| Hadhramautic | |
|---|---|
| Hadrami | |
| Native to | Yemen,Oman,Saudi Arabia |
| Era | 800 BC – 600 AD |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
| Ancient South Arabian | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xhd |
xhd | |
| Glottolog | hadr1235 |
 Kingdom of Hadramawt in 400 BC | |
Ḥaḍramautic orḤaḍramic[1] was the easternmost of the four known languages of theOld South Arabian subgroup of theSemitic languages. It was used in theKingdom of Hadhramaut and also the area round the Hadhramite capital ofShabwa, in what is nowYemen. The Hadramites also controlled the trade in frankincense through their important trading post of Sumhuram (Hadramautics1mhrm), nowKhor Rori in theDhofar Governorate, Oman.
Almost the entire body of evidence for the ancient Ḥaḍramautic language comes from inscriptions written in the monumentalAncient South Arabian script, consisting of 29 letters, and deriving from theProto-Sinaitic script. The sounds of the language were essentially the same as those ofSabaic.
Noteworthy characteristics of Ḥaḍramautic include its tendency, especially in inscriptions from Wadi Ḥaḍhramaut, to represent Old South Arabianṯ ass3: thus we find s2ls3 ("three"; cf. Sabaeans2lṯ.)[2] There are also instances whereṯ is written for an older forms3; e.g. Ḥaḍramauticmṯnad ("inscription"), which ismsnd in the rest of Old South Arabian.[2]
Potsherds with Ancient South Arabian letters on them, found inRaybūn, the old Ḥaḍramitic capital, have been radiocarbon dated to the 12th century BC.[3] The language was certainly in use from 800 BC but in the fourth century AD, theKingdom of Hadhramaut was conquered by theḤimyarites, who used Sabaic as an official language, and after then there are no more records in Ḥaḍramautic.
During the course of the language’s history there appeared particular phonetic changes, such as the change from ˤ to ˀ, from ẓ to ṣ, from ṯ tos3. As in other Semitic languagesn can be assimilated to a following consonant, compareʾnfs1 "souls" >ʾfs1
In Ḥaḍramautic the third person pronouns begin withs1. It has feminine forms ending inṯ ands3.