New Data on the Delateralization of Ḍād and its Merger with Żā’ in Classical Arabic

Summary The history of the phoneme ḍād and its merger with the phoneme żā’ has proven enigmatic. By presenting data from Old South Arabian speech communities and lexical data from the Islamic tradition, this article brackets a period of ḍād / żā’ free variation between the fourth and mid-eighth centuries CE. These data support the…