This volume contains a detailed grammatical description of the dialects of Old Arabic attested in the Safaitic script, an Ancient North Arabian alphabet used mainly in the deserts of southern Syria and north-eastern Jordan in the pre-Islamic period. It is the first complete grammar of any Ancient North Arabian corpus, making it an important contribution to the fields of Arabic and Semitic studies. The second edition covers topics in script and orthography, phonology, morphology, and syntax, and contains a chrestomathy and a glossary of over 1000 Safaitic lexical items.
Ahmad Al-Jallad, Ph.D. (2012), Harvard University, is
Universitair Hoofddocent in Islamic Origins at the University of Groningen. He specializes in the epigraphy, languages, and cultures of pre-Islamic Arabia and early Islam, and directs epigraphic survey projects in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Anyone interested in the epigraphy and languages of the ancient Near East and Arabia, the history of Arabic, and the comparative grammar of the Semitic languages.