Transliteration key for South Arabian in several scripts
There were a number of other Old South Arabian languages (e.g. Awsānian), of which very little evidence has survived, however. A pair of possible surviving Sayhadic languages is attested in the Razihi language and Faifi language spoken in far north-west of Yemen, though these varieties of speech have both Arabic and Sayhadic features, and it is difficult to classify them as either Arabic dialects with a Sayhadic substratum, or Sayhadic languages that have been restructured under pressure of Arabic.
It was originally thought that all four members of this group were dialects of one Old South Arabian language, but in the mid-twentieth century, linguist A.F.L. Beeston finally proved that they did in fact constitute independent languages.[4]
The Old South Arabian languages were originally classified (partly on the basis of geography) as South Semitic, along with Arabic, Modern South Arabian and Ethiopian Semitic;[5] more recently however, a new classification has come in use which places Old South Arabian, along with Arabic, Ugaritic, Aramaic and Canaanite/Hebrew in a Central Semitic group;[6] leaving Modern South Arabian and Ethiopic in a separate group. This new classification is based on Arabic, Old South Arabian and Northwest Semitic (Ugaritic, Aramaic and Canaanite) sharing an innovation in the verbal system, an imperfect taking the form *yVqtVl-u (the other groups have *yVqattVl); Nebes showed that Sabaean at least had the form yVqtVl in the imperfect.
Even though it has been now accepted that the four main languages be considered independent, they are clearly closely related linguistically and derive from a common ancestor because they share certain morphological innovations. One of the most important isoglosses retained in all four languages is the suffixed definite article -(h)n.[7] There are however significant differences between the languages.
The last inscription of these languages dates back to 554 CE, 60 years before the appearance of Islam.[9][10]
Languages
Old South Arabian comprised a number of languages; the following are those that have been preserved in writing (the dates follow the so-called long chronology). Besides these, at least Razihi may be a surviving Old South Arabian language.
Sabaean: the language of the kingdom of Saba and later also of Ḥimyar; also documented in the Eritrean kingdom of Da'amot;[11] very well documented, ca. 6000 Inscriptions
Old Sabaean: 8th until 2nd century BC.
Middle Sabaean: 1st century BC until the 4th century AD (the best documented language)[12]
Ḥaramitic: the language of the area to the north of Ma'īn[13]
Central Sabaean: the language of the inscriptions from the Sabaean heartland
South Sabaean: the language of the inscriptions from Radman and Ḥimyar
Minaean: (also called Madhabian): the language of the city states in al-Jawf − with the exception of Haram − especially the later sparsely populated state of Ma'in (recorded from the 8th until 2nd century BC). Inscriptions have also been found outside Ma'īn in the commercial colonies of Dedan and Madā'in Ṣāliḥ, in Egypt and also on Delos. (ca. 500 inscriptions)
Qatabānian: the language of the kingdom of Qatabān, recorded from the 5th century BC until the 2nd century (barely 2000 inscriptions)
Awsānian: the language of the kingdom of Awsān, poorly recorded (ca. 25 inscriptions, 8th/ 1st century BC until about the 1st century AD). Indistinguishable from Qatabānian.
Other varieties such as the language of the tribe of Radmān
Hadramautic (or Ḥaḑramitic): the language of Ḥaḑramaut, with an additional inscription from the Greek island of Delos. 5th century BC until the 4th century AD, with ca. 1000 inscriptions.
Written records
Old South Arabian was written in the Old South Arabian script, a consonantal abjad deriving from the Phoenician alphabet. Compared with other parts of the ancient world, Palestine for instance, the number of surviving inscriptions is very high. Something in the region of 10,000 inscriptions exist. The Sabaean lexicon contains about 2,500 words.
Categories of written records
Inscriptions in stone
Votive inscriptions, which often preserve historical accounts of the events that led to the dedication
Inscriptions on buildings: give the names of the person who commissioned the work and the historical circumstances among other things
Laws and legislation
Protocols and deeds
Inscriptions written for atonement or repentance
Graffiti on rocks
Literary texts: if large numbers of any such texts ever existed, they have been almost completely lost
Inscriptions on wooden cylinders (only Middle Sabaean and Hadramite). There are about 1000 so far; very few published, mostly from Nashshān, in Wādī Madhāb.[14]
Private texts
Contracts and orders
Inscriptions on everyday objects
The inscriptions on stone display a very formal and precise wording and expression, whereas the style of the wooden inscriptions written in the cursive script is much more informal.
