History of the Arabic Language

Arabic is a Semitic language, to which several families of languages belong, such as the southern group (North Arabic or Adanite, South Arabic or Sabaean or Himyaritic and Ethiopian or Geer), the northern group (Canaanaean which is Hebrew and Phoenician, Assyrian and Babylonian, Armenian including Syriac and other dialects).

Until the year 650 A.D., Arabic was the native language of the Adanite tribes alone. About 30 years after the flight though, the language began spreading to every country that was taken over by the Muslim rule. What we now call the Arabic was initially spoken and confined to the northern half of the Arabian peninsula. In the south, people spoke other dialects – Minaean, Sabaean and Minyartic, which though similar to Arabic, were different in several respects.

Language and Writing

Arabic is considered to be one of the finest languages in the globe with regards to the richness of its vocabulary and the sheer vastness of its literature. The number of root words in the language is evident from any dictionary and the derivatives that one can make are enough to give even the most revered languages close competition. There are about 7,000 to 13,000 root words and 80,000 to 120,000 derivatives in the Arabic language.

There is no conclusive evidence about the origin of Arabic writing. However, it is certain that shortly before Islam, the Adanites used characters which were used in Hira, among the Arab kings of Iraq. There are two schools of thought on who invented Arabic writing – one group of historians believe that it was created by Murammir - son of Murrah, who modified it from Himyarite Musnad and made it spread from Anbar to Hira. Others believe that the first who wrote Arabic were the Yeminite tribe of Hud, who taught it to the people of Anbar, from where it spread throughout Arabia.

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