What was the population of late Pre-Islamic Arabia and the population of Arabic speakers before Islam?
Clash Royale CLAN TAG#URR8PPP
The Arab tribes were spread out widely, and the land of Arabia was not as viable to live on as the Fertile Crescent, so I would expect the population to be lower. But, how much in an estimated range was the population exactly before Islam and its conquests according to historians?
As a related question, how many people spoke Arabic at the time in and outside of Arabia?
As a follow up question, how much of a role did the population play in the ability of the Arabs to conquer what they did?
middle-ages language population arabia
asked Mar 3 at 17:40
The ZThe Z
24418
|
show 2 more comments
The Arab tribes were spread out widely, and the land of Arabia was not as viable to live on as the Fertile Crescent, so I would expect the population to be lower. But, how much in an estimated range was the population exactly before Islam and its conquests according to historians?
As a related question, how many people spoke Arabic at the time in and outside of Arabia?
As a follow up question, how much of a role did the population play in the ability of the Arabs to conquer what they did?
middle-ages language population arabia
asked Mar 3 at 17:40
The ZThe Z
24418
Note that a lot of the Arab populations taking part in the Islamic conquests were not from Arabia, but from neighboring places like Syria, Mesopotamia etc. Only the core groups of Arabs were from the region around Medina, a lot more joined with them when they started having success.
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 19:41
1
@Denis Nardin. Arabs from outside Arabia?
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 20:10
1
@JohnDee Yes, or at least people culturally Arabs (speaking the Arabic language, and tracing their lineages more or less reliably through the same "ancestors" as the people living in Arabia). I did not think this was a controversial thing, it's not like the desert had custom checkpoints
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:50
1
@JohnDee From Kennedy's The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphate "In southern Iraq,Arabs lived in the deserts along the lower Euphrates and colonized a few towns,like Ḥīra along the fringes of the alluvial plains.Further north, Arab nomads were found in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates known as the Jazīra or “Island",a vast expanse of sparse grazing which could support a considerable population of pastoralists.On the western,Syrian edge of the desert [...] many Arabs had become more or less integrated into the Byzantine state and mingled with non-Arabic-speaking groups"
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:56
@Denis Nardin. So you mean on the fringes of the Arabian desert. Anyways, your explanation about joining him after successes seems to be from the koran. The consolidation of Arabia had more to do with events in the prior century and Persian conquest.
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 23:00
|
show 2 more comments
The Arab tribes were spread out widely, and the land of Arabia was not as viable to live on as the Fertile Crescent, so I would expect the population to be lower. But, how much in an estimated range was the population exactly before Islam and its conquests according to historians?
As a related question, how many people spoke Arabic at the time in and outside of Arabia?
As a follow up question, how much of a role did the population play in the ability of the Arabs to conquer what they did?
middle-ages language population arabia
asked Mar 3 at 17:40
The ZThe Z
24418
The Arab tribes were spread out widely, and the land of Arabia was not as viable to live on as the Fertile Crescent, so I would expect the population to be lower. But, how much in an estimated range was the population exactly before Islam and its conquests according to historians?
As a related question, how many people spoke Arabic at the time in and outside of Arabia?
As a follow up question, how much of a role did the population play in the ability of the Arabs to conquer what they did?
middle-ages language population arabia
middle-ages language population arabia
asked Mar 3 at 17:40
The ZThe Z
24418
asked Mar 3 at 17:40
The ZThe Z
24418
edited Mar 3 at 21:57
The Z
asked Mar 3 at 17:40
The ZThe Z
24418
asked Mar 3 at 17:40
The ZThe Z
24418
asked Mar 3 at 17:40
The ZThe Z
24418
24418
Note that a lot of the Arab populations taking part in the Islamic conquests were not from Arabia, but from neighboring places like Syria, Mesopotamia etc. Only the core groups of Arabs were from the region around Medina, a lot more joined with them when they started having success.
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 19:41
1
@Denis Nardin. Arabs from outside Arabia?
