<<The>> writing culture of ancient Dadan a description and quantitative analysis of linguistic variation

This work focuses the social context of writing in ancient Western Arabia in the oasis of ancient Dadan, modern-day al-ʿUlā in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula between the sixth to first centuries BC. It offers a description and analysis of the language of the inscriptions and the variation attested within them. It is the first work to perform a systematic study of the linguistic variation of the Dadanitic inscriptions. It combines a thorough description of the language of the inscriptions with a statistical analysis of the distribution of variation across different textual genres and manners of inscribing. By considering correlations between language-internal and extralinguistic features this analysis aims to take a more holistic approach to the epigraphic object. Through this approach an image of a rich writing culture emerges, in which we can see innovation as well as the deliberate use of archaic linguistic features in more formal text types. ‎Contents 5 ‎Figures, Maps and Tables 9 ‎Sigla and Abbreviations 13 ‎Acknowledgements 17 ‎Introduction 19 ‎1. Outline of the Present Work 21 ‎2. The Corpus 22 ‎3. A Holistic Approach to the Epigraphic Object 25 ‎4. Scribal School and Variation 37 ‎Chapter 1. The Oasis of Dadan in Space and Time 49 ‎1. The Dadanite and Liḥyanite Kingdoms 51 ‎2. Philological Arguments 58 ‎3. Minaean Presence at Dadan 59 ‎4. Paleography 61 ‎5. Dadan in Other Corpora 66 ‎6. Archaeological Evidence 71 ‎7. Summary of the Dating Evidence 73 ‎Chapter 2. Script and Manners of Inscribing 74 ‎1. Glyphs and Their Variant Forms 75 ‎2. Script Styles 80 ‎3. Dadanitic Alphabetic Text 86 ‎4. Summary: Varying Styles, Varying Forms 87 ‎Chapter 3. Genres and Compositional Formulae 88 ‎1. Superscriptio 89 ‎2. Narratio 91 ‎3. Invocatio 101 ‎4. Graffiti 105 ‎5. Summary 107 ‎Chapter 4. Orthography and Phonology 109 ‎1. Word Dividers 110 ‎2. Matres lectionis 111 ‎3. Triphthongs 120 ‎4. Final Short Vowels 125 ‎5. Diphthongs 126 ‎6. Sound Changes 133 ‎Chapter 5. Verbal Morphology 143 ‎1. Suffix Conjugation 143 ‎2. Prefix Conjugation 150 ‎3. Derived Stems 154 ‎4. Participles 165 ‎Chapter 6. Nominal and Pronominal Morphology 168 ‎1. Gender 168 ‎2. Number 168 ‎3. Noun Formation 177 ‎4. Demonstrative Pronoun 181 ‎5. Relative Pronoun 183 ‎6. hmḏ 185 ‎7. mh 185 ‎8. mn 186 ‎9. Personal Pronouns 187 ‎10. Prepositions 190 ‎11. Numerals 191 ‎12. Adverbs 199 ‎13. Particles 200 ‎14. Conjunctions 202 ‎Chapter 7. A Quantitative Approach to Variation 205 ‎1. Methodology: Statistics 205 ‎2. The Data and Methodology 210 ‎Chapter 8. Analysis 221 ‎1. Text Internal Variants 221 ‎2. Register Indicators 228 ‎3. Important Non-significant Co-occurrences 233 ‎4. Discussion 239 ‎5. Summary 252 ‎Conclusions 254 ‎1. Descriptive and Grammar Chapters 255 ‎2. Chapters Analyzing Variation 256 ‎3. Variation and Literacy 259 ‎4. Future Directions 262 ‎5. Summary 263 ‎Appendix. Glossary 265 ‎Bibliography 323 ‎Index of Inscriptions 335 "This work focuses the social context of writing in ancient Western Arabia in the oasis of ancient Dadan, modern-day al-'Ula in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula between the sixth to first centuries BC. It offers a description and analysis of the language of the inscriptions and the variation attested within them. It is the first work to perform a systematic study of the linguistic variation of the Dadanitic inscriptions. It combines a thorough description of the language of the inscriptions with a statistical analysis of the distribution of variation across different textual genres and manners of inscribing. By considering correlations between language-internal and extralinguistic features this analysis aims to take a more holistic approach to the epigraphic object. Through this approach an image of a rich writing culture emerges, in which we can see innovation as well as the deliberate use of archaic linguistic features in more formal text types"-- Provided by publisher This work focuses the social context of writing in ancient Western Arabia in the oasis of ancient Dadan, modern-day al-ʻUlā in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula between the sixth to first centuries BC. It offers a description and analysis of the language of the inscriptions and the variation attested within them. It is the first work to perform a systematic study of the linguistic variation of the Dadanitic inscriptions. It combines a thorough description of the language of the inscriptions with a statistical analysis of the distribution of variation across different textual genres and manners of inscribing. By considering correlations between language-internal and extralinguistic features this analysis aims to take a more holistic approach to the epigraphic object. Through this approach an image of a rich writing culture emerges, in which we can see innovation as well as the deliberate use of archaic linguistic features in more formal text types