[2] hhaːmlkmmalkamuwwakms1kamaːsuwwaqws1kʼawsubbikmkumuʿwḏnʕawuðnaː [failed verification]h mlkm w kms1 w qws1 b km ʿwḏnhaː malkamu wa kamaːsu wa kʼawsu bi kumu ʕawuðnaː"O Malkom and Kemosh and Qaws, in ye we seek refuge"A characteristic of Nabataean Arabic and Old Hijazi (from which Classical Arabic much later developed) is the definite article al-.

[1] Aramaic ostraca dated 362–301 BC bear witness to the presence of people of Edomite origin in the southern Shephelah and the Beersheva Valley before the Hellenistic period.

And may (A)llāt be mindful of us and may (A)llāt be mindful of all our companions.The En Avdat inscription dates to no later than 150 CE, and contains a prayer to the deified Nabataean king Obodas I:[12] pypʿlpajepʕallʾlaːpdʾpedaːʔwwalʾlaːʾṯrʾʔaθarapypʿl lʾ pdʾ w lʾ ʾṯrʾpajepʕal laː pedaːʔ wa laː ʔaθaraAnd he acts neither for benefit nor favourpknpakaːnhnʾhonaːybʿnʾjabɣenaːʾlmwtwʔalmawtolʾlaːpkn hnʾ ybʿnʾ ʾlmwtw lʾpakaːn honaː jabɣenaː ʔalmawto laːand if death claims us let me notʾbʿhʔabɣæːhpknpakaːnhnʾhonaːʾrdʔaraːdgrḥwgorħolʾlaːyrdnʾjorednaːʾbʿh pkn hnʾ ʾrd grḥw lʾ yrdnʾʔabɣæːh pakaːn honaː ʔaraːd gorħo laː jorednaːbe claimed.

Example: The A1 inscription dated to the 3rd or 4th century in a Greek alphabet in a dialect showing affinities to that of the Safaitic inscriptions shows that short final high vowels had been lost, obliterating the distinction between nominative and genitive case in the singular, leaving the accusative the only marked case.

The Safaitic and Hismaic texts attest an invariable feminine consonantal -t ending, and the same appears to be true of the earliest Nabataean Arabic.

While Greek transcriptions show a mixed situation, it is clear that by the 4th c. CE, the ending had shifted to /-a(h)/ in non-construct position in the settled areas.

[2] Example: The Qur'anic Consonantal Text shows no case distinction with determined triptotes, but the indefinite accusative is marked with a final /ʾ/.

Northern Old Arabic preserved the original shape of the relative pronoun ḏ-, which may either have continued to inflect for case or have become frozen as ḏū or ḏī.

Verbs of this class in result clauses are spelled in such a way that they must have originally terminated in /a/: f ygzy nḏr-h */pa yagziya naḏra-hu/ 'that he may fulfill his vow'.

[2] Old Ḥiǧāzī is characterized by the innovative relative pronoun ʾallaḏī, ʾallatī, etc., which is attested once in JSLih 384 and is the common form in the QCT.

[4] The QCT along with the papyri of the first century after the Islamic conquests attest a form with an l-element between the demonstrative base and the distal particle, producing from the original proximal set ḏālika and tilka.

[2] A single text, JSLih 384, composed in the Dadanitic script, from northwest Arabia, provides the only non-Nabataean example of Old Arabic from the Hijaz.

[2] A growing corpus of inscriptions are now known from a script that existed in a transitional phase between recognizable Arabic and Nabataean Aramaic.