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 20:10
1
@JohnDee Yes, or at least people culturally Arabs (speaking the Arabic language, and tracing their lineages more or less reliably through the same "ancestors" as the people living in Arabia). I did not think this was a controversial thing, it's not like the desert had custom checkpoints
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:50
1
@JohnDee From Kennedy's The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphate "In southern Iraq,Arabs lived in the deserts along the lower Euphrates and colonized a few towns,like Ḥīra along the fringes of the alluvial plains.Further north, Arab nomads were found in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates known as the Jazīra or “Island",a vast expanse of sparse grazing which could support a considerable population of pastoralists.On the western,Syrian edge of the desert [...] many Arabs had become more or less integrated into the Byzantine state and mingled with non-Arabic-speaking groups"
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:56
@Denis Nardin. So you mean on the fringes of the Arabian desert. Anyways, your explanation about joining him after successes seems to be from the koran. The consolidation of Arabia had more to do with events in the prior century and Persian conquest.
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 23:00
|
show 2 more comments
Note that a lot of the Arab populations taking part in the Islamic conquests were not from Arabia, but from neighboring places like Syria, Mesopotamia etc. Only the core groups of Arabs were from the region around Medina, a lot more joined with them when they started having success.
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 19:41
1
@Denis Nardin. Arabs from outside Arabia?
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 20:10
1
@JohnDee Yes, or at least people culturally Arabs (speaking the Arabic language, and tracing their lineages more or less reliably through the same "ancestors" as the people living in Arabia). I did not think this was a controversial thing, it's not like the desert had custom checkpoints
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:50
1
@JohnDee From Kennedy's The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphate "In southern Iraq,Arabs lived in the deserts along the lower Euphrates and colonized a few towns,like Ḥīra along the fringes of the alluvial plains.Further north, Arab nomads were found in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates known as the Jazīra or “Island",a vast expanse of sparse grazing which could support a considerable population of pastoralists.On the western,Syrian edge of the desert [...] many Arabs had become more or less integrated into the Byzantine state and mingled with non-Arabic-speaking groups"
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:56
@Denis Nardin. So you mean on the fringes of the Arabian desert. Anyways, your explanation about joining him after successes seems to be from the koran. The consolidation of Arabia had more to do with events in the prior century and Persian conquest.
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 23:00
Note that a lot of the Arab populations taking part in the Islamic conquests were not from Arabia, but from neighboring places like Syria, Mesopotamia etc. Only the core groups of Arabs were from the region around Medina, a lot more joined with them when they started having success.
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 19:41
Note that a lot of the Arab populations taking part in the Islamic conquests were not from Arabia, but from neighboring places like Syria, Mesopotamia etc. Only the core groups of Arabs were from the region around Medina, a lot more joined with them when they started having success.
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 19:41
1
1
@Denis Nardin. Arabs from outside Arabia?
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 20:10
@Denis Nardin. Arabs from outside Arabia?
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 20:10
1
1
@JohnDee Yes, or at least people culturally Arabs (speaking the Arabic language, and tracing their lineages more or less reliably through the same "ancestors" as the people living in Arabia). I did not think this was a controversial thing, it's not like the desert had custom checkpoints
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:50
@JohnDee Yes, or at least people culturally Arabs (speaking the Arabic language, and tracing their lineages more or less reliably through the same "ancestors" as the people living in Arabia). I did not think this was a controversial thing, it's not like the desert had custom checkpoints
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:50
1
1
@JohnDee From Kennedy's The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphate "In southern Iraq,Arabs lived in the deserts along the lower Euphrates and colonized a few towns,like Ḥīra along the fringes of the alluvial plains.Further north, Arab nomads were found in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates known as the Jazīra or “Island",a vast expanse of sparse grazing which could support a considerable population of pastoralists.On the western,Syrian edge of the desert [...] many Arabs had become more or less integrated into the Byzantine state and mingled with non-Arabic-speaking groups"
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:56
@JohnDee From Kennedy's The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphate "In southern Iraq,Arabs lived in the deserts along the lower Euphrates and colonized a few towns,like Ḥīra along the fringes of the alluvial plains.Further north, Arab nomads were found in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates known as the Jazīra or “Island",a vast expanse of sparse grazing which could support a considerable population of pastoralists.On the western,Syrian edge of the desert [...] many Arabs had become more or less integrated into the Byzantine state and mingled with non-Arabic-speaking groups"
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:56
@Denis Nardin. So you mean on the fringes of the Arabian desert. Anyways, your explanation about joining him after successes seems to be from the koran. The consolidation of Arabia had more to do with events in the prior century and Persian conquest.
