Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

Safaitic is a script used in various inscriptions, the language of
which is called Safaitic as well.  In order to understand what Safaitic
is, you need to understand a little about the structure of Semitic
languages.  Afroasiatic is the group of languages to which Hebrew
belongs.  Afroasiatic is further divided into Semitic, and other
groups. Semitic is divided into Common Semitic and other
groups.  Common Semitic is divided into three basic groups:
Ancient/Old South Arabian, North Arabian, and Northwest Semitic.
Northwest Semitic is the group that includes Aramaic, Ugaritic,
Phoenician, Hebrew, Israelite, Moabite, etc.  Those of the group
that show the Canaanite shift (long a becomes o) are called
a Canaanite group, and include at least, Hebrew and
Phoenician and those dialects attested in the Amarna letters.
Perhaps Ugaritic is also related to these but is from before the
Canaanite shift took place.

The following is mostly from the article on Ancient North Arabian (ch.
16) by the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages.
I suggest you read the whole chapter for more current information and
bibliography.  It is not a direct quote.  I tried to put in only what is
necessary for a quick overview of this language:

"North Arabian is divided into two groups, Arabic and Ancient
North Arabian.  The main difference between the two is that the
definite article in Arabic is "?al-" while in Ancient North Arabian
it is "h-".  Ancient North Arabian is attested only in inscriptions.
Most of these are informal inscriptions consisting mostly of
names.  Safaitic is the language of the grafitti found in the
deserts of black, broken up lava in southern Syria, northeastern
Jordan, and northern Saudi Arabic.  The vast majority were
written by the nomads who lived in this area between roughly the
first century BCE and the fourth century CE.  So far, some
twenty thousand Safaitic inscriptions have been recorded and
there are many times this number still awaiting study, as can be
seen by any visitor to these desert areas.  A large number of
the Safaitic inscriptions published so far were recorded in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and are known only
from hand copies, often by copyists who could not read the
script.  Many of these copies are inaccurate. It is only since
large numbers of texts have been photographed that the
study of Safaitic has been placed on a secure footing.
Safaitic is one of the two dialects of Ancient North Arabian
on which we have the most information."

As you can see, Safaitic is at least as useful and interesting
for the study of Hebrew as is Arabic, which has proven to be
very useful.  It is unfortunate that little is known about it, but
hopefully this will be rectified soon.  Regarding the links
Harold provided, I would be wary, in light of the above of the
articles from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and of the
Smithsonian article which interprets an undeciphered/
untranslated inscription as recording the word "al" in what
might be construed as the definite article.  It seems to me
just as possible this is ")il" - "god" so that perhaps the name
should be read as br)l - "god has created" or something of
the sort.

Yitzhak Sapir