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There were a number of other Old South Arabian languages (e.g. Awsānian), of which very little evidence has survived, however. A set of possible surviving Sayhadic languages is attested in theRazihi language,Rijal Alma language, andFaifi language spoken in far north-west ofYemen and far south-west ofSaudi Arabia, though these varieties of speech have both Arabic and Sayhadic features, and it is difficult to classify them as either Arabic dialects with a Sayhadicsubstratum, 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, linguistA.F.L. Beeston finally proved that they did in fact constitute independent languages.[6]
The Old South Arabian languages were originally classified (partly on the basis of geography) as South Semitic, along withModern South Arabian andEthiopian Semitic;[7] more recently however, a new classification has come in use which places Old South Arabian, along with Arabic, Ugaritic, Aramaic andCanaanite/Hebrew in a Central Semitic group;[8] leavingModern South Arabian and Ethiopic in a separate group. This new classification is based on Arabic, Old South Arabian andNorthwest Semitic (Ugaritic,Aramaic andCanaanite) sharing an innovation in the verbal system, an imperfect taking the form *yVqtVl-u (the other groups have*yVqattVl); Nebes showed thatSabaean at least had the formyVqtVl 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,[citation needed] another proposed common innovation being the formation of 1st and 2nd person perfect verbal forms with -k (which is also a feature ofYemeni 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,[9] with 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 theEthiopian Semitic andModern South Arabian branches.[10]
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 leastRazihi may be a surviving Old South Arabian language.
Sabaean: the language of the kingdom ofSaba and later also ofḤimyar; also documented in theEthiopian kingdom ofDa'amot;[14] very well documented, ca. 6,000 Inscriptions
Minaean: (also calledMadhabian): the language of the city states inal-Jawf − with the exception ofHaram − especially the later sparsely populated state ofMa'in (recorded from the 8th until 2nd century BC). Inscriptions have also been found outside Ma'īn in the commercial colonies ofDedan andMadā'in Ṣāliḥ, in Egypt and also onDelos. (ca. 500 inscriptions)
Qatabānian: the language of the kingdom ofQatabān, recorded from the 5th century BC until the 2nd century (barely 2,000 inscriptions)[citation needed]
Awsānian: the language of the kingdom ofAwsān, poorly recorded (ca. 25 inscriptions, 8th/ 1st century BC until about the 1st century AD). Indistinguishable from Qatabānian.[citation needed]
Other varieties such as the language of the tribe of Radmān
Hadramautic (or Ḥaḍramitic): the language ofḤaḍramaut, with an additional inscription from the Greek island of Delos. 5th century BC until the 4th century AD, with ca. 1,000 inscriptions.
Old South Arabian was written in the Old South Arabian script, a consonantalabjad 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.
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 (Old, Middle and Late Sabaean and Hadramite).[17][18] There are about 840 texts published so far.[19]
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 wasWilhelm Gesenius (1786–1842) and his studentEmil 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 centuryJoseph Halévy andEduard Glaser brought hundreds of Old South Arabian inscriptions, possible tracings and copies back to Europe. On the basis of this large amount of materialFritz Hommel prepared a selection of texts in 1893 along with an attempt at a grammar. Later on the Sabaean expertNikolaus 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 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.
^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.
^Stein, Peter; Kottsieper, Ingo (2014). "Sabaic and Aramaic — a common origin?". In Orhan Elmaz (ed.).Languages of Southern Arabia: Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies Volume 44 (1st ed.). Oxford:Archaeopress. pp. 81–89.ISBN978-1905739813.
^Stein, Peter (2020). "Ancient South Arabian". In Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee (ed.).A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages (1st ed.). Hoboken:Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 338–340.ISBN978-1119193296.
^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
^The information on the dialects follows: Peter Stein:Zur Dialektgeographie des Sabäischen. In:Journal of Semitic Studies XLIX/2. Manchester 2004, pp. 225–245.
^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.
Peter Stein: Ancient South Arabian. In: Stefan Weninger (Hrsg.): The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin 2011,ISBN3110186136, pp. 1042–1073.