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 23:00
@Denis Nardin. So you mean on the fringes of the Arabian desert. Anyways, your explanation about joining him after successes seems to be from the koran. The consolidation of Arabia had more to do with events in the prior century and Persian conquest.
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 23:00
|
show 2 more comments
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
According to Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, at the beginning of the Christian era it was about 2 million, and in the next 2 pairs of centuries it geometrically rose to about 2 2/3 million, then nearly 4. It had climbed to a high of about five and a quarter million around the time of Muhammad, a high-water mark that was receded from a bit to about 4.5 million within the first two Islamic centuries, not to be reached again until the Modern Era.
For this entire period, about half of this amount they place in The Yemen, the balance of the other half in the interior, and only trivial numbers on the Gulf coast and Oman. However, large amounts of the half in Yemen would not have spoken Arabic, but rather an assortment of related South Arabian (Semitic) languages.
For the region, these weren't gigantic numbers, but they were very respectable, and it was probably rather a lot for them. On population alone the Arabian peninsula was in the same league as the contemporaneous existing power centers in the boundaries of what today are Turkey and Persia*. McEvedy and Jones' text speculates that the high numbers likely put strain on the resources of this relatively poorly-resourced area, and that might partially explain its seemingly sudden foreign adventurism.
In Colin's excellent New Pengiun Atlas of Medieval History, he points out that the relatively easy victories the early Islamic armies had in the region may have been a reflection of the inhabitants not having a lot of fondness for the Greeks and Persians who had been fighting over their territory for centuries. Exploring this idea further, its worth noting that even if the locals didn't necessarily speak Arabic, Arabic is a Afroasiatic language, and such languages at the time were the language of the common people across the Levant and north Africa. So there was certainly at least some level of cultural affinity with Arabs that there would not have been with Greeks and Persians (both speaking Indo-European languages).
Pre-Islamic distribution of Afroasiatic language families
Image taken from Expansion of Afroasiatic Languages video on Youtube, based "loosely" on the work of Harold Flemming.
Distribution of Semitic Languages
* - The boundaries of modern Turkey at that time they put at around 6 million, and Iran at about 5.
answered Mar 3 at 20:50
T.E.D.♦T.E.D.
77.2k11172315
I can't quite read the key, what is the population of Arabic in the last image? I read 150m but that can't be right.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:12
1
@TheZ - If you click the link on the title, you can get access to larger versions of the image. That being said, I'm not going to bother, because I was unable to find an exact date to go with this image (I'm not sure it even properly has one), and without that any population number you derive from it is going to be useless. I really only included it to demonstrate how closely related the native languages of the region were. (Hebrew and Arabic are actually closer related than what is spoken in Yemen!) Looking at it again, I think the numbers might be for modern native speakers.
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 3 at 23:15
You are right. I was hoping for a reliable source about Arabic speakers at that time, but I don't expect I will find it. Anyway, good answer.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:28
@T.E.D. The map is mixing languages that have no current native speakers like Ge'ez and languages that have no ancient speakers like Maltese. And who knows which version of Hebrew, Aramaic, etc this is.
– Hasse1987
Mar 4 at 0:50
1
@Hasse1987 - That's why I suspect the numbers are for modern native speakers. Notice that all the extinct languages marked with an x in their dot have the smallest possible circle (presumably 0 modern native speakers)
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 4 at 5:01
|
show 2 more comments
StackExchange.ready(function()
var channelOptions =
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "324"
;
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function()
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled)
StackExchange.using("snippets", function()
createEditor();
);
else
createEditor();
);
function createEditor()
StackExchange.prepareEditor(
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader:
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
,
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
);
);
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fhistory.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f51390%2fwhat-was-the-population-of-late-pre-islamic-arabia-and-the-population-of-arabic%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
According to Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, at the beginning of the Christian era it was about 2 million, and in the next 2 pairs of centuries it geometrically rose to about 2 2/3 million, then nearly 4. It had climbed to a high of about five and a quarter million around the time of Muhammad, a high-water mark that was receded from a bit to about 4.5 million within the first two Islamic centuries, not to be reached again until the Modern Era.
