not ally it more closely with Arabic or ANA, nor does it eliminate the possibility that it is simply a different language altogether. The particular form of this verb, ʾʿḏ, appears to be a causative of a II-w verb (ʿwḏ). With only one example, it is impossible to draw any solid conclusions regarding the status of II-w/y verbs in this language. Huehnergard (2005, n. 75) argued convincingly that these have collapsed at the Proto-Semitic stage, which means their re-emergence in some varieties of Safaitic and Gəʿəz must be secondary. Since the absence of the medial vowel is an archaism, it cannot support a connection specifically with Arabic. d) Mimation Six words in this inscription terminate in non-etymological -m: ʿzzm; wnym; s2rym; mrthnm; ʾbdm; wkslm. The first four words are syntactically in the genitive case. The word ʾbdm is an adverb, and wks1m requires further discussion. Beeston (1979, n. 1) has argued that the final -m’s in this text should be connected with the so-called mā al-ʾibhāmiyyah, which is a post-positive indefinite relative particle mā, implying ‘any’ or ‘whatever’. This ingenious solution is challenged by the occurrence of a final m on the adverb ʾbdm, which Beeston himself had recognized as possibly problematic. He attempted to account for it by explaining the sense of ʾbdm as referring to ‘any stretch of time’. The problem with this interpretation is that the basic noun ʾabad‘time’ does not refer to a stretch of time itself but to time in an absolute sense, not only in Classical Arabic but in Sabaic and Safaitic as well.40 For example, Lane quotes that one would say zamānu kaḏā for ‘the time of such a thing’ and not ʾabadu kaḏā, which refers to ‘time, duration, continuance, or existence without end’ or, in other words, ‘endless time’ (Lane 4b). In this case, it is unlikely that the -m termination should be identified as mā ʾal-ʾibhāmiyyah, which would render the translation: ‘any eternity’ or ‘whatever eternity’. Instead, the correct interpretation of the term is “forever” as an adverbial accusative, identical to what we encounter in Akkadian, e.g. ūmam < *yawmam ‘daily’, and indeed Arabic, ʾabadan. The difference between the Arabic form ʾabadan and the present form ʾbdm is in fact very important; however, to appreciate its significance, we must set mimation and nunation in their Proto-Semitic context. As I have discussed earlier, Proto-Semitic did not possess a formal means of nominal definition; rather, nouns came in two forms, unbound and bound (construct). Unbound forms terminated in -m in the singular and -n in the duals and plurals, as seen in Table 2.41 39 Note that h ~ ʾ variation occurs in different conjugations of the same verb: hqdt (< *hawdaqat) ‘she offered’ beside ʾdq (< *ʾawdaqa) ‘he offered’. See Macdonald 2004: 512. 40 See (j) below. 41 This reconstruction is taken from Huehnergard 2004: 149. Dolgopolsky (1991) and others have suggested that mimation could have originated in older markers of definiteness or indefiniteness, but, even if this were the case, it seems to me that such a function was already defunct at the PS stage. 10 AHMAD AL-JALLAD Table 2. Mimation and nunation in Proto-Semitic Sing.42 Dual Mpl. Unbound (non-construct) Bound (construct) *wāṯibum *wāṯibāna *wāṯibayna *wāṯibūna *wāṯibīna *wāṯibu *wāṯibā *wāṯibay *wāṯibū *wāṯibī Hebrew, for example, levelled the m termination from the singular to the dual and plural as well, producing -āyîm < *-ayna (dual) and -îm < *īna (masculine plural). Conversely, Arabic levelled the n endings of the plural to the singular. The levelling of one of two values across a paradigm is not, in and of itself, a strong isogloss, but given that it occurs so widely among the known varieties of Arabic, I believe Huehnergard is correct to reconstruct the change for Proto-Arabic.43 Its appearance in this text can be interpreted in two ways: (1) the language of the inscription did not participate in a Proto-Arabic innovation, ruling out the possibility that it is a descendant of Proto-Arabic; or (2) that it reflects the influence of a non-Arabic substratum. A comparable situation is the appearance of -k endings on the 1st and 2nd persons of the suffix conjugation in several Yemeni dialects of Arabic.44 It is probably the case that Proto-Arabic levelled the -t endings, as only -t endings are encountered in all of the non-Yemeni attestations, both ancient and modern. In this case, the -k endings in the Yemeni dialects must be due to substrate influence. An argument against substrate influence in the case of mimation, however, is that this inscription was not produced in the ASA heartland, so one would have to assume the existence of yet another substrate language which preserved mimation in order to maintain the Arabic-ness of the current inscription. The simpler solution is to consider mimation part of the language itself. This hypothesis is also supported by the fact that the Sabaic cognate construction would not have carried mimation, k- ʾbd, making it unlikely that ʾbdm was an artificial form. If mimation was indeed part of the language of this inscription, then it would suggest that it did not participate in an important Proto-Arabic innovation, the levelling of nunation to singular nouns. The absence of mimation on the word ḥryr requires further discussion. It is possible that the language of this inscription had a diptotic declension, marked 42 For space, only the nominative form is given. 