The proper name Arab or Arabian (and cognates in other languages) has been used to translate several different but similar-sounding words in ancient and classical texts which do not necessarily have the same meaning or origin. The etymology of the term is closely linked to that of the place name Arabia. Semitic etymology The root of the word has many meanings in Semitic languages including desert, nomad, merchant, raven and comprehensible with all of these having varying degrees of relevance to the emergence of the name. It is also possible that some forms were metathetical from root "moving around", and hence, it is alleged, "nomadic". The plurality of meanings results partly from the assimilation of the proto-Semitic ghayin with in some languages. In Hebrew the word thus has the same triconsonantal root as the root meaning "west" ( ) "setting sun" or "evening" ( , ). The direct Arabic cognate of this is ("west", etc.) rather than ; however, in Ugaritic and Sayhadic, languages which normally preserve proto-Semitic ghayin, this root is found with ʿayin adding to the confusion. The first recorded use of the root is in the Hebrew word ereb, Genesis 1:5, and its meaning there is "evening." In Arabic The oldest surviving indication of an Arab identity is an inscription made in early Arabic using the Nabatean Aramaic alphabet in 328 CE, which refers to Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr as "King of all the Arabs". In the Qur'an, the word does not appear, only the nisba adjective, : The Qur'an is referring to itself as "Arabic" and "clear". The two qualities are connected, for example in Quran 43:2-3, "By the clear Book: We have made it an Arabic recitation in order that you may understand", and the Qur'an came to be regarded as the prime example of , the language of the Arabs. The term is from the same root, referring to a particularly clear and correct mode of speech. Bedouin elders still use this term with the same meaning; those whose speech they comprehend (i.e. Arabic-speakers) they call Arab, and those whose speech is of unknown meaning to them, they call (or ). In the Persian Gulf region, the term Ajam is often used to refer to the Persians. The plural noun refers to the Bedouin tribes of the desert who rejected Islam, for example in Quran 9:97, "the Bedouin are the worst in disbelief and