Although the inscriptions from ancient South Arabia were already known by the 18th century, it was Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842) and his student Emil Rödiger who finally undertook the deciphering of the script, actually independently of each other, in the years 1841/42. Then in the second half of the 19th century Joseph Halévy and Eduard Glaser brought hundreds of Old South Arabian inscriptions, possible tracings and copies back to Europe. On the basis of this large amount of material Fritz Hommel prepared a selection of texts in 1893 along with an attempt at a grammar. Later on the Sabaean expert Nikolaus Rhodokanakis made especially important steps towards understanding Old South Arabian. A completely new field of Old South Arabian script and texts has been opened up since the 1970s by the discovery of wooden cylinders on which Sabaean has been written with a pen. The unknown script and numerous incomprehensible words presented Sabaean studies with new problems, and to this day the wooden cylinders are not completely understood.
In the German-speaking world, Old South Arabian is taught in the framework of Semitic Studies, and no independent university chair has been dedicated to Old South Arabian (or Sabaean) Studies. Learning Old South Arabian at least furthers the student’s knowledge of the characteristics of Semitic by introducing him or her to a less well-preserved example of the group. Students normally begin to learn the grammar of Old South Arabian and then they finally read a few of the longer texts.
^Nebes, Norbert; Stein, Peter (2008). "Ancient South Arabian". In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.). The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia(PDF). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 145–178. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486890. ISBN9780511486890.
^Avanzini, Alessandra (2009). "Origin and Classification of the Ancient South Arabian Languages". Journal of Semitic Studies. 54 (1): 205–220. doi:10.1093/jss/fgn048. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
^(PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-11-30. Retrieved 2017-05-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^Faber, Alice (1997). "Genetic Subgrouping of the Semitic Languages". In Robert Hetzron (ed.). The Semitic Languages (1st ed.). London: Routledge. p. 7. ISBN0-415-05767-1.
^Fattovich, Rodolfo, "Akkälä Guzay" in Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A-C. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz KG, 2003, p. 169
^Sabaean inscription (C 325), dated 669 of the Ḥimyarite era (=559 or 554 CE) (Kogan & Korotayev (1997), p. 321).
^A. Avanzini: Le iscrizioni sudarabiche d'Etiopia: un esempio di culture e lingue a contatto. In: Oriens antiquus, 26 (1987), Seite 201-221
^Dialekte nach: Peter Stein: Zur Dialektgeographie des Sabäischen. In: Journal of Semitic Studies XLIX/2. Manchester 2004
^Stein, Peter (2007). "Materialien zur sabäischen Dialektologie: Das Problem des amiritischen ("haramitischen") Dialektes" [Materials on Sabaean Dialectology: The Problem of the Amirite ("Haramite") Dialect]. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (in German). 157: 13–47.
N. Nebes, P. Stein: Ancient South Arabian, in: Roger D. Woodard (Hrsg.): The Cambridge encyclopedia of the World's ancient languages Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004 ISBN0-521-56256-2 S. 454-487 (Up to date grammatical sketch with Bibliography).
Peter Stein: Ancient South Arabian. In: Stefan Weninger (Hrsg.): The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin 2011, ISBN3110186136, pp. 1042–1073.
Maria Höfner: Altsüdarabische Grammatik (Porta Linguarum Orientalium, Band 24) Leipzig, 1943.
Kogan, Leonid; Korotayev, Andrey (1997). "Sayhadic Languages (Epigraphic South Arabian)". Semitic Languages. London: Routledge. pp. 157–183.
N. Nebes, P. Stein: Ancient South Arabian, in: Roger D. Woodard (Hrsg.): The Cambridge encyclopedia of the World's ancient languages Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004 ISBN0-521-56256-2 S. 454-487 (most recent grammatical overview with bibliography).