43 Nunation is ubiquitous in Arabic. It is found in several dialects of Arabic: in Classical Arabic, several Judaeo-Arabic dialects (see Blau 2002: 48), Najdi Arabic, Andalusian Arabic, Central Asian Arabic, and perhaps even in the medieval dialect of Egypt. The latter is attested clearly in an Arabic text written in Coptic letters from the thirteenth century: be-ṣoʿūbeten ʿaẓime ‘with great difficulty’ (Blau 2002: 157). The use of nunation in the latter case appears to reflect the colloquial language of the time rather than an imperfect attempt to write literary Arabic in Coptic characters. Other instances of nunation are not written in Coptic characters, but rather with tanwīn fatḥ. Moreover, vestiges of this feature have been identified in the Safaitic inscriptions (Al-Jallad, forthcoming). 44 On these, see Behnstedt 1985, map 94. THE RBBL BN HFʿM GRAVE INSCRIPTION 11 by the absence of mimation on unbound forms, as in Arabic, and possibly in the pre-history of Ugaritic.45 On the other hand, the word could be interpreted as in construct with a lexicalized ḏwʾl. In the same way that the ʾ- causative indicates that the language under investigation is not ASA, the presence of mimation also makes it highly unlikely that we are dealing with a variety of Arabic.46 e) The words ḥryr, ns1y, and s1my Mascitelli (2006: 104) suggests that the y in the word s1my, ns1y and ḥryr acts mater lectionis for /ā/, but this explanation does not account for the absence of final y on the verb bn in the first line.47 In the word ḥryr, it is relatively clear that 45 Diptotic declension is attested in Ugaritic, but since mimation was already lost, it is impossible to tell if diptote forms also lacked mimation in the earliest stages (Tropper 2000: 304–05). Weninger (2011: 165) suggests that diptotic declension was a CS isogloss. 46 One might also consider the possibility that the scribe was imitating mimation in Sabaic without recognizing its exact function in that language. A similar phenomenon is found in some early Axumite inscriptions, in which nearly every word ends in -m, without significance. The absence of mimation on direct objects, which I will discuss below, and, perhaps the diptotic ḥryr, suggests that this was probably not the case. One of the reviewers of this article suggested that mimation signified emphatic indefiniteness, while the basic indefinite form was unmarked, and definite forms were marked by the article. If this were the case, then it would also represent a unique reanalysis of mimation, resulting in an alignment also distinct from Arabic. 47 This suggestion follows Robin’s (2001) hypothesis that both y and w could act as matres lectionis for /ā/ in ASA and early Arabic. This hypothesis assumes that the phonology of early Arabic was identical to Classical Arabic and that divergences in spelling were simply matters of orthographic practice. There is a growing body of evidence that indicates this was not the case (see, for example, above (a)). Moreover, Robin’s interpretation of the notation of vowels in Sabaic is over simplistic. In his attempt to demonstrate that w and y can signify word-final /ā/, he does not distinguish between etymological *āy and *ay sequences, which have different phonological outcomes in both Arabic and, presumably, in ASA, e.g. *samāy- ASA: s1my and Classical Arabic samāʾ (orthographic smʾ) vs. *ʿuzzay: ASA ʿzy-n and Classical Arabic ʾal-ʿuzzā (orthographic ʾl-ʿzy). A comparative examination of the data seems to indicate that ASA y was consonantal in these word-final positions, reflecting the final /y/ in original /āy/ and /ay/ sequences. The former shifted to āʾ in Classical Arabic (see above (e)) while the latter remained ay in many early dialects. This distinction is reflected in Arabic orthography, ʾ and y, respectively. Both sequences were simplified at a later point to /ā/, which became the standard realization in Classical Arabic. To compare ASA orthography directly with Classical Arabic vocalism is misleading since it ignores the intermediate stages and assumes later phonetic values underlie ASA y. As for the representation of the dual with y, I would argue instead that the original dual pronouns exhibited an *-ay ending, similar to the oblique nominal ending, while the dual verb perhaps terminated in *-ā; this original distinction is preserved in Dadanitic, where dual verbs terminate in h (=/ā/) while the dual pronoun is hmy, probably *humay. Sabaic, it seems, generally levelled the -ay ending to the verb as well, while Classical Arabic levelled the -ā ending to the pronouns. Whether the 3rd fpl ending *-ā shifted to /ē/ as Stein has argued in many places, or whether Sabaic reflects an innovative 3fpl form, is unclear at this point in time, but its diachronic background is nevertheless completely different (e.g. *qatalā vs. *samāyu and ʿuzzayu). Whether the final w on dual forms in Qatabanic should be interpreted as the result of the confusion of glides in this position or a merger with the masculine plural also remains unclear; however, the occasional use of -w for the feminine plural surely reflects the loss of gender distinction in the plural. 