For this entire period, about half of this amount they place in The Yemen, the balance of the other half in the interior, and only trivial numbers on the Gulf coast and Oman. However, large amounts of the half in Yemen would not have spoken Arabic, but rather an assortment of related South Arabian (Semitic) languages.
For the region, these weren't gigantic numbers, but they were very respectable, and it was probably rather a lot for them. On population alone the Arabian peninsula was in the same league as the contemporaneous existing power centers in the boundaries of what today are Turkey and Persia*. McEvedy and Jones' text speculates that the high numbers likely put strain on the resources of this relatively poorly-resourced area, and that might partially explain its seemingly sudden foreign adventurism.
In Colin's excellent New Pengiun Atlas of Medieval History, he points out that the relatively easy victories the early Islamic armies had in the region may have been a reflection of the inhabitants not having a lot of fondness for the Greeks and Persians who had been fighting over their territory for centuries. Exploring this idea further, its worth noting that even if the locals didn't necessarily speak Arabic, Arabic is a Afroasiatic language, and such languages at the time were the language of the common people across the Levant and north Africa. So there was certainly at least some level of cultural affinity with Arabs that there would not have been with Greeks and Persians (both speaking Indo-European languages).
Pre-Islamic distribution of Afroasiatic language familiesImage taken from Expansion of Afroasiatic Languages video on Youtube, based "loosely" on the work of Harold Flemming.
Distribution of Semitic Languages
* - The boundaries of modern Turkey at that time they put at around 6 million, and Iran at about 5.
answered Mar 3 at 20:50
T.E.D.♦T.E.D.
77.2k11172315
I can't quite read the key, what is the population of Arabic in the last image? I read 150m but that can't be right.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:12
1
@TheZ - If you click the link on the title, you can get access to larger versions of the image. That being said, I'm not going to bother, because I was unable to find an exact date to go with this image (I'm not sure it even properly has one), and without that any population number you derive from it is going to be useless. I really only included it to demonstrate how closely related the native languages of the region were. (Hebrew and Arabic are actually closer related than what is spoken in Yemen!) Looking at it again, I think the numbers might be for modern native speakers.
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 3 at 23:15
You are right. I was hoping for a reliable source about Arabic speakers at that time, but I don't expect I will find it. Anyway, good answer.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:28
@T.E.D. The map is mixing languages that have no current native speakers like Ge'ez and languages that have no ancient speakers like Maltese. And who knows which version of Hebrew, Aramaic, etc this is.
– Hasse1987
Mar 4 at 0:50
1
@Hasse1987 - That's why I suspect the numbers are for modern native speakers. Notice that all the extinct languages marked with an x in their dot have the smallest possible circle (presumably 0 modern native speakers)
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 4 at 5:01
|
show 2 more comments
According to Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, at the beginning of the Christian era it was about 2 million, and in the next 2 pairs of centuries it geometrically rose to about 2 2/3 million, then nearly 4. It had climbed to a high of about five and a quarter million around the time of Muhammad, a high-water mark that was receded from a bit to about 4.5 million within the first two Islamic centuries, not to be reached again until the Modern Era.
For this entire period, about half of this amount they place in The Yemen, the balance of the other half in the interior, and only trivial numbers on the Gulf coast and Oman. However, large amounts of the half in Yemen would not have spoken Arabic, but rather an assortment of related South Arabian (Semitic) languages.
For the region, these weren't gigantic numbers, but they were very respectable, and it was probably rather a lot for them. On population alone the Arabian peninsula was in the same league as the contemporaneous existing power centers in the boundaries of what today are Turkey and Persia*. McEvedy and Jones' text speculates that the high numbers likely put strain on the resources of this relatively poorly-resourced area, and that might partially explain its seemingly sudden foreign adventurism.
