How Interdialectal is Peripheral Oral Bedouin Poetry

The ancient Near Eastern poetic tradition dates back to pre-biblical times; in the illiterate nomadic desert societies it was the major tool for transmitting information as well as emotions and educational values across space and time. Traditional Bedouin poetry, also known as Nabati,'is thus a vast cultural treasure of wisdom literature,'the dīwān of the Arabs' that “preserved the collective memory of the society (Sowayan, Nabați, p. 193, citing Gibb). Moreover, poetry in the ancient Arab culture was conceptualized as life itself: rhythm, a living energy binding the self to the other, embodied the pulse of the human being, bringing together movements of body and soul; rhyme, more ancient than metre, was the repository of meaning (Adonis, Poetics, p. 30–31).