12 AHMAD AL-JALLAD the y signals a glide in the underlying form *ḥarāyir, which would correspond to ḥarāʾir in Classical Arabic. The comparative evidence favours the reconstruction of a glide in this position, and therefore the Classical Arabic reflex, with a glottal stop, must be considered innovative.48 One cannot propose a general sound change of y/w > ʾfollowing a long ā, as glides obtain in this environment in several forms, e.g. ḥikāyat- and the L-stem, qāwala-yuqāwilu. Instead, the shift of the glide to a glottal stop could have been a dissimilatory change before high vowels, thus āy > āʾ / _i.49 In the prefix conjugation of the L-stem, the glide was restored through paradigmatic levelling with the suffix conjugation. The reconstruction of the PS word for “sky, heaven” is unclear. Kogan (2011: 192) gives *šamā̌y, with the second syllable as anceps, while Fox argues for *šamaʾ (2003: 83), and Fronzaroli (1965: 144) maintains a reconstruction nearly identical to Gəʿəz, *šamāy. Whatever the proto-form must have been, it is clear that the form ancestral to the Classical Arabic reflex was *samāy. Arabic samāʾ must have arisen through paradigmatic levelling of the aforementioned dissimilation rule, which would have applied to the genitive, and perhaps nominative, case thus: *samāʾu, *samaʾi vs. *samāya. While the presence of the archaic form samāy is not significant for genetic classification, it nevertheless sets this language apart from the Classical and post-Classical varieties of Arabic, and again reduces the value of the collapse of the triphthongs (a) as a connection with Classical Arabic. f) Negation with bn The first word of the curious phrase bn wks1m was originally translated by al-Ansāri as “from”, but as Beeston correctly points out, the non-Sabaic mn is used only two lines earlier, making this interpretation unlikely. However, if -hw in this text is in fact a Sabaism, one cannot rule out this possibility completely. Beeston suggested that bn should rather be read as the preposition bayn and the phrase made the equivalent of the Classical Arabic phrase bi-dūni nuqṣān, “without loss”. He suggests that we must appeal to the basic sense of bayn meaning separation. While certainly an attractive solution, this sense of the preposition is unattested in Semitic. On the other hand, Kropp (1990) equated the line to a Sabaic expression bn mhbʾs1tm, which is taken to mean “free of any damage”. This interpretation would again appeal to a Sabaic understanding of bn. The term waks in Classical Arabic is used after the negative particle lā in the following phrase from the Lisān (s.v.): lahā mahru miṯli-hā lā waksa wa-lā šaṭaṭa “She shall have the dowry of her like: there shall be no falling short nor exceeding” (trans. E.W. Lane). This sense seems to fit the current context, and if indeed the same syntax is employed, we must interpret bn as a negative particle. Whether it is related etymologically to Arabic bayn is unclear, but there are no instances of the use of bayn in this sense in Arabic. Nominal negation is so far unattested in ANA, so it is impossible to compare the two. Its particular 48 For example, Gəʿəz, which has not lost the glottal stop, exhibits the quadriliteral patter CaCāyiC. 49 I thank A. Strich for suggesting dissimilation as a possible solution. THE RBBL BN HFʿM GRAVE INSCRIPTION 13 form invites comparison with Northwest Semitic *bal, but the irregular correspondence of n with *l makes such a connection tentative.50 g) The particle ʿdky The conjunction ʿdky is composed of the preposition ʿd and the subordinating particle ky. The first element, ʿd, is attested in Sabaic, as ʿd and ʿdy, which presumably correspond to Hebrew ʿād and ʿāday.51 This preposition is unattested in Arabic, and thus appears to have been lost at the Proto-Arabic stage. Rabin speculates that the Huḏaylite pronunciation of ḥattā as ʿattā, may reflect “a compromise” between ḥattā and ʿad, but this is hardly convincing.52 The second element, ky, is a common subordinating particle in Semitic. The particular construction ʿdky is unattested in Sabaic and Arabic, but is found in Dadanitic.53 Beeston (1979) interprets Namāra ʿkdy as a metathesized form of ʿdky. This explanation is unlikely for two reasons: (1) it occurs twice in that inscription and both times it is clearly written ʿkdy, which precludes a writing error; and (2) the form ʿkdy has been identified with a similar meaning in Safaitic (Al-Jallad, forthcoming). No convincing etymology of this form has yet been identified.54 h) The case of the article ʾl-/ʾWe can now address the primary reason scholars have identified the language of this inscription as Arabic – the article ʾl-/ ʾ-. As I stated earlier, the article is an areal feature of CS, meaning that it spread among the daughter languages through contact rather than being inherited from the proto-language. This also includes its form. The occurrence of an ʾl-/ ʾ- article in this inscription carries as much classificatory weight as, say, the occurrence of an h- article in other Semitic languages. But first to illustrate the type of variation with which we are dealing, let us consider the various forms of articles attested in the ANA epigraphy: • • Dadanitic: h-, hn, ʾl55 Taymanitic: h- 50 The same correspondence occurs in the coda of the article in this inscription (ʾl < *han). 