In Colin's excellent New Pengiun Atlas of Medieval History, he points out that the relatively easy victories the early Islamic armies had in the region may have been a reflection of the inhabitants not having a lot of fondness for the Greeks and Persians who had been fighting over their territory for centuries. Exploring this idea further, its worth noting that even if the locals didn't necessarily speak Arabic, Arabic is a Afroasiatic language, and such languages at the time were the language of the common people across the Levant and north Africa. So there was certainly at least some level of cultural affinity with Arabs that there would not have been with Greeks and Persians (both speaking Indo-European languages).
Pre-Islamic distribution of Afroasiatic language familiesImage taken from Expansion of Afroasiatic Languages video on Youtube, based "loosely" on the work of Harold Flemming.
Distribution of Semitic Languages
* - The boundaries of modern Turkey at that time they put at around 6 million, and Iran at about 5.
answered Mar 3 at 20:50
T.E.D.♦T.E.D.
77.2k11172315
I can't quite read the key, what is the population of Arabic in the last image? I read 150m but that can't be right.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:12
1
@TheZ - If you click the link on the title, you can get access to larger versions of the image. That being said, I'm not going to bother, because I was unable to find an exact date to go with this image (I'm not sure it even properly has one), and without that any population number you derive from it is going to be useless. I really only included it to demonstrate how closely related the native languages of the region were. (Hebrew and Arabic are actually closer related than what is spoken in Yemen!) Looking at it again, I think the numbers might be for modern native speakers.
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 3 at 23:15
You are right. I was hoping for a reliable source about Arabic speakers at that time, but I don't expect I will find it. Anyway, good answer.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:28
@T.E.D. The map is mixing languages that have no current native speakers like Ge'ez and languages that have no ancient speakers like Maltese. And who knows which version of Hebrew, Aramaic, etc this is.
– Hasse1987
Mar 4 at 0:50
1
@Hasse1987 - That's why I suspect the numbers are for modern native speakers. Notice that all the extinct languages marked with an x in their dot have the smallest possible circle (presumably 0 modern native speakers)
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 4 at 5:01
|
show 2 more comments
According to Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, at the beginning of the Christian era it was about 2 million, and in the next 2 pairs of centuries it geometrically rose to about 2 2/3 million, then nearly 4. It had climbed to a high of about five and a quarter million around the time of Muhammad, a high-water mark that was receded from a bit to about 4.5 million within the first two Islamic centuries, not to be reached again until the Modern Era.
For this entire period, about half of this amount they place in The Yemen, the balance of the other half in the interior, and only trivial numbers on the Gulf coast and Oman. However, large amounts of the half in Yemen would not have spoken Arabic, but rather an assortment of related South Arabian (Semitic) languages.
For the region, these weren't gigantic numbers, but they were very respectable, and it was probably rather a lot for them. On population alone the Arabian peninsula was in the same league as the contemporaneous existing power centers in the boundaries of what today are Turkey and Persia*. McEvedy and Jones' text speculates that the high numbers likely put strain on the resources of this relatively poorly-resourced area, and that might partially explain its seemingly sudden foreign adventurism.
In Colin's excellent New Pengiun Atlas of Medieval History, he points out that the relatively easy victories the early Islamic armies had in the region may have been a reflection of the inhabitants not having a lot of fondness for the Greeks and Persians who had been fighting over their territory for centuries. Exploring this idea further, its worth noting that even if the locals didn't necessarily speak Arabic, Arabic is a Afroasiatic language, and such languages at the time were the language of the common people across the Levant and north Africa. So there was certainly at least some level of cultural affinity with Arabs that there would not have been with Greeks and Persians (both speaking Indo-European languages).
Pre-Islamic distribution of Afroasiatic language familiesImage taken from Expansion of Afroasiatic Languages video on Youtube, based "loosely" on the work of Harold Flemming.
Distribution of Semitic Languages
* - The boundaries of modern Turkey at that time they put at around 6 million, and Iran at about 5.
answered Mar 3 at 20:50
T.E.D.♦T.E.D.
