Languages of pre-Islamic Arabia

This article is about pre-Islamic Arabian languages. For writing systems in the Arabian Peninsula before Islam, see Writing systems of pre-Islamic Arabia. For written records, see Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions.

The most common language in the Arabian Peninsula today is Arabic. In pre-Islamic Arabia, linguistic diversity was more common, as attested by tens of thousands of pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions, with many languages being spoken in different regions and periods of time. The majority of, and the core indigenous languages of pre-Islamic Arabia were all Semitic languages, including the Ancient North Arabian languages, Ancient South Arabian languages, and Arabic (being a Central Semitic language). ^[1] The pre-Islamic phase of the Arabic language is known as Old Arabic. Some other Semitic languages, including Northwest Semitic languages, are attested, including Aramaic and Hebrew. Other languages, more sparsely, have also been documented, likely as a result of trade and travel with nearby regions. For example, a brief occupation of South Arabia by the Ethiopian Aksumite kingdom led to the presence of a few Ethiopic inscriptions attested in South Arabia. ^[2]

While Arabic is dominant in the Arabian Peninsula today, some modern South Arabian languages, though endangered, survive, with several hundred thousand speakers across Yemen (including Socotra) and Oman. ^[3] The most common one is Mehri, which has over 250,000 speakers as of 2024. ^[4]

List of languages spoken

The languages of pre-Islamic Arabia were as follows: ^{[5] [6]}

West Semitic languages

1. Ancient South Arabian languages
   1. Sabaic
   2. Minaic
   3. Qatabanic
   4. Hadramautic
   5. Awsanic
2. Ancient North Arabian languages
   1. Dadanitic
   2. Taymanitic
   3. Thamudic (broad term for a family of unrelated writing systems)

Central Semitic languages

1. Arabic

Northwest Semitic languages

1. Aramaic
2. Hebrew

South Semitic languages

1. Ethiopic

Iranian languages

1. Middle Persian

Other languages (via trade and contact)

1. Greek
2. Latin

See also

• Languages of the Roman Empire
• Warfare in pre-Islamic Arabia

References

Citations

1. Donner 2022, p. 1–4.
2. Hatke, Georg (2022). "Religious Ideology in the Gəʿəz Epigraphic Corpus from Yemen". Rocznik Orientalistyczny. 75 (2): 76–78. ISSN   0080-3545.
3. Simeone-Senelle, Marie-Claude (1997). "The Modern South Arabian Languages" (PDF). In Hetzron, R. (ed.). The Semitic Languages. London: Routledge. pp. 378–423. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-09. Retrieved 2017-05-12.
4. Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2025). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (28th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
5. Al-Jallad 2020.
6. Debie 2024.

Sources

• Al-Jallad, Ahmad (2020). "The Linguistic Landscape of pre-Islamic Arabia: Context for the Qur'an". In Shah, Mustafa; Haleem, M.A.S. Abdel (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies. Oxford University Press. pp. 111–127.
• Debie, Muriel (2024). "The Arabs and Northern Languages and Scripts before Islam". In Vacca, Alison; Borrut, Antoine; Ceballos, Manuela (eds.). Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World: Multilingualism and Language Change in the First Centuries of Islam. Brepols. pp. 195–257.
• Donner, Fred (2022). "Scripts and Scripture in Late Antique Arabia: An Overview". In Donner, Fred; Hasselbach-Andee, Rebecca (eds.). Scripts and Scripture: Writing and Religion in Arabia circa 500–700 CE. Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. pp. 1–15.