Mounir Arbach: Le madhabien: lexique, onomastique et grammaire d'une langue de l'Arabie méridionale préislamique. (Tomes 1-3) Aix-en-Provence, 1993 (Includes a grammar, a lexicon and a list of Minaean personal names)
Dictionaries
A. F. L. Beeston, M. A. Ghul, W. W. Müller, J. Ryckmans: Sabaic Dictionary / Dictionnaire sabéen /al-Muʿdscham as-Sabaʾī (Englisch-Französisch-Arabisch) Louvain-la-Neuve, 1982 ISBN2-8017-0194-7
Joan Copeland Biella: Dictionary of Old South Arabic. Sabaean dialect Eisenbrauns, 1982 ISBN1-57506-919-9
S.D. Ricks: Lexicon of Inscriptional Qatabanian (Studia Pohl, 14), Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome 1989
Collections of texts
Alessandra Avanzini: Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions I-III. Qatabanic, Marginal Qatabanic, Awsanite Inscriptions (Arabia Antica 2). Ed. PLUS, Pisa 2004. ISBN88-8492-263-1
Barbara Jändl: Altsüdarabische Inschriften auf Metall (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel 4). Tübingen, Berlin 2009. ISBN978-3-8030-2201-1
Jacques Ryckmans, Walter W. Müller, Yusuf M. Abdallah: Textes du Yémen antique. Inscrits sur bois (Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 43). Institut Orientaliste, Louvain 1994. ISBN2-87723-104-6
Peter Stein: Die altsüdarabischen Minuskelinschriften auf Holzstäbchen aus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München 1: Die Inschriften der mittel- und spätsabäischen Periode (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel 5). Tübingen, 2010. ISBN978-3-8030-2200-4
December 31, 2022
south, arabian, this, article, about, language, script, which, written, ancient, south, arabian, script, Ṣayhadic, yemenite, group, four, closely, related, extinct, languages, spoken, southern, portion, arabian, peninsula, they, were, written, ancient, south, . This article is about the language For the script in which it was written see Ancient South Arabian script Old South Arabian 1 2 3 or Ṣayhadic or Yemenite is a group of four closely related extinct languages spoken in the far southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula They were written in the Ancient South Arabian script Old South ArabianYemeniteGeographicdistributionSouthern ArabiaLinguistic classificationAfro AsiaticSemiticWest SemiticSouth Semitic Central Semitic Old South ArabianSubdivisionsSabaean Minaeic Madhabic Qatabanic Hadramitic Awsanian Razihi FaifiGlottologsayh1236Transliteration key for South Arabian in several scripts There were a number of other Old South Arabian languages e g Awsanian of which very little evidence has survived however A pair of possible surviving Sayhadic languages is attested in the Razihi language and Faifi language spoken in far north west of Yemen though these varieties of speech have both Arabic and Sayhadic features and it is difficult to classify them as either Arabic dialects with a Sayhadic substratum or Sayhadic languages that have been restructured under pressure of Arabic Contents 1 Classification issues 2 Languages 3 Written records 3 1 Categories of written records 4 Phonology 5 History of research and teaching 6 See also 7 References 8 BibliographyClassification issues EditIt was originally thought that all four members of this group were dialects of one Old South Arabian language but in the mid twentieth century linguist A F L Beeston finally proved that they did in fact constitute independent languages 4 The Old South Arabian languages were originally classified partly on the basis of geography as South Semitic along with Arabic Modern South Arabian and Ethiopian Semitic 5 more recently however a new classification has come in use which places Old South Arabian along with Arabic Ugaritic Aramaic and Canaanite Hebrew in a Central Semitic group 6 leaving Modern South Arabian and Ethiopic in a separate group This new classification is based on Arabic Old South Arabian and Northwest Semitic Ugaritic Aramaic and Canaanite sharing an innovation in the verbal system an imperfect taking the form yVqtVl u the other groups have yVqattVl Nebes showed that Sabaean at least had the form yVqtVl in the imperfect Even though it has been now accepted that the four main languages be considered independent they are clearly closely related linguistically and derive from a common ancestor because they share certain morphological innovations One of the most important isoglosses retained in all four languages is the suffixed definite article h n 7 There are however significant differences between the languages The four main Sayhadic languages were Sabaean Minaeic or Madhabic Qatabanic and Hadramitic Sayhadic had its own writing system the Ancient South Arabian Monumental Script or Ms3nd 8 consisting of 29 graphemes concurrently used for proto Geʿez in the Kingdom of Dʿmt ultimately sharing a common origin with the other Semitic abjads the Proto Sinaitic alphabet Inscriptions