A dictionary of the Safaitic inscriptions, containing more than 1400 lemmata.

This volume contains a detailed grammatical description of the dialects of Old Arabic attested in the Safaitic script, an Ancient North Arabian alphabet used mainly in the deserts of southern Syria and north-eastern Jordan in the pre-Islamic period. It is the first complete grammar of any Ancient North Arabian corpus, making it an important contribution to the fields of Arabic and Semitic studies. The volume covers topics in script and orthography, phonology, morphology, and syntax, and contains an appendix of over 500 inscriptions and an annotated dictionary. The grammar is based on a corpus of 33,000 Safaitic inscriptions.

1. Introduction -- 2. Rites -- 3. Divinities and Their Roles in the Lives of Humans -- 4. Fate -- 5. Afterlife -- 6. Visual Representation of Deities and the Divine World -- 7. Amplification and Why Write -- 8. Worldview: A Reconstruction -- Appendix 1: Glossary of Divinities -- Appendix 2: Previously Unpublished Inscriptions -- Bibliography -- Index.

The North-West Semitic epigraphic contributes considerably to our understanding of the Old Testament and of the Ugaritic texts and to our knowledge of the North-West Semitic languages as such. This dictionary is concerned with the North-West Semitic material found in inscriptions, papyri and ostraca in Phoenician, Punic, Hebrew, various forms of Aramaic, Ammonite, Edomite, the language of Deir Alla et cetera. The material covers the period from ca. 1000 B.C. to ca. 300 A.D. Besides translations, the entries include discussions and full references to scholarly literature. The book is a translated, updated and considerably augmented edition of Jean & Hoftijzer, Dictionnaire des inscriptions sémitiques de l'ouest. The additions concern newly found texts as well as references to new scholarly literature. The book is an indispensable tool for research in North-West Semitic epigraphy, on the Old Testament and on Ugaritic texts, and for Semitic linguistics. Please note that this version is an unrevised reprint of the original version published in 1995.