51 This particle is also found in Akkadian (adi “until, as long as”) and should be reconstructed for Proto-Semitic. For a historical discussion of both ʿad and kay/kī, see Pat-El 2008. The exact relationship of ʿad with *ʾad, attested in Akkadian adi, Hadramitic ʾd, and across Modern South Arabian remains unclear; see Sima 1999. 52 Suyūṭī claimed the Huḏayl changed ḥ to ʿ generally, which is termed faḥfaḥat huḏayl, but, as Rabin correctly notes, there is little evidence for such a shift. Regarding the change of ḥ to ʿ in the Huḏaylite reading of QCT ḥty ḥyn as ʿattā ḥīnin, Rabin (1951: 84) suggests that this may be the result of dissimilation. 53 This occurs in JSLih 72/6; see Macdonald (2004: 519) for references. The relatively short Thamudic and Taymanitic inscriptions do not yield a context in which we would expect to find a reflex of this particle. It is so far unattested in Safaitic and Hismaic. 54 This solution was first suggested by Hartmann, which Bellamy discusses in his 1985 reading (37–8), and remains, in my mind, the most convincing so far. Bellamy instead suggests ʿan-kaḏā or ʿan-kaḏī (n. 5), which is also possible. The final letter of this word is y, which must be read as ī or ē and not ā. 55 This occurs in JSlih 71, which has on account of the article been considered Dadano-Arabic by most scholars. The language of this text is clearly Dadanitic, as 14 • • • AHMAD AL-JALLAD Safaitic: h-, ʾ-, ʾl Hismaic: zero Thamudic: h-, ʾl,56 hl (southern) Macdonald (2008: 470–71) provisionally established a category of “Old Arabic mixed texts” to encompass inscriptions written in the ANA scripts which exhibit the ʾl-article. The only thing to support their mixed character, however, is the assumption that the ʾl-article is unique to Arabic. One can also interpret these texts as examples of non-Arabic varieties which make use of this form of the article. The ʾl-article appears several times in Dadanitic texts which are identical in all other respects to those with the h(n)- article: blḥgr ‘in Hegra’; hlgbl ‘this mountain’; ʾs¹fr ‘the writing’; ʾẓll ‘the sacrifice’.57 Conversely, the Safaitic corpus, which I have recently identified as part of the Old Arabic dialect continuum based on the presence of the isoglosses listed in Huehnergard (forthcoming) and Al-Jallad (forthcoming), exhibits four different forms of the definite article. Alongside h-, one occasionally encounters ʾ(l): SIJ 37: s¹lm w-fṣyt m- bʾs¹ ʾ- s¹nt “security and deliverance from the misfortune of the year” KRS 125: ʿwr l-m yʿwr ʾ- s¹fr “blindness to whosoever would efface the writing” C 5137: w- ḥll ʾl- dr “and he camped in this place” [lit. in the place] There is evidence of yet another article in Safaitic, an invariable ʾ-,58 which would seem to be related to the article ʾan, attested in later forms of Arabic, and hn.59 This evidence, combined with the evidence from later stages of Arabic, indicate that there must have been significant dialectal variation in the shape of the article in early Arabic. In terms of the form attested in the present inscription, not much weight can be given to the assimilation of the l, as there is no way to know its extent, but 56 57 58 59 indicated by the particular dissimilation of the final ṯ in the word for three, line 9, ṯlt for Arabic ṯalāṯ. This dissimilation is regular in Dadanitic but unknown in Arabic. This form is attested, for example, in WTI 25: (1) hrḍw bk ʾlr(h)w ‘O Rḍw, “through thee (comes) tranquility” (2) wdd ʿty bn nṯ nb, the edition provides a rather strange translation “Love from ʿty son of Nṯ and he is thirsty”, but this is surely wrong. See Farès-Drappean 2005: 65. One can also consider JSLih 276, written in the Dadanitic script, PN f-ʿrr ḏġbt ʿrr ʾs1fr ḏh. In this case, however, there is no way to determine the language of this inscription. See Macdonald (2000: 53) for a reading of this inscription. Ḥ arāḥišah (2010, no. 315) reads: l- s¹ʿdlh w- l-h ʾbkrt, which we interpret as: By S¹ʿdlh and by him is the young she-camel, ʾ- bkrt. The word bkrt is very common in Safaitic and the same formula occurs elsewhere with the more common article h-. Ḥ arāḥišah interprets ʾbkrt as a plural form, but no such plural is attested and there is only one camel in the drawing. The hn article is attested a handful of times, once in a gentilic adjective of a tribal name hn-ḥwly (Macdonald 2000: 41). The Ḥ wl-ites are frequently mentioned as outsiders in the Safaitic inscriptions and so the hn article may have been characteristic of their dialect. Curiously, the language and themes in this short text are otherwise typical of the normal Safaitic idiom. THE RBBL BN HFʿM GRAVE INSCRIPTION 15 Table 3. The intervocalic loss of the glottal stop Causative Article ʾafʿal ʾal-ʾarḍu yufʿilu wal-ʾarḍu < *yuʾafʿilu < *waʾalʾarḍu only that it assimilated to sibilants. Moreover, the elision of the onset following the conjunction w in line 9–10 is probably also not very significant. The change happens in Dadanitic as well, and would seem to be related to the elision of the glottal stop in the causative stem (see Table 