in another minuscule cursive script written on wooden sticks have also been discovered The last inscription of these languages dates back to 554 CE 60 years before the appearance of Islam 9 10 Languages EditOld South Arabian comprised a number of languages the following are those that have been preserved in writing the dates follow the so called long chronology Besides these at least Razihi may be a surviving Old South Arabian language Sabaean the language of the kingdom of Saba and later also of Ḥimyar also documented in the Eritrean kingdom of Da amot 11 very well documented ca 6000 Inscriptions Old Sabaean 8th until 2nd century BC Middle Sabaean 1st century BC until the 4th century AD the best documented language 12 Ḥaramitic the language of the area to the north of Ma in 13 Central Sabaean the language of the inscriptions from the Sabaean heartland South Sabaean the language of the inscriptions from Radman and Ḥimyar Pseudo Sabaean the literary language of Arabian tribes in Najran Haram and Qaryat al Faw Late Sabaean 5th and 6th centuries AD Minaean also called Madhabian the language of the city states in al Jawf with the exception of Haram especially the later sparsely populated state of Ma in recorded from the 8th until 2nd century BC Inscriptions have also been found outside Ma in in the commercial colonies of Dedan and Mada in Ṣaliḥ in Egypt and also on Delos ca 500 inscriptions Qatabanian the language of the kingdom of Qataban recorded from the 5th century BC until the 2nd century barely 2000 inscriptions Awsanian the language of the kingdom of Awsan poorly recorded ca 25 inscriptions 8th 1st century BC until about the 1st century AD Indistinguishable from Qatabanian Other varieties such as the language of the tribe of Radman Hadramautic or Ḥaḑramitic the language of Ḥaḑramaut with an additional inscription from the Greek island of Delos 5th century BC until the 4th century AD with ca 1000 inscriptions Written records EditOld South Arabian was written in the Old South Arabian script a consonantal abjad deriving from the Phoenician alphabet Compared with other parts of the ancient world Palestine for instance the number of surviving inscriptions is very high Something in the region of 10 000 inscriptions exist The Sabaean lexicon contains about 2 500 words Categories of written records Edit Inscriptions in stone Votive inscriptions which often preserve historical accounts of the events that led to the dedication Inscriptions on buildings give the names of the person who commissioned the work and the historical circumstances among other things Laws and legislation Protocols and deeds Inscriptions written for atonement or repentance Graffiti on rocks Literary texts if large numbers of any such texts ever existed they have been almost completely lost Inscriptions on wooden cylinders only Middle Sabaean and Hadramite There are about 1000 so far very few published mostly from Nashshan in Wadi Madhab 14 Private texts Contracts and orders Inscriptions on everyday objectsThe inscriptions on stone display a very formal and precise wording and expression whereas the style of the wooden inscriptions written in the cursive script is much more informal Phonology EditOld South Arabian consonants Bilabial Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal Non emph Emphatic Non emph EmphaticPlosives vcelss t tˀ ṭ k q ʔ ʾ vced b d ɡ g Fricatives vcelss f 8 ṯ 8ˀ ẓ s s3 s sˀ ṣ ʃ s1 s x ḫ ħ ḥ hvced d ḏ z ɣ ġ ʕ ˀ Nasals m n Laterals l Liquids r Approximants w j y Lateral Fricative vcless ɬ s2 s ɬˀ ḍ History of research and teaching EditAlthough the inscriptions from ancient South Arabia were already known by the 18th century it was Wilhelm Gesenius 1786 1842 and his student Emil Rodiger who finally undertook the deciphering of the script actually independently of each other in the years 1841 42 Then in the second half of the 19th century Joseph Halevy and Eduard Glaser brought hundreds of Old South Arabian inscriptions possible tracings and copies back to Europe On the basis of this large amount of material Fritz Hommel prepared a selection of texts in 1893 along with an attempt at a grammar Later on the Sabaean expert Nikolaus Rhodokanakis made especially important steps towards understanding Old South Arabian A completely new field of Old South Arabian script and texts has been opened up since the 1970s by the discovery of wooden cylinders on which Sabaean has been written with a pen The unknown script and numerous incomprehensible words presented Sabaean studies with new problems and to this day the wooden cylinders are not completely understood In the German speaking world Old South Arabian is taught in the framework of Semitic Studies and no independent university chair has been dedicated to Old South Arabian or Sabaean Studies Learning Old South Arabian at least furthers the student s knowledge of the