Languages of pre-Islamic Arabia

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, many languages were spoken, more than there are today. We know this from tens of thousands of inscriptions from that era.

Most of the core indigenous languages were Semitic. These included Ancient North Arabian, Ancient South Arabian, and Old Arabic (the pre-Islamic form of Arabic). Other Semitic languages, like Northwest Semitic languages such as Aramaic and Hebrew, are also found in the records. There were also other languages spoken, mainly because of trade and travel with nearby regions. For example, when the Aksumite kingdom from Ethiopia briefly occupied South Arabia, a few Ethiopic inscriptions were left behind.

Today Arabic is the dominant language in the Arabian Peninsula, but some modern South Arabian languages still survive, though they are endangered. They are spoken by several hundred thousand people across Yemen (including Socotra) and Oman. The largest of these is Mehri, with over 250,000 speakers as of 2024.

The languages of pre-Islamic Arabia included:
- West Semitic languages
- Central Semitic languages
- Northwest Semitic languages
- South Semitic languages
- Iranian languages
- Other languages (via trade and contact)