3). Although the exact conditioning environment is hard to recover, this change would seem to operate in the following environment: #Cv_vCC ˊ.60 This new perspective suggests that there was a series of definite article forms hn, hl(?), h, ʾn,ʾm, ʾl, and ʾ distributed across languages and families, from the fertile crescent to the borders of the Yemen, but not restricted to any of them. In other words, a language which is genetically Arabic can exhibit a h- article while one that is not can exhibit the ʾl-article. In this light, the presence of an ʾl article in this inscription is then not genetically significant. i) Treatment of the indefinite direct object Indefinite direct objects in this inscription do not appear with mimation, which is in a way reminiscent of the Classical Arabic pausal termination, ā. On the other hand, the preservation of mimation in the adverbial direct object ʾbdm, could suggest that this was not a global change, but perhaps only affected the indefinite accusative. The separate treatment of the direct object from the adverbial is not uncommon. The opposite is attested in most contemporary dialects of Arabic, which have neutralized case in the nominal system but continue to inflect adverbs with either -an or -ā. Given the ambiguities in the script, and the loss of mimation almost everywhere else, it is impossible to say if a similar development occurred elsewhere in CS. Thus, the separate treatment of the indefinite direct object might be a local innovation. j) The lexicon The lexicon does not usually play an important role in genetic classification.61 Unlike morphology, lexical items can be borrowed rather easily, even in situations of light contact. This is especially true of languages sharing a relatively small geographic area. Moreover, it is often difficult to trace the semantic history of a word or root, and it is rarely clear if the sense encountered in a certain language is archaic or innovative. In addition to these methodological difficulties, one should not forget that our knowledge of the vocabulary of epigraphic languages, such as ASA and the inscription under question, is fragmentary. Thus, arguments based on the absence of a single vocabulary item in a poorly documented language are necessary ex silentio, as it is impossible to determine 60 The evidence from Hebrew suggests that the position of the stress in the causative was on the penultimate syllable, *yuhapʿílu. 61 For detailed discussion of the problems with the lexicon as concerns classification, see Huehnergard (2005: 189–91; 2006: 6) and Pat-El and Hackett (2010, 176 ff.). For a defence of the lexicon as a means of classification, see Kogan (2011: 242 ff.), but I remain unconvinced by his arguments. 16 AHMAD AL-JALLAD whether the word under examination existed in the mental lexicon of the speaker, but only that it was not preferred in inscriptional formulae. Let us, nevertheless, cast comparative light on the vocabulary of this inscription which is not indisputably PS. mrʾt ‘wife’: The feminine form of PS *mar ʾ ‘man’ has become the primary term for “woman”/“wife” in Arabic, replacing earlier *ʾanṯat-. The same word occurs in Safaitic C 4768: w wgm ʿl- gḥm bnt ʾnʿm mrʾt-h “and he grieved for Gḥm daughter of ʾnʿm, his wife”, and in the Amiritic dialect of Sabaic, e.g. Haram 40. • ʾl ‘lineage group’: This word occurs frequently in the Ancient North Arabian inscriptions and is known from later Arabic sources. While it is tempting to connect this term to *ʾahl- ‘family’, no evidence for h- syncope in this position occurs in the languages in which it is attested, and, perhaps more importantly, it occurs alongside ʾahl in both Classical Arabic and Safaitic. Rather, the term should instead be connected with Akkadian ʾawīl- ‘freeman’,62 but perhaps as a collective noun, CaCaC, ʾāl < *ʾawal. Thus, ʾāl would have originally had the same signification as ḥryr in this inscription. Since its semantics go back to PS, it is difficult to consider this an isogloss of any particular branch. • ʾʿḏ ‘to put under protection’: This is the C-stem of the root ʿwḏ ‘to seek refuge’, which also occurs in Safaitic, WH 390: ʿwḏ b- Rḍy “he sought refuge in Rḍy”. The C-stem of this verb, e.g., Is. 10:31 hē ʿîzû, is attested in Hebrew, with the meaning of ‘to bring into safety’ (see Koehler and Baumgartner 2001–12, #6849). • wny ‘weak’: This root is attested widely with various senses.63 In Safaitic, the root seems to have the same sense as in Arabic and the language of this inscription: C 3752 f wny f h b ʿls¹mn rwḥ ‘and he has become weak so, O Bʿls1mn, grant ease!’, as it does in the C-stem in Hebrew, hônâ,’ ‘to oppress’, from ‘to make weak’ (see Baumgartner and Koehler 2001–12, #3792). • s2ry ‘purchase’: This root also occurs in Safaitic C 2832: w s²ry m- ʾḫ -h ʿḏ hbkrt b- mʾt “and he purchased from his brother ʿḏ the she-camel for one hundred”. This sense is unknown in other Semitic languages, although it appears to be cognate with the name of the Antelebanon range, *śaryānu (del Olmo Lete and Sanmartín 2004: 847), and the range north of Petra connected with the deity ḏū s2aray. Its Hebrew cognate, śārâ ‘to struggle, contend with’, probably reflects the original sense; the origin of the meaning ‘to buy’ is unclear.64 • ʾbd-m ‘forever’: A similar expression is used in Sabaic k- ʾbd (Beeston et al. 1982: 1), and in Safaitic, C 2530: w wlh ʿl- {b}hln l- ʾ{b}d “and he grieved for Bhln forever”. The opposite sense is attested in Arabic as well as in Northwest Semitic.65 • 62 The etymology of this term is unclear, see Kraus 1973: 117–8. 