Is Paleo-Arabic Classical Arabic? Towards a grammatical sketch of the Arabic inscriptions on the eve of Islam

Abstract: The pre-Islamic history of the Arabic language has traditionally been viewed through the lens of Classical Arabic, often treated as a timeless monolith. However, the emergence of a distinct corpus of Paleo-Arabic inscriptions—the latest pre-Islamic phase of the Nabataean script attested from the late 5th century to the early 7th CEa—is providing a new vista from which to study Arabic in the immediate pre-Islamic period and the Quranic milieu . By the 6th century CE, this script had fully evolved to include the complete inventory of Arabic letter shapes, appearing in epigraphic records across the Arabian Peninsula.

With a growing corpus of approximately 50 Paleo-Arabic texts, we can now move beyond treating this period as a mere "pre-cursor" and begin to analyze its grammar on its own terms. This presentation examines these inscriptions from a comparative Semitic perspective, with due attention to geographical distribution.

Through this analysis, we identify specific regionalisms and grammatical features—including variations in orthography, morphosyntax, and the use of the definite article—that diverge from the normative rules of Classical Arabic. By reconstructing these linguistic nuances, we gain a rare window into a "lost phase" of the language, revealing a complex and diverse grammatical reality that existed just prior to the Islamic conquests. We will also devote some attention to the contents of these inscriptions and how they relate to the Quran and later literature.