The Origins of Allah.

Gramaic

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I had never heard that before. Do you have a source for this claim?
Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew all belong to the Semitic family of languages and all likely share origins with an early, proto-semitic language. But I have never heard anyone say that Aramaic "changed [in]to Arabic."

Aramaic never changed into anything. A lot of people still speak Aramaic. A good example would be in Ma'loula, Syria. However, Aramaic was the predominant language in the northern Middle East, especially in the Levant region that make up the modern day countries of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories. After the Arab/Muslim invasion of the Levant, Aramaic was replaced by Arabic. Just like how the Coptic language in Egypt was replaced by Arabic.
 
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Supreme

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This is very interesting. It's interesting that Muhammad considered giving Allah a mroe 'colourful' name. It's also interesting that he was regarded as the chief gods before being turned into the only God, much similar to what may have happened to Zeus if the Greeks decided to keep their religion.
 
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PHenry42

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What's in a name? That the word "Allah" used to mean something different before Islam came along proves absolutely nothing.

The semitic "El" was used not only by ancient Jews, but by a whole lot of Semitic peoples in the region, most of them polytheists, to refer to the foremost god of their pantheons. Baal being one example.

A deal, then? I will admit to worshiping a sun/moon god if you Christians admit to worshiping Baal. Better begin sacrificing little kiddies to him too.
 
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PHenry42

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It's also interesting that he was regarded as the chief gods before being turned into the only God, much similar to what may have happened to Zeus if the Greeks decided to keep their religion.

Well, that's what pretty much happened. Zeus = Theos = Deus. Wotan = Gott.

Simply using the generic noun for "god" was a common way to refer to the god on the top of a Pagan pantheon. Pre-Islamic Arabs were far from unique in that regard.
 
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