63 See del Olmo Lete and Sanmartín 2004: 972. 64 One could very tentatively suggest that this sense arose through something like “to set against”, “to bargain” or “to negotiate”. 65 See ibid. (#7); del Olmo Lete and Sanmartín (2004: 6). THE RBBL BN HFʿM GRAVE INSCRIPTION • • 17 wks1 loss: In addition to Classical Arabic, this word is attested in Safaitic: C 1186: w lt l ʾḫl w wk{s¹} w ḫrs¹ w ʿrg w ʿwr l- mn ḫbl “And Lt . . .loss (?) and mutism and lameness and blindness to whoever would defile [this inscription]”. The exact sense of Safaitic wks1 is not entirely clear, but that it appears in curse formula surely indicates that it was something negative. dm “continuous rain”: This sense is only known in the Classical Arabic lexicons, and has not appeared, to my knowledge, in the ANA inscriptions. 4. Evaluation Let us round up our evidence. There are five classes of features in this text: 1. Inherited Proto-Semitic forms that have been lost in Late and Middle Sabaic: a. The 3mp suffix pronoun -hm; b. The 3 ms suffix pronoun -h. 2. Inherited Proto-Semitic features that have been lost or replaced in Arabic: a. Mimation; b. The preposition ʿd; c. No dissimilation of āy to āʾ before i; the preservation of the form s1my (in Classical and Post-Classical Arabic). 3. Areal developments shared with other Semitic languages and not exclusively Arabic: a. Collapse of triphthongs (NWS, some dialects of Arabic, Mehri, Tigre, Phoenician and occasionally in ASA and Ugaritic); b. ʾ- Causative prefix (Aramaic, Ethiopic, Arabic, ANA, except in some cases for Dadanitic); c. The prefixed article (ʾ/h)l- (Dadanitic, Thamudic and Southern Thamudic). 4. Features shared with other CS languages which are absent in Arabic and which are not clearly reconstructable to Proto-Semitic: a. The compound preposition ʿdky. 5. Innovations found in the language of this text alone: a. The special treatment of the indefinite accusative; b. Possible negation with bn. There are no innovations that connect the language of this inscription specifically with Arabic. On the contrary, the language exhibits many features that are not attested in any other varieties of Arabic, such as the preposition ʿd and mimation, which indicates that this language did not participate in an important Proto-Arabic innovation, the spread of nunation to singular nouns. The absence of the special dissimilation of āy to āʾ clearly distinguishes this text from Classical Arabic. The compound preposition ʿdky is not attested in Arabic or in ASA, but is found in Dadanitic once, and is attested in Hebrew. One might explain the absence of these features by appealing to the antiquity of the 18 AHMAD AL-JALLAD inscription, which, while undated, many have assumed is older than the remaining Old Arabic inscriptions.66 While it is not possible to determine the exact chronological moment at which isoglosses characteristic of Arabic emerged, certain innovations in this text, such as the collapse of triphthongs and the possible reflex of *bal > bn, preclude it from being a kind of “pre-Arabic”, since these features obtain in the earliest stages of Arabic. To maintain such a view, one would have to imagine an ancestor more progressive than its descendant forms. On the other hand, the language of this inscription shares two interesting areal features with Classical Arabic, the ʾl article with assimilation, even though the extent of assimilation here is unclear, and the collapse of the *aya triphthong to ā. More generally, three vocabulary items, wks1, s2ry, mrʾt, found in this inscription are also attested in Classical Arabic and Safaitic but the significance of this is hard to assess considering our fragmentary knowledge of the lexica of other ancient Semitic languages. When evaluated in a dispassionate manner, it is rather unlikely that we are dealing with a variety of Arabic at all, but whether the language should be connected with any of the various ANA languages is also unclear. More work on the linguistic subdivisions of ANA is required before an answer can be given. As a working hypothesis, the language of this inscription could reflect a transitional dialect between the southern ANA varieties and ASA, perhaps related to the substratum of the ʾAmīritic dialect of Sabaic. Until more evidence from this region of the Peninsula emerges, one must admit the possibility that we are dealing with a language which has, as of yet, only emerged once in the epigraphic record. Abbreviations C KRS SIJ MSNS PAES Safaitic inscriptions published in Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum. Pars V. Inscriptiones Saracenicas continens, Tomus 1. Inscriptiones Safaiticae (Paris, 1950–51). Safaitic inscriptions recorded by G.M.H. King on the Basalt Desert Rescue Survey and published on http://krcfm.orient.ox.ac.uk/fmi/ iwp/cgi?