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

• Main Author: Kootstra, Fokelien (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Brill 2022
• Subjects: Palaeography (history of writing); Dadanitic inscriptions; Western Arabia; al-ʿUlā
• Online Access: OAPEN Library: download the publication; OAPEN Library: description of the publication

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.