77.2k11172315
According to Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, at the beginning of the Christian era it was about 2 million, and in the next 2 pairs of centuries it geometrically rose to about 2 2/3 million, then nearly 4. It had climbed to a high of about five and a quarter million around the time of Muhammad, a high-water mark that was receded from a bit to about 4.5 million within the first two Islamic centuries, not to be reached again until the Modern Era.
For this entire period, about half of this amount they place in The Yemen, the balance of the other half in the interior, and only trivial numbers on the Gulf coast and Oman. However, large amounts of the half in Yemen would not have spoken Arabic, but rather an assortment of related South Arabian (Semitic) languages.
For the region, these weren't gigantic numbers, but they were very respectable, and it was probably rather a lot for them. On population alone the Arabian peninsula was in the same league as the contemporaneous existing power centers in the boundaries of what today are Turkey and Persia*. McEvedy and Jones' text speculates that the high numbers likely put strain on the resources of this relatively poorly-resourced area, and that might partially explain its seemingly sudden foreign adventurism.
In Colin's excellent New Pengiun Atlas of Medieval History, he points out that the relatively easy victories the early Islamic armies had in the region may have been a reflection of the inhabitants not having a lot of fondness for the Greeks and Persians who had been fighting over their territory for centuries. Exploring this idea further, its worth noting that even if the locals didn't necessarily speak Arabic, Arabic is a Afroasiatic language, and such languages at the time were the language of the common people across the Levant and north Africa. So there was certainly at least some level of cultural affinity with Arabs that there would not have been with Greeks and Persians (both speaking Indo-European languages).
Pre-Islamic distribution of Afroasiatic language familiesImage taken from Expansion of Afroasiatic Languages video on Youtube, based "loosely" on the work of Harold Flemming.
Distribution of Semitic Languages
* - The boundaries of modern Turkey at that time they put at around 6 million, and Iran at about 5.
answered Mar 3 at 20:50
T.E.D.♦T.E.D.
77.2k11172315
edited Mar 4 at 15:13
answered Mar 3 at 20:50
T.E.D.♦T.E.D.
77.2k11172315
answered Mar 3 at 20:50
T.E.D.♦T.E.D.
77.2k11172315
answered Mar 3 at 20:50
T.E.D.♦T.E.D.
77.2k11172315
77.2k11172315
I can't quite read the key, what is the population of Arabic in the last image? I read 150m but that can't be right.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:12
1
@TheZ - If you click the link on the title, you can get access to larger versions of the image. That being said, I'm not going to bother, because I was unable to find an exact date to go with this image (I'm not sure it even properly has one), and without that any population number you derive from it is going to be useless. I really only included it to demonstrate how closely related the native languages of the region were. (Hebrew and Arabic are actually closer related than what is spoken in Yemen!) Looking at it again, I think the numbers might be for modern native speakers.
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 3 at 23:15
You are right. I was hoping for a reliable source about Arabic speakers at that time, but I don't expect I will find it. Anyway, good answer.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:28
@T.E.D. The map is mixing languages that have no current native speakers like Ge'ez and languages that have no ancient speakers like Maltese. And who knows which version of Hebrew, Aramaic, etc this is.
– Hasse1987
Mar 4 at 0:50
1
@Hasse1987 - That's why I suspect the numbers are for modern native speakers. Notice that all the extinct languages marked with an x in their dot have the smallest possible circle (presumably 0 modern native speakers)
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 4 at 5:01
|
show 2 more comments
I can't quite read the key, what is the population of Arabic in the last image? I read 150m but that can't be right.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:12
1
@TheZ - If you click the link on the title, you can get access to larger versions of the image. That being said, I'm not going to bother, because I was unable to find an exact date to go with this image (I'm not sure it even properly has one), and without that any population number you derive from it is going to be useless. I really only included it to demonstrate how closely related the native languages of the region were. (Hebrew and Arabic are actually closer related than what is spoken in Yemen!) Looking at it again, I think the numbers might be for modern native speakers.
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 3 at 23:15
You are right. I was hoping for a reliable source about Arabic speakers at that time, but I don't expect I will find it. Anyway, good answer.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:28
@T.E.D. The map is mixing languages that have no current native speakers like Ge'ez and languages that have no ancient speakers like Maltese. And who knows which version of Hebrew, Aramaic, etc this is.
