Old South Arabian (also known as Ancient South Arabian (ASA) , Epigraphic South Arabian , Ṣayhadic , or Yemenite ) is a group of four closely related extinct languages ( Sabaean/Sabaic , Qatabanic , Hadramitic , Minaic ) spoken in the far southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula . The earliest preserved records belonging to the group are dated to the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE. They were written in the Ancient South Arabian script .
20-438: Mukarrib ( Old South Arabian : 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 , romanized: mkrb ) is a title variously defined as "priest-kings" or "federators"; the mukarribs may have been the first rulers of the early South Arabian states. Sometime in the fourth century BCE, the title was replaced by Malik , typically translated as "king". Stuart Munro-Hay writes that the title of mukarrib "indicates something like 'federator', and in southern Arabia
40-417: 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. The Old South Arabian languages were originally classified (partly on
60-550: A mlk, or king of his own ethnic tribe ...appointed as mukarrib of a council of tribal leaders. The mukarrib issued edicts that carried out decisions by the council and presided over building projects, ritual hunts, and sacrifices. Some of the most famous inscriptions record the military conquests of mukarribs, who were evidently quite successful in confederating tribal groups through the rites of pilgrimage (at Jabal al-Lawdh, for example) and then using such social cohesion to conscript military forces. Old South Arabian There were
80-447: 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
100-557: A primary split setting it apart from the other Sayhadic languages on the basis of the h/s isogloss in the formation of the personal pronouns and the causative stem further positing a closer relationship between Minaic and Hadramitic with the Ethiopian Semitic and Modern South Arabian branches. The four main Sayhadic languages were: Sabaean , Minaeic (or Madhabic), Qatabanic , and Hadramitic . Sayhadic had its own writing system,
120-529: 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 opened up since the 1970s with the discovery of wooden cylinders on which Sabaean has been written with a pen. The unknown script and numerous incomprehensible words present Sabaean studies with new problems, and to this day
140-446: 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
160-619: The Ancient South Arabian Monumental Script , or Ms nd , 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 has been dated to 554 CE, 60 years before
180-636: The ancient Semitic languages, although it does appear in modern South Arabian languages (cf. Jibbālī ṭad , fem. ṭit ). Qatabānian also has another word for "one", ˤs 1 tn , which is cognate with the Minaean ˤs 1 t (and with forms in Akkadian , Ugaritic and Hebrew ). The Qatabānian forms for "three" and "six" are the same as the Old Sabaean words: s 2 lṯ (fem. s 2 lṯt ) and s 1 dṯ (fem. s 1 dṯt ). Qatabānian expresses distributives by repeating
200-455: 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. 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
220-552: The appearance of Islam. 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. Old South Arabian was written in the Old South Arabian script, a consonantal abjad deriving from the Phoenician alphabet. Compared with other parts of
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#1732844143706240-500: The basis of geography) as South Semitic, along with Modern South Arabian and Ethiopian Semitic ; 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; 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
260-591: The beginning of the 4th century BC when the Sabaeans ceased to dominate the area, and Qatabān became an independent kingdom. Qatabanian was spoken in an area across the kingdom of Qatabān as far as Jabal al-'Awd (near Zafar ) in the southwest, and if we are to believe the Greek and Latin writers, it went as far as Bāb al-Mandab on the Red Sea. At the end of the 2nd century AD, Saba' and Ḥaḑramawt finally defeated Qatabān, and
280-462: The group. Students normally begin to learn the grammar of Old South Arabian and then they finally read a few of the longer texts. Short introductions and overviews Grammars Dictionaries Collections of texts Qatabanian language Qatabānian (or Qatabānic ) , one of the four better-documented languages of the Old South Arabian (or "Ṣayhadic") sub-group of South Semitic ,
300-415: The inscriptions ended. The language used to write inscriptions in the kingdom of Awsān , known as Awsānian (or Awsānite), is virtually identical to Qatabānic, but it is so poorly attested (25 inscriptions) that it remains uncertain whether it is a Qatabānic dialect or a distinct language. Qatabānian has an unusual form for the cardinal number "one": ṭd / fem. ṭt ; this has no known cognates in any of
320-437: The most important isoglosses retained in all four languages is the suffixed definite article -(h)n , another proposed common innovation being the formation of 1st and 2nd person perfect verbal forms with -k (which is also a feature of Yemeni Arabic attributable to a Sayhadic substrate). There are however significant differences between the languages, so much so that Stein proposes a relationship between Sabaic and Aramaic, with
340-411: 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
360-469: 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
380-525: Was assumed by the ruler who currently held the primacy over a group of tribes linked by a covenant." Thus, mukarrib can be regarded as a South Arabian hegemon, the head of confederation of South Arabian sha`bs headed by "kings" ('mlk). In the 1st millennium BCE there was usually one mukarrib in South Arabia, but many "kings". Joy McCorriston took a slightly different viewpoint: [I]t is clear that early (800-400 bc) political authority resided with one leader -
400-583: Was spoken mainly but not exclusively in the kingdom of Qatabān , located in central Yemen. The language is attested between 500 BC and 200 AD. Some two thousand inscriptions are known and written in the Ancient South Arabian Monumental Script , known as Musnad . These inscriptions are mainly found in Wādī Bayhān and Wādī Ḥārib to the south-east of Ma'rib, and from the plateau to the south of that area. Qatabanian inscriptions increase after
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