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When did Arabic spread to Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Oman & Yemen?
Answer: No evidence of Arabic discovered. Those Regions were largely Arabized After Islam. Sources: Dr Ahmad Al Jallad, Harvard PhD Linguist
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When did Arabic spread South into Hegaz & Nejd?
Answer: Middle-Late 1st Millennium BC & Early 1st Millennium AD. Map below is helpful from Page 14 of Historical grammar of Arabic. Nabataean expansion important. Sources: Dr Ahmad Al Jallad, Harvard PhD Linguist.
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What Languages were spoken in the Peninsula before Arabization?
Answer: Many different languages such as Taymanitic, Dadanitic, various forms of Thamudic, Hasaitic, Sabaic, Minaic & many more. Sources: Both maps by Dr Ahmad Al Jallad, Harvard PhD Linguist.
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Did the Peninsula Originally speak Arabic?
Answer: No. Arabic was spoken in the North at Dumat Al Jandal & Tabuk but it spread to the South Later. The Region was Linguistically diverse. Sources: Dr Ahmad Al Jallad, Harvard PhD Linguist (Map Page 19 Historical grammar of Arabic)
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Where do we find the Greatest concentration of Arabic texts in the Pre-Islamic period?
Answer: Jordan/SE Syria. Particularly The Lands East of the Hauran. Around 50,000 Arabic (Safaitic/Hismaic) texts discovered in this Region. Source: Dr Ahmad Al Jallad, Harvard PhD Linguist.
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Where did the First Arabic Speakers live? What is the Original Homeland of the Arabic Language?
Answer: South Levant + North KSA (Map Below). They were centered around the Hauran in SE Syria/NE Jordan. Source: Dr Ahmad Al Jallad, Harvard PhD Linguist.
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Where is the Oldest Arabic Inscription in the world found?
Answer: Bayir, Jordan (Iron Age II, 1000 BC – 550 BC). Source: Dr Ahmad Al Jallad, Harvard PhD Linguist
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If the Gulf was not referred to as ‘Arabia’, what did the Achaeminids call the Region instead?
Answer: Gulf Region (Oman/UAE) is originally known as Magan/Makka (since Akkadian era). People known as ‘Macians’. Source: Robert Hoyland, Oxford University.
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Where did the Achaeminids locate Arabia?
The term ‘Arab’ is derived from the Semitic root g-r-b (‘West’). ‘Arab’ originally referred to Desert Dwelling Tribes living ‘West’ of Mesopotamia/Assyria. This correlates with the Original definition of ‘Arabia’. The Original Arab Homeland is West of Mesopotamia & East of Egypt.
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When did the term ‘Arabia’ begin to refer to the Entire Peninsula?
The term ‘Arabia’ was borrowed from the North and it was wrongly used to refer to the newly discovered Region. This completely disregarded how people in this region self-identified. The vast majority of inhabitants in this “Arabia” were not Arab and did not identify as such.