The Writing Culture of Ancient Dadān: A Description and Quantitative Analysis of Linguistic Variation

By Fokelien Kootstra

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9004512624
• ISBN13: 9789004512627
• Release Date: December 2022
• Publisher: Brill
• Length: 324 Pages
• Weight: 1.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"