Arabic languages

Arabic languages
Geographic distribution:	Arabia, Arab world
Linguistic classification:	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Arabic languages
Subdivisions:	Ancient North Arabian Arabic language
Glottolog:	arab1394[1]

The Arabic language family consists of

• Classical Arabic and its descendants, including
  • The various varieties of Arabic
  • The various Judeo-Arabic languages
  • Maltese
• Old or Ancient North Arabian, a number of closely related extinct dialects of pre-Islamic Arabia:^[2][3]
  • Oasis North Arabian
    • Dumaitic
    • Taymanitic
    • Dadanitic
    • Dispersed Oasis North Arabian
  • Safaitic
  • Hismaic
  • Thamudic
  • Hasaitic

Ethnologue unites Canaanite and Arabic in a South Central Semitic group together with Aramaic forming Central Semitic, but it is more common to unite Aramaic and Canaanite as Northwest Semitic.

Notes

1. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Arabian". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
2. Macdonald, M. C. A. (2000). "Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia". Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
3. Macdonald, M. C. A. (2004). "Ancient North Arabian". In Woodard, Roger D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Languages. Cambridge University Press. pp. 488–533. ISBN 0-521-56256-2.

Literature

• Cantineau, Jean (1955). "La dialectologie arabe", Orbis 4:149–169.
• Fischer, Wolfdietrich, & Otto Jastrow (ed) (1980). Handbuch der arabischen Dialekte, Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz.
• Kaye, Alan S., & Judith Rosenhouse (1997). "Arabic Dialects and Maltese", The Semitic Languages. Ed. Robert Hetzron. New York: Routledge. Pages 263–311.
• Lozachmeur, H., (ed.), (1995). Presence arabe dans le croissant fertile avant l'Hegire (Actes de la table ronde internationale Paris, 13 Novembre 1993) Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. ISBN 2-86538-254-0
• Macdonald, M.C.A., (2000). "Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia" Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 11(1), 28–79
• Scagliarini, F., (1999). "The Dedanitic inscriptions from Jabal 'Ikma in north-western Hejaz" Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 29, 143–150 ISBN 2-503-50829-4
• Sobelman, H., (ed.) (1962). Arabic Dialect Studies, Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics and the Middle East Institute.
• Winnett, F.V. & Reed, W.L. (1970). Ancient Records from North Arabia, Toronto: University of Toronto

See also

• Arab (word)
• Arab (disambiguation)