HOME WEB NEWS IMAGES CLASSIFIEDS YELLOW PAGESPOLLS - SURVEYS WIKI COUNTRIES PHOTOS US UK INDIA
Cities Stocks Weather Movies Coupons Travel Blogs Health Horoscope Maps ASIA EUROPE Classifieds Yellow Pages
|
| 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, EritreaFattovich, Rodolfo, "Akkälä Guzay" in von Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. Encylopaedia Aethiopica: A-C. Weissbaden: Otto Harrassowitz KG, 2003, p.169. 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). A highly cursive zabur script—also known as "South Arabian Minuscules"Stein 2005.—was used by the ancient Yemenis to inscribe everyday documents on wooden sticks in addition to the rock-cut monumental musnad letters displayed below.
Contents |
| (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 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A South Arabian inscription
 | This Yemen-related article is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
| This writing system-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
