How Arabia Got Its Name

Arabia is one of the most geopolitically important and powerful regions on the planet today and technically this is also the largest peninsula on earth of 3.2 million square kilometers despite its size the population of Arabia is actually quite low containing only around 77 million people less than the population of Turkey all while occupying a landmass the same size as India this low population density can most likely be attributed to the harsh desert conditions found almost uniformly across the whole of Arabia one two three four five six seven countries are contained within this region and five of them are consistently considered some of the richest countries on the planet nearly all of this wealth comes from the export of oil as Arabia contains the world's largest proven oil reserves beneath their sands Saudi Arabia is the leading oil exporting country in the world sending out over 8 million barrels of oil every day this has given the countries in this region tremendous prominence on the world stage as many other countries around the globe depends on their exports to power their homes industries and maybe even their entire economies while oil might be the main focus today when talking about Arabia this land has been inhabited for thousands of years and within the sand dunes Oasis and wadis lies a deep and rich history it's named Arabia is a great example of how far back the history goes in this region the name has two parts to it Arab and eeeh this follows the common latin tradition of placing iya at the end of a name to indicate that it's the name of a place so Arabia really means the land of Arabs okay so that's one part figured out now we just have to figure out where Arab comes from linguistically speaking Arab in this context refers to the Arab of people group which is the second largest ethnic group on the planet with a total of around four hundred and thirty million people belonging to it only falling behind the truly enormous Han Chinese ethnic group meanwhile the language of the Arabs Arabic is the fifth most widely spoken language on earth and the error but people have spread far beyond the Middle East to northern Africa all the way to Morocco down into East Africa and places like Ethiopia and even into Western Asia as far as Pakistan and India but it's thought that they started out as a nomadic tribe outside of Arabia in the deserts of Syria and eventually migrated south into what's now the Arabian desert since these people have had such a long and wide-reaching history understanding the origin of the term Arab is a bit tricky the first recorded use of the term Arab in Arabic is from an inscription commemorating Timaru Alki East even Amir which yeah I probably didn't pronounce properly so I'll just call him mu mu was the second elected king meaning he ruled over this area which you might notice is outside of where the Arab people originated showing from very early on the Arab people were spreading across the region in his epitaph M rue was called that the king of all Arabs who owned the crown so we're done right Arabia comes from Arab which was first used on this tablet well obviously not this usage implies that the term Arabia had been in use for some time prior to it being inscribed in stone what this freely tells us is that by the year 328 C II the year this tablet was created the Arab people had adopted the name for themselves but this doesn't actually explain where it came from or what it means for this we must go deeper while today we might think of the Semitic people as only Jewish people Semitic actually refers to the Semitic language group which includes both Arabic and Hebrew among several other languages this language group originated in the Middle East region so it's believed that the term Arab got its start with in this language group because of this many people have looked to some of the earliest versions of Semitic languages in hopes of finding answers in Assyrian records a description of a man known as Gynt abou was found and in it he is referred to as the ruler of matsuoda by Hindu boo was a king in the region of Haram who allied against the Assyrians fighting in the Battle of car car in 853 BCE in Assyrian matsuoda by translates into Arab land this is the earliest record we have of Arabs being referred to as a distinct people group with this name attached this means that the term Arab who was being used at least 3,000 years ago but as to why the Assyrians referred to Ginn Daboo as the ruler of Arab lands it's still a little unclear one theory is that they were using a derivation of the root Europe of meaning West to describe the Arabs this does make a fair amount of sense because at the time the Assyrians controlled with these lands while Gynt Bou and the rest of the aramean Kings who fought against the Assyrians came from here to the west of the Assyrians so yeah it's really no surprise that the Assyrians would call the Arameans Westerners if this was the case though that would mean Arabia which is located within the Middle East would translate into the land of Westerners which basically contradicts itself in any way Arabia is in the southern part of this region however there are others who think the term Arab may have its origins in Hebrew in ancient versions of this language Arif and Arab ah literally translate into desert or grassland both of which were very common environments for people living in this region in the Hebrew Bible which was written right around the same time gender boot was fighting with the Assyrians the female form of Arafah Arabah was used to describe a region where the arabic-speaking Nabataeans lives this is bonus information but the Nabataeans are the people who built what are now the ruins of Petra which you may have seen in some movies these guys dug really cool structures into the exteriors of stone faces and I just thought it was worth mentioning but anyway when listing those who gave tribute to King Solomon in the Hebrew Bible the masculine form of Arab was used to describe the kings of Arab or the kings of the desert and Arif II was the word used to describe any person who lives in the desert so basically Arab originally could have had two origins the Assyrian origin means Arabia comes from the land of Westerners while the Hebrew origin means Arabia is the land of desert or desert dwellers both are roughly the same age so it's really up to individuals to decide which one they believe makes more sense there's one more small theory however that Arab actually came from the Hebrew route Arab yeah Hebrew doesn't really have any vowels so that's why it kind of looks strange written in our half a bet but anyway this Arab became too mean trade with la truth meaning to exchange and then people who engaged in exchange traders became urban it's not a very well-supported idea but I brought this up because we're having a little exchange right now with making videos and you watching them and such if you enjoyed this exchange and you would like to keep having it you might consider exchanging with me over on patreon to help keep this channel going it really helps me out and you could get your name in a video like these guys if not that's fine too but if this video made you curious about how other places got their names I've got a whole playlist you might be interested and so make sure to check that out if you have any ideas on place names that you'd like me to explain in a future video feel free to suggest them in the comments and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss them if I do end up making them I'll be back next week with another video thanks

Channel: Atlas Pro

Views: 777,908

Rating: 4.7447658 out of 5

Keywords: education, geography, science, atlaspro, arabia, arab, arabs, arabian, saudi, yemen, oman, united, emirates, bahrain, qatar, kuwait, etymology

Id: E35j15N_dys

Length: 7min 6sec (426 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Killadelphian]

Great video! Didn’t like the text sound effects but the info was good.

[u/BREEbreeJORjor]

OoOoOo! Loved it!

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From the Ancient Greek "ἐρημία"