| South Semitic scripts | |
|---|---|
| Script type | |
Period | c. 10th century BCE to 6th century AD |
| Direction | Right-to-left |
| Languages | Old South Arabian,Ge'ez,Dadanitic,Taymanitic,Dumaitic,Thamudic,Safaitic,Hismaic |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Egyptian hieroglyphs
|
Child systems | |
Sister systems | Phoenician |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
TheSouth Semitic scripts are a cluster ofalphabets that had derived from theProto-Sinaitic script by the 10th century BC.[1] The family has two main branches:Ancient North Arabian (ANA) andAncient South Arabian (ASA).
The scripts were exclusive to theArabian Peninsula and theHorn of Africa. All the ANA and most of the ASA scripts fell out of use by the 6th century AD.
The exception wasGeʽez, a child of ASA in use inEthiopia. It and its variants remain in use today for variousEthiosemitic languages. In Arabia, the South Semitic scripts were replaced by theArabic script, which is descended from theNabataean script.[2]
