The word بدوي or Bedouin!

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jul 7, 2020 at 06:00

You wrote:

>I'm not so sure whether the Palmyrans and Hatrans were of Bedouin origin also.

Well, they spoke Aramaic (and in the case of Palmyra Aramaic is still spoken in places like Ma'loula) and they also spoke Greek in Palmyra.

As for the word Bedouin, the Qur'an tells us that there are two types of Arabs, عرب or Arabs or city dwellers and اعراب or Arab nomads. So the word اعراب really means Bedouins بدوي (singular) and notice that the word بدوي becomes a loan word in Aramaic and Hebrew. However, the etymology of the word, as far as I know, has never being explained by the Arab grammarians.

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