Footnote 7 – Understanding the Nabateans

Most Arabian personal names Safaitic-Thamudic and Nabatean—have basic forms, such as ‘abd (“servant of”). The Safaitic-Thamudic names use this basic form as is; but the Nabateans add the letter “u,” so that it reads ‘abdu, thus distinguishing it from Safaitic-Thamudic. In addition, each personal name has additional forms, consisting of diminutives, feminine forms, etc. Safaitic-Thamudic names are represented in all forms, but the poorer Nabatean-Aramaic vocabulary has chosen at random this or that form. Moreover, numerous groups of personal names are not represented in Nabatean-Aramaic at all. From all this, I conclude that the Safaitic-Thamudic group is closer to the Arabian mother culture, from which the Nabateans, who were affiliated with this mother culture, picked out personal names at random; quite certainly not the other way around.