South Arabian alphabet
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| Epigraphic South Arabian | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Abjad | |
| Spoken languages | Ge'ez, Old South Arabian | |
| Time period | ca. 9th c. BC to 7th c. AD | |
| Parent systems | Proto-Sinaitic Epigraphic South Arabian |
|
| Child systems | Ge'ez | |
| Sister systems | Phoenician alphabet | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad المُسند) branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic dialects of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadrami (Ḥaḍramī), Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez (or proto-Ethiosemitic) in D`mt. The earliest inscriptions in the alphabet date to the 9th century BC in Akkele Guzay, Eritrea[1] and in the 8th century BC, found in Babylonia and in Yemen. Its mature form was reached around 500 BC, and its use continued until the 7th century AD, including Old North Arabian inscriptions in variants of the alphabet, when it was displaced by the Arabic alphabet. In Ethiopia it evolved later into the Ge'ez alphabet, which, with added symbols throughout the centuries, has been used to write Amharic, Tigrinya and Tigre, as well as other languages (including various Semitic, Cushitic, and Nilo-Saharan languages).
Contents |
[edit] Zabur Script
Zabur is the name of the cursive form of the South Arabian script that was used by the ancient Yemenis (Sabaeans) in addition to their monumental script (or Musnad) (see, e.g., Ryckmans, J., Müller, W. W., and ‛Abdallah, Yu., Textes du Yémen Antique inscrits sur bois. Louvain-la-Neuve, 1994 (Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, 43)).
The cursive zabur script—also known as "South Arabian Minuscules"[2]—was used by the ancient Yemenis to inscribe everyday documents on wooden sticks in addition to the rock-cut monumental musnad letters displayed below.
[edit] Sign inventory
| (epigraphic) Old South Arabian alphabet | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Character Transcription IPA |
 h [h] |
 l [l] |
 ḥ [ħ] |
 m [m] |
 q [q] |
 w [w] |
 s2 [ɬ] |
 r [r] |
 b [b] |
 t [t] |
 s1 [s] |
 k [k] |
 n [n] |
 ḫ [x] |
 s3 [s̪] |
 f [f] |
 ʾ [ʔ] |
 ʿ [ʕ] |
 ḍ [ɬʼ] |
 g [g] |
 d [d] |
 ġ [ɣ] |
 ṭ [tʼ] |
 z [z] |
 ḏ [ð] |
 y [j] |
 ṯ [θ] |
 ṣ [tˢʼ] |
 ẓ [θʼ] |
|||
| Other transcriptions | ś,š | š,s | s,ś | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| By shape | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Character Transcription IPA |
r [r] |
ʿ [ʕ] |
w [w] |
q [q] |
y [j] |
ṯ [θ] |
ṣ [tˢʼ] |
ẓ [θʼ] |
h [h] |
ḥ [ħ] |
ḫ [x] |
ʾ [ʔ] |
s1 [s] |
k [k] |
ġ [ɣ] |
b [b] |
n [n] |
g [g] |
l [l] |
m [m] |
s2 [ɬ] |
s3 [s̪] |
t [t] |
f [f] |
z [z] |
d [d] |
ḏ [ð] |
ḍ [ɬʼ] |
ṭ [tʼ] |
|||
| Circle | Y | Π | Vert | Diagonal | Box | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| History of the alphabet |
|---|
|
Middle Bronze Age 19 c. BCE
|
| Meroitic 3 c. BCE |
| Ogham 4 c. CE |
| Hangul 1443 CE |
| Canadian syllabics 1840 CE |
| Zhuyin 1913 CE |
| complete genealogy |
[edit] Notes
- ^ Fattovich, Rodolfo, "Akkälä Guzay" in von Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. Encylopaedia Aethiopica: A-C. Weissbaden: Otto Harrassowitz KG, 2003, p.169.
- ^ Stein 2005.
[edit] References
- Stein, Peter (2005). "The Ancient South Arabian Minuscule Inscriptions on Wood: A New Genre of Pre-Islamic Epigraphy". Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap “Ex Oriente Lux” 39: 181–199.
- Beeston, A.F.L. (1962). "Arabian Siblants". Journal of Semitic Studies 7: 222-233. doi:.
[edit] External links
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