Grammar
Mounir Arbach:Le madhabien: lexique, onomastique et grammaire d'une langue de l'Arabie méridionale préislamique [Madhabic: lexicon, onomastics and grammar of a language of pre-Islamic southern Arabia]. 3 volumes. Aix-en-Provence, 1993 (Includes a grammar, a lexicon and a list of Minaean personal names)
Maria Höfner:Altsüdarabische Grammatik [Old South Arabian Grammar]. Porta Linguarum Orientalium, volume 24. Leipzig, 1943.
Kogan, Leonid;Korotayev, Andrey (1997). "Sayhadic Languages (Epigraphic South Arabian)".Semitic Languages. London:Routledge. pp. 157–183.
Norbert Nebes, Peter Stein:Ancient South Arabian, in: Roger D. Woodard (Hrsg.):The Cambridge encyclopedia of the World's ancient languages Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004ISBN0-521-56256-2 S. 454–487 (grammatical overview with bibliography).
Peter Stein:Lehrbuch der Sabäischen Sprache [Textbook of the Sabaean language]. 2 volumes. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2012/2013,ISBN978-3-447-10026-7.
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, 1982ISBN2-8017-0194-7
Joan Copeland Biella: Dictionary of Old South Arabic. Sabaean dialect Eisenbrauns, 1982ISBN1-57506-919-9
S.D. Ricks: Lexicon of Inscriptional Qatabanian (Studia Pohl, 14), Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome 1989
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
Abraham J. Drewes, Jacques Ryckmans:Les inscriptions sudarabes sur bois dans la collection de l’Oosters Instituut conservée dans la bibliothèque universitaire de Leiden [South arabic inscriptions on wood in the Oosters Instituut collection housed in the Leiden University Library]. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2016,ISBN3-447-10589-5.
Barbara Jändl:Altsüdarabische Inschriften auf Metall [Old South Arabian inscriptions on metal]. Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel, volume 4. Tübingen, Berlin 2009.ISBN978-3-8030-2201-1
Mohammed Maraqten:Altsüdarabische Texte auf Holzstäbchen. Epigraphische und kulturhistorische Untersuchungen [Old South Arabian texts on wooden sticks. Epigraphic and cultural-historical studies]. Beiruter Texte und Studien, volume 103. Ergon-Verlag, Würzburg 2014,ISBN978-3-95650-034-3.
See the remarks byStein, Peter (2015). "Review: Beschriftete Holzstäbchen aus dem Jemen".Orientalia.84 (1):75–98.JSTOR26153282.
Anne Multhoff:Die sabäischen Inschriften aus Marib. Katalog, Übersetzung und Kommentar [The Sabaic inscriptions from Marib. Catalogue, translation and commentary].Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel, volume 9. Verlag Marie Leidorf, Rahden (Westfalen) 2021,ISBN978-3-86757-130-2.
Jacques Ryckmans, Walter W. Müller, Yusuf M. Abdallah:Textes du Yémen antique inscrits sur bois [Texts of ancient Yemen inscribed in wood]. Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, volume 43. Institut Orientaliste, Louvain 1994.ISBN2-87723-104-6
Stein, Peter (2010).Die altsüdarabischen Minuskelinschriften auf Holzstäbchen aus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München 1: Die Inschriften der mittel- und spätsabäischen Periode [The Old South Arabian minuscule inscriptions on wooden sticks from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich 1: The inscriptions of the Middle and Late Sabaean period]. Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel (in German). Vol. 5. Tübingen.ISBN978-3-8030-2200-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Stein, Peter (2023).Die altsüdarabischen Minuskelinschriften auf Holzstäbchen aus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München 2: Die altsabäischen und minäaischen Inschriften [The Old South Arabian minuscule inscriptions on wooden sticks from the Bavarian State Library in Munich 2: The Old Sabaean and Minaean inscriptions]. Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel (in German). Vol. 10. Wiesbaden.ISBN978-3-7520-0704-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