characteristics of Semitic by introducing him or her to a less well preserved example of the group Students normally begin to learn the grammar of Old South Arabian and then they finally read a few of the longer texts See also EditAncient North Arabian Old Arabic Undeciphered k language of ancient Yemen Modern South Arabian languagesReferences Edit Nebes Norbert Stein Peter 2008 Ancient South Arabian In Woodard Roger D ed The Ancient Languages of Syria Palestine and Arabia PDF Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 145 178 doi 10 1017 CBO9780511486890 ISBN 9780511486890 Avanzini Alessandra 2009 Origin and Classification of the Ancient South Arabian Languages Journal of Semitic Studies 54 1 205 220 doi 10 1093 jss fgn048 Retrieved 16 April 2018 Archived copy PDF Archived from the original PDF on 2014 11 30 Retrieved 2017 05 15 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link Beeston A F L 1984 Sabaic Grammar Manchester Faber Alice 1997 Genetic Subgrouping of the Semitic Languages In Robert Hetzron ed The Semitic Languages 1st ed London Routledge p 7 ISBN 0 415 05767 1 Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World Elsevier 6 April 2010 p 931 ISBN 9780080877754 Retrieved 16 April 2018 via Google Books Beeston 1987 p 103 sfn error no target CITEREFBeeston1987 help Beeston A F L 1982 Sabaic dictionary English French Arabic Louvain la Neuve Editions Peeters p 138 n ms nd inscription inscribed votive tablet inscription tablette votive inscrite Fattovich Rodolfo Akkala Guzay in Uhlig Siegbert ed Encyclopaedia Aethiopica A C Wiesbaden Otto Harrassowitz KG 2003 p 169 Sabaean inscription C 325 dated 669 of the Ḥimyarite era 559 or 554 CE Kogan amp Korotayev 1997 p 321 A Avanzini Le iscrizioni sudarabiche d Etiopia un esempio di culture e lingue a contatto In Oriens antiquus 26 1987 Seite 201 221 Dialekte nach Peter Stein Zur Dialektgeographie des Sabaischen In Journal of Semitic Studies XLIX 2 Manchester 2004 Stein Peter 2007 Materialien zur sabaischen Dialektologie Das Problem des amiritischen haramitischen Dialektes Materials on Sabaean Dialectology The Problem of the Amirite Haramite Dialect Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft in German 157 13 47 Kogan amp Korotayev 1997 p 221 Bibliography EditShort introductions and overviews N Nebes P Stein Ancient South Arabian in Roger D Woodard Hrsg The Cambridge encyclopedia of the World s ancient languages Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2004 ISBN 0 521 56256 2 S 454 487 Up to date grammatical sketch with Bibliography Peter Stein Ancient South Arabian In Stefan Weninger Hrsg The Semitic Languages An International Handbook De Gruyter Mouton Berlin 2011 ISBN 3110186136 pp 1042 1073 Grammars A F L Beeston Sabaic Grammar Manchester 1984 ISBN 0 9507885 2 X Maria Hofner Altsudarabische Grammatik Porta Linguarum Orientalium Band 24 Leipzig 1943 Kogan Leonid Korotayev Andrey 1997 Sayhadic Languages Epigraphic South Arabian Semitic Languages London Routledge pp 157 183 N Nebes P Stein Ancient South Arabian in Roger D Woodard Hrsg The Cambridge encyclopedia of the World s ancient languages Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2004 ISBN 0 521 56256 2 S 454 487 most recent grammatical overview with bibliography Mounir Arbach Le madhabien lexique onomastique et grammaire d une langue de l Arabie meridionale preislamique Tomes 1 3 Aix en Provence 1993 Includes a grammar a lexicon and a list of Minaean personal names Dictionaries A F L Beeston M A Ghul W W Muller J Ryckmans Sabaic Dictionary Dictionnaire sabeen al Muʿdscham as Sabaʾi Englisch Franzosisch Arabisch Louvain la Neuve 1982 ISBN 2 8017 0194 7 Joan Copeland Biella Dictionary of Old South Arabic Sabaean dialect Eisenbrauns 1982 ISBN 1 57506 919 9 S D Ricks Lexicon of Inscriptional Qatabanian Studia Pohl 14 Pontifical Biblical Institute Rome 1989Collections of texts Alessandra Avanzini Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions I III Qatabanic Marginal Qatabanic Awsanite Inscriptions Arabia Antica 2 Ed PLUS Pisa 2004 ISBN 88 8492 263 1 Barbara Jandl Altsudarabische Inschriften auf Metall Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel 4 Tubingen Berlin 2009 ISBN 978 3 8030 2201 1 Jacques Ryckmans Walter W Muller Yusuf M Abdallah Textes du Yemen antique Inscrits sur bois Publications de l Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 43 Institut Orientaliste Louvain 1994 ISBN 2 87723 104 6 Peter Stein Die altsudarabischen Minuskelinschriften auf Holzstabchen aus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in Munchen 1 Die Inschriften der mittel und spatsabaischen Periode Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel 5 Tubingen 2010 ISBN 978 3 8030 2200 4 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Old South Arabian amp oldid 1123914787, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