-db=AALC_BDRS&-loadframes Safaitic inscriptions published in F.V. Winnett, Safaitic Inscriptions from Jordan (Near and Middle East Series 2. Toronto, 1957). Safaitic inscriptions in S.A. Ma’ani and I.S. Sadaqah, “New Safaitic inscriptions from the Mafraq office Department of Archeology of Jordan” Syria, T. 79, 2002, pp. 249–69. Greek and Latin inscriptions in E. Littmann, Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904– 1905. Division III: Greek and Latin Inscriptions. Section A. Southern Syria (Leiden, 1907). 66 Most have dated this inscription to between the first century BCE and fourth century CE on palaeographic grounds, which are not particularly reliable. THE RBBL BN HFʿM GRAVE INSCRIPTION WH 19 Safaitic and Greek inscriptions, in F.V. Winnett and G.L. Harding, Inscriptions from Fifty Safaitic Cairns (Near and Middle East Series 9. Toronto, 1978). Bibliography Abu-Haidar, F. 1979. A Study of the Spoken Arabic of Baskinta. Leiden: Brill. Al-Jallad, A., R.W. Daniel and O. al-Ghul. 2013. “The Arabic toponyms and Oikonyms in 17”, in L. Koenen, M. Kaimio, J. Kaimio and R. Daniel (eds), The Petra Papyri II. Amman: American Center of Oriental Research. Al-Jallad, A. 2015. “Graeco-Arabica I: The Southern Levant”, in F. Briquel-Chatonnet, M. Debié and L. Nehmé (eds), Le contexte de naissance de l’écriture arabe. Écrit et écritures araméennes et arabes au 1er millénaire après J.-C., Actes du colloque international du projet ANR Syrab. Louvain: Peeters (Orientalia Lovaniensa Analecta), 1–60. Al-Jallad, A. Forthcoming. An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions. Al-Jallad, A. In preparation. Graeco-Arabica IV: The Psalm Fragment. Al-Ansari, A.T. 1982. Qaryat al-Faw: A Portrait of Pre-Islamic Civilisation in Saudi Arabia. London: Croom Helm. Beeston, A.F.L. 1979. “Nemara and Faw”, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 42: 1–6. Beeston, A.F.L., M.A. Ghul, W.W. Müller and J. Ryckmans. 1982. Sabaic Dictionary: English–French–Arabic. Louvain-la-Neuve and Beirut: D. Peeters; Librairie du Liban. Behnstedt, P. 1985. Die nordjemenitischen Dialekte Tl.1, Atlas. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. Behnstedt, P. 2007. “Zum bestimmten Artikel und zur Ortskunde im Jemen”, Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik 47: 50–59. Bellamy, J.A. 1985. “A new reading of the Namārah inscription”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 105/1: 31–51. Blau, J. 2002. A Handbook of Early Middle Arabic. (Max Schloessinger Memorial Series 6.) Jerusalem: Max Schloessinger Memorial Foundation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dolgopolsky, A.B. 1991. “Two problems of Semitic historical linguistics”, in Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau, 328–39. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Farès-Drappeau, Saba. 2005. Dédan et Liḥyān: Histoire des Arabes aux confins des pouvoirs perse et hellénistique (IVe–IIe avant l’ère chrétienne). Lyon: Maison de l’Orient de la Méditerranée. Fox, J. 2003. Semitic Noun Patterns. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Fronzaroli, P. 1965. “Studi sul lessico comune Semitico III”, Accademia Nazionale Dei Lincei, Rendiconti Della Classe Di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche VIII/XX (3–4), 135–50. Ghabban, A.I. 2008. “The inscription of Zuhayr, the oldest Islamic inscription (24 AH⁄AD 644–645), the rise of the Arabic script and the nature of the early Islamic state” (trans. Robert G. Hoyland). Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 19: 210–37. Gzella, H. 2006. “Die Entstehung des Artikels im Semitischen: Eine ‘phönizische’ Perspektive”, Journal of Semitic Studies, 51: 1–18. Ḥ arāḥišah, R. 2010. Nuqūš Ṣafāʾiyyah Mina ‘l-Bādiyah al-ʾUrduniyyah. Amman: Ward Books. 20 AHMAD AL-JALLAD Hetzron, R.G. 1974. “La division des langues sémitiques”, in A. Caquot and D. Cohen (eds), Actes du Premier Congrès International de Linguistique Sémitique et Chamito-Sémitque, Paris 16–19 Juillet, 1969, 181–94. The Hague and Paris: Mouton de Gruyter. Hetzron, R.G. 1975. “Genetic classification and Ethiopian Semitic”, in J. Bynon and T. Bynon (eds), Hamito-Semitica, 103–27. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter. Hetzron, R.G. 1976. “Two principles of genetic reconstruction”, Lingua 38: 103–27. Hoyland, R.G. 2010. “Mount Nebo, Jabal Ramm, and the status of Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Old Arabic in Late Roman Palestine and Arabia” in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed.), The Development of Arabic as a Written Language, 29–45. (Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar of Arabian Studies 41.) Oxford: Archaeopress. Huehnergard, J. 1991. “Remarks on the classification of the Northwest Semitic languages”, in J. Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij (eds), The Balaam Text from Deir Alla Re-evaluated. Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at Leiden 21–24 August 1989, 282–93. Leiden: Brill. Huehnergard, J. 1998. “What Is Aramaic?”, Aram 7: 265–86. Huehnergard, J. 2004. “Afro-Asiatic”, in Roger D Woodard (ed.), Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages, 138–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huehnergard, J. 2005. “Features of Central Semitic”, in Agustinus Gianto (ed.), Biblical and Oriental Essays in Memory of William L. Moran, 155–203. (Biblica Et Orientalia 48.) Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico. Huehnergard, J. 2006. “Proto-Semitic and Proto-Akkadian”, in G Deutscher and N.J.C. Kouwenberg (eds), The Akkadian Language in Its Semitic Context: Studies in the Akkadian of the Third and Second Millenium BC, 1–18. Leiden: NINO. Huehnergard, J. forthcoming. “Arabic in its Semitic context”, in A. Al-Jallad (ed.), Arabic in Context. Leiden: Brill. Huehnergard, J. and A.D. Rubin. 2011. “Phyla and waves: models of classification of the Semitic languages”, in Stefan Weninger, Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck and Janet C.E. Watson (eds), Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, 851–96. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Koehler, L. and W. Baumgartner. 2001–2012. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, CD-ROM edition. Leiden: Brill. Kogan, L.E. 2011. “Proto-Semitic lexicon”, in Stefan Weninger et al. (eds), Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, 179–258. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Kraus, F.R. 1973. Vom Mesopotamischen Menschen Der Altbabylonischen Zeit und seiner Welt. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company. Kropp, M. 1990. “Pioggia Di Sangue o Pioggia Incessante nell’Arabia Antica? Una Inscrizione Proto-Araba Ritrovata a Qaryat al-Faw”, Quaderni Di Studi Arabi 8: 3–28. Macdonald, M.C.A. 2000. “Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia”, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 11/1: 28–79. Macdonald, M.C.A. 2004. “Ancient North Arabian”, in Roger D Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages, 488–533. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Macdonald, M.C.A. 2008. “Old Arabic”, in Kees Versteegh (ed.), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill. Macdonald, M.C.A. 2010. “The Old Arabic graffito at Jabal Usays: a new reading of Line 1”, in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed.), The Development of Arabic as a Written Language, 141–3. (Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar of Arabian Studies 41.) Oxford: Archaeopress. THE RBBL BN HFʿM GRAVE INSCRIPTION 21 Mascitelli, D. 2006. L’arabo in Epoca Preislamica: Formazione Di Una Lingua. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Mavroudi, M. 2008. “Arabic words in Greek letters: the violet fragment and more”, in J. Grand’Henry and J. Lentin (eds), Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic Throughout History, Louvain-la-Neuve 11–14 May 2004, 321–54. Peeters. Miles, G.C. 1948. “Early Islamic inscriptions near Ṭ ā’if in the Ḥ ijāz”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 7/4: 236–42. Del Olmo Lete, G. and J. Sanmartín. 2004. A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition. Translated by W.G.E. Watson. 2 vols. (Handbook of Oriental Studies 67–68.) Leiden: Brill. Pat-El, N. 2009. “The development of the Semitic definite article: a syntactic approach”, Journal of Semitic Studies 54/1 (March 1): 19–50. doi:10.1093/jss/fgn039. Pat-El, N. 2008. “Historical syntax of Aramaic: a note on subordination”, in H. Gzella and M.L. Folmer (eds), Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting, 55–76. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Pat-El, N. and J.A. Hackett. 2010. “On Canaanite and historical linguistics: a rejoinder to Anson Rainey”, Maarav 17/2: 173–88. Piamenta, M. 1966. Studies in the Syntax of Palestinian Arabic: Simple Verb Forms in Subordinate and Main Clauses of Complex Sentences. Jerusalem: Israel Oriental Society. Rabin, C. 1951. Ancient West-Arabian. London: Taylor’s Foreign Press. Robin, C.J. 2001. “Les inscriptions de l’Arabie Antique et les études Arabes”, Arabic 48: 509–77. Robin C.J. (ed.). 1992. L’Arabie antique de Karib’îl à Mahomet : nouvelles données sur l’histoire des arabes grâce aux inscriptions. Aix-en-Provence: Edisud. Rubin, A.D. 2005. Studies in Semitic Grammaticalization. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Ryckmans, J. 1956. “Aspects nouveaux du problème Thamoudéen”, Studia Islamica 5: 5–17. Sima, A. 1999. “Etymologisches zu Akkadisch Adi ‘Bis, Bis Zu’ (Prap. Loci Et Temporis)”, Archiv Für Orientforschung 46/47: 213–5. Tropper, J. 2000. Ugaritische Grammatik. (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 273.) Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Tropper, J. 2001. “Die Herausbildung des bestimmten Artikels im Semitischen”, Journal of Semitic Studies 46: 1–31. Ullendorff, E. 1977. “The form of the definite article in Arabic and other Semitic languages”, in Is Biblical Hebrew a Language?, 165–71. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Voigt, R. 1998. “Der Artikel im Semitischen”, Journal of Semitic Studies 53/2: 221–58. doi:10.1093/jss/XLIII.2.221. Weninger, S. 2011. “Reconstructive morphology”, in Stefan Weninger et al. (eds), Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, 151–178. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Winnett, F.V. 1970. Ancient Records from North Arabia. (Near and Middle East Series 6.) Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Zaborski, A. 2000. “Inflected articles in Proto-Arabic and some other West Semitic languages”, Asian and African Studies 9: 24–35.