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The history of the Arabic alphabet shows that this abjad has changed since it arose. It is thought that the Arabic alphabet is a derivative of the Nabataean variation of the Aramaic alphabet, which descended from the Phoenician alphabet, which among others gave rise to the Hebrew alphabet and the Greek alphabet (and therefore the Cyrillic and Roman alphabets). ==Origins== The Arabic alphabet evolved either from the Nabataean, or (less widely believed) directly from the Syriac. This table shows changes undergone by the shapes of the letters from the Aramaic original to the Nabataean and Syriac forms. Arabic is placed in the middle for clarity and not to mark a time order of evolution. It should be noted that the Arabic script represented in the table below is that of post-Classical and Modern Arabic, not 6th century Arabic script, which is of a notably different form. It seems that the Nabataean alphabet became the Arabic alphabet thus: *In the 6th and 5th centuries BC, northern Semitic tribes emigrated and founded a kingdom centered around Petra, Jordan. These people (now named Nabataeans from the name of one of the tribes, Nabatu), probably spoke a form of Arabic. *In the 2nd century AD, the first known records of the Nabataean alphabet were written, in the Aramaic language (which was the language of communication and trade), but including some Arabic language features: the Nabataeans did not write the language which they spoke. They wrote in a form of the Aramaic alphabet, which continued to evolve; it separated into two forms: one intended for inscriptions (known as "monumental Nabataean") and the other, more cursive and hurriedly written and with joined letters, for writing on papyrus. This cursive form influenced the monumental form more and more and gradually changed into the Arabic alphabet. ==Pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions== The first recorded text in the Arabic alphabet was written in 512. It is a trilingual dedication in Greek, Syriac and Arabic found at Zabad in Syria. The version of the Arabic alphabet used includes only 22 letters, of which only 15 are different, being used to note 28 phonemes: : *Note that the letters in the first line are not Aramaic letters, but rather the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. Many myriads of pre-Classical Arabic inscriptions are attested, in alphabets borrowed from Epigraphic South Arabian alphabets (however, Safaitic and Hismaic are not strictly Arabic, but Ancient North Arabian dialects, and written Nabataean is an Aramaic dialect): *Safaitic (over 13,000; almost all graffiti)〔, 11-14〕 *Hismaic in the southern parts of central Arabia *Preclassical Arabic inscriptions dating to the 1st century BC from Qaryat Al-Faw *Nabataean inscriptions in Aramaic, written in the Nabataean alphabet *Pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions in the Arabic alphabet: these are very few, with only 5 known for certain. These mostly do not use dots, making them sometimes difficult to interpret, as many letters are the same shape as other letters (i.e., they are written with rasm only) Here are the inscriptions in the Arabic alphabet, and the inscriptions in the Nabataean alphabet that show the beginnings of Arabic-like features. Cursive Nabataean writing changed into Arabic writing, likeliest between the dates of the an-Namāra inscription and the Jabal Ramm inscription. Most writing would have been on perishable materials, such as papyrus. As it was cursive, it was liable to change. The epigraphic record is extremely sparse, with only five certainly pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions surviving, though some others may be pre-Islamic. The Nabataean alphabet was designed to write 22 phonemes, but Arabic has 28 phonemes; thus, when used to write the Arabic language, 6 of its letters must each represent two phonemes: ''d'' also represented ''ð'', ''ħ'' also represented ''kh'' %, ''ṭ'' also represented ''ẓ'', ''ayin'' also represented ''gh'' %, ''ṣ'' also represented ''ḍ'',%, ''t'' also represented ''þ''. : In the cases marked %, the choice was influenced by etymology, as Common Semitic ''kh'' and ''gh'' became Hebrew ''ħ'' and ''ayin'' respectively. As cursive Nabataean writing evolved into Arabic writing, the writing became largely joined-up. Some of the letters became the same shape as other letters, producing more ambiguities, as in the table: There the Arabic letters are listed in the traditional Levantine order but are written in their current forms, for simplicity. The letters which are the same shape have coloured backgrounds. The second value of the letters that represent more than one phoneme is after a comma. In these tables, ''ğ'' is ''j'' as in English "June". In the Arabic language, the ''g'' sound seems to have changed into ''j'' in fairly late pre-Islamic times, and seems not to have happened in those tribes who invaded Egypt and settled there. When a letter was at the end of a word, it often developed an end loop, and as a result most Arabic letters have two or more shapes. ''b'' and ''n'' and ''t'' became the same. ''y'' became the same as ''b'' and ''n'' and ''t'' except at the ends of words. ''j'' and ''ħ'' became the same. ''z'' and ''r'' became the same. ''s'' and ''sh'' became the same. After all this, there were only 17 letters which are different in shape. One letter-shape represented 5 phonemes (''b t th n'' and sometimes ''y''), one represented 3 phonemes (''j ħ kh''), and 5 each represented 2 phonemes. Compare the Hebrew alphabet, as in the table at . (An analogy can be the Roman alphabet uppercase letters I and J: in the German Fraktur font they look the same but are officially different letters.) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of the Arabic alphabet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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