– Hasse1987
Mar 4 at 0:50
1
@Hasse1987 - That's why I suspect the numbers are for modern native speakers. Notice that all the extinct languages marked with an x in their dot have the smallest possible circle (presumably 0 modern native speakers)
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 4 at 5:01
I can't quite read the key, what is the population of Arabic in the last image? I read 150m but that can't be right.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:12
I can't quite read the key, what is the population of Arabic in the last image? I read 150m but that can't be right.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:12
1
1
@TheZ - If you click the link on the title, you can get access to larger versions of the image. That being said, I'm not going to bother, because I was unable to find an exact date to go with this image (I'm not sure it even properly has one), and without that any population number you derive from it is going to be useless. I really only included it to demonstrate how closely related the native languages of the region were. (Hebrew and Arabic are actually closer related than what is spoken in Yemen!) Looking at it again, I think the numbers might be for modern native speakers.
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 3 at 23:15
@TheZ - If you click the link on the title, you can get access to larger versions of the image. That being said, I'm not going to bother, because I was unable to find an exact date to go with this image (I'm not sure it even properly has one), and without that any population number you derive from it is going to be useless. I really only included it to demonstrate how closely related the native languages of the region were. (Hebrew and Arabic are actually closer related than what is spoken in Yemen!) Looking at it again, I think the numbers might be for modern native speakers.
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 3 at 23:15
You are right. I was hoping for a reliable source about Arabic speakers at that time, but I don't expect I will find it. Anyway, good answer.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:28
You are right. I was hoping for a reliable source about Arabic speakers at that time, but I don't expect I will find it. Anyway, good answer.
– The Z
Mar 3 at 23:28
@T.E.D. The map is mixing languages that have no current native speakers like Ge'ez and languages that have no ancient speakers like Maltese. And who knows which version of Hebrew, Aramaic, etc this is.
– Hasse1987
Mar 4 at 0:50
@T.E.D. The map is mixing languages that have no current native speakers like Ge'ez and languages that have no ancient speakers like Maltese. And who knows which version of Hebrew, Aramaic, etc this is.
– Hasse1987
Mar 4 at 0:50
1
1
@Hasse1987 - That's why I suspect the numbers are for modern native speakers. Notice that all the extinct languages marked with an x in their dot have the smallest possible circle (presumably 0 modern native speakers)
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 4 at 5:01
@Hasse1987 - That's why I suspect the numbers are for modern native speakers. Notice that all the extinct languages marked with an x in their dot have the smallest possible circle (presumably 0 modern native speakers)
– T.E.D.♦
Mar 4 at 5:01
|
show 2 more comments
Thanks for contributing an answer to History Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fhistory.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f51390%2fwhat-was-the-population-of-late-pre-islamic-arabia-and-the-population-of-arabic%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Note that a lot of the Arab populations taking part in the Islamic conquests were not from Arabia, but from neighboring places like Syria, Mesopotamia etc. Only the core groups of Arabs were from the region around Medina, a lot more joined with them when they started having success.
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 19:41
1
@Denis Nardin. Arabs from outside Arabia?
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 20:10
1
@JohnDee Yes, or at least people culturally Arabs (speaking the Arabic language, and tracing their lineages more or less reliably through the same "ancestors" as the people living in Arabia). I did not think this was a controversial thing, it's not like the desert had custom checkpoints
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:50
1
@JohnDee From Kennedy's The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphate "In southern Iraq,Arabs lived in the deserts along the lower Euphrates and colonized a few towns,like Ḥīra along the fringes of the alluvial plains.Further north, Arab nomads were found in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates known as the Jazīra or “Island",a vast expanse of sparse grazing which could support a considerable population of pastoralists.On the western,Syrian edge of the desert [...] many Arabs had become more or less integrated into the Byzantine state and mingled with non-Arabic-speaking groups"
– Denis Nardin
Mar 3 at 21:56
@Denis Nardin. So you mean on the fringes of the Arabian desert. Anyways, your explanation about joining him after successes seems to be from the koran. The consolidation of Arabia had more to do with events in the prior century and Persian conquest.
– John Dee
Mar 3 at 23:00