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This is an ultra cool infographic. I had no idea the the basis for Arabic script originated with the Egyptians and Phoenicians. Thanks for sharing!
Where did you think it came from?
You know. I never really thought about it. The Egyptians makes perfect sense, but I would not have guessed Phonecians had an influence on Arabic script. I know it’s the basis for the western alphabet, but it’s crazy that it’s also the base of Arabic.
It is curios that many see us as strangers to our own region.
Fun fact, the Arabian Peninsula originally used South Semitic scripts, sisters of Phoenician but not descendants. This branch died off everywhere except in Ethiopia where it is used to write Ethiopian Semitic languages.
The Nabatean script came with the Nabateans (Jordan and Syria) who annexed the Lihyan Kingdom (Western Arabia) in the 1st century BCE. With that the script began spreading but slowly at first. A cursive form caught on a few centuries after the Roman annexation of the Nabatean Kingdom coinciding with the rise of Christianity in Arabia (4th-5th centuries CE).