Sabaean language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sabaic
Spoken in: Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, Ethiopia 
Region: Horn of Africa & Arabian Peninsula
Total speakers: Extinct
Language family: Afro-Asiatic
 Semitic
  South
   Western
    Old South Arabian
     Sabaic
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: sem
ISO 639-3: xsa

The Sabaean (or, to be more exact, rather Sabaic) language was an Old South Arabian language spoken in Yemen from c. 1000 BC to the 6th century AD, by the Sabaeans. [1]. It was written in the South Arabian alphabet.

The South Arabic alphabet used in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Yemen beginning in the 8th century BC (all three locations) later evolved into the Ge'ez alphabet. Ge'ez language is no longer thought, as previously assumed, to be an offshoot of Sabaean or Old South Arabian[2], and there is linguistic evidence of Semitic languages being spoken in Eritrea and Ethiopia since at least 2000 BC.[3].

[edit] References

  1. ^ *Andrey Korotayev. Ancient Yemen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-19-922237-1[1].
  2. ^ Weninger, Stefan "Ge'ez" in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha, p.732.
  3. ^ Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press, 1991, pp.57.