 The traditional view held that because the Safaitic inscriptions often make use of the definite article "ha-", in contrast to Classical Arabic "'al", that their language should not be regarded as Arabic proper, but rather as Ancient North Arabian.However, as more inscriptions have come to light, it is clear that the Safaitic dialects make use of a variety of definite article forms, including "'al", and even a simple "'a-".Based on this fact, the competing view holds that the dialects attested in the Safaitic script represent a linguistic continuum, on which Classical Arabic and other older forms of the language lie.