Qatabānian
Qatabanic[1]
Qatabanic inscription from Wadi Bayhan
Native to	Qataban
Region	Yemen
Era	800 BC – 200 AD
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic South Semitic? Southwestern? Sayhadic Qatabānian
Writing system	Ancient South Arabian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xqt
Linguist List	xqt.html
Glottolog	qata1238

Qatabānian (orQatabānic),^[1] one of the four better-documented languages of theOld South Arabian (or "Ṣayhadic") sub-group of SouthSemitic, was spoken mainly but not exclusively in the kingdom ofQatabān, located in central Yemen. The language is attested between 500 BC and 200 AD. Some two thousand inscriptions are known and written in theAncient South Arabian Monumental Script, known asMusnad. 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 the beginning of the 4th century BC when theSabaeans ceased to dominate the area, and Qatabān became an independent kingdom.

Qatabanian was spoken in an area across the kingdom of Qatabān as far asJabal al-'Awd (nearZafar) in the southwest, and if we are to believe the Greek and Latin writers, it went as far asBāb al-Mandab on the Red Sea. At the end of the 2nd century AD,Saba' andḤaḑramawt finally defeated Qatabān, and the inscriptions ended.^[2]

The language used to write inscriptions in the kingdom ofAwsān, 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 thecardinal number "one":ṭd / fem.ṭt; this has no known cognates in any of the ancient Semitic languages, although it does appear in modern South Arabian languages (cf.Jibbālīṭad, fem.ṭit). Qatabānian also has another word for "one",ˤs₁tn, which is cognate with theMinaeanˤs₁t^[3] (and with forms inAkkadian,Ugaritic andHebrew).^[4] The Qatabānian forms for "three" and "six" are the same as the Old Sabaean words:s₂lṯ (fem.s₂lṯt) ands₁dṯ (fem.s₁dṯt).

Qatabānian expresses distributives by repeating the number, thus: b-ˤs₂r ˤs₂r ḫbṣtm mṣˤm l-ṭt ṭt ywmm "ten full Ḫabṣat coins each for each day".^[3]

• Avanzini, Alessandra (2004).Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions I-III. Qatabanic, Marginal Qatabanic, Awsanite Inscriptions (Arabia Antica 2) (Edited ed.). Pisa: PLUS.ISBN 88-8492-263-1.
• Nebes, Norbert; Stein, Peter (2004). "Ancient South Arabian". In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.).The Cambridge encyclopedia of the World's ancient languages. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-56256-2.
• Nebes, Norbert; Stein, Peter (2008). "Ancient South Arabian". In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.).The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. pp. 145–178.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486890.ISBN 9780511486890.
• Ricks, Stephen D. (1988).Lexicon of Inscriptional Qatabanian. Rome:Pontificio Instituto Biblico.ISBN 978-8876535703.
• Stein, Peter (2011). "Ancient South Arabian". In Weninger, Stefan (ed.).The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin:De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 1042–1073.ISBN 3110186136.

• Languages attested from the 5th century BC
• Old South Arabian languages
• Languages of Yemen

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Language articles with Linglist code
• Language articles with unreferenced extinction date