Sabaic

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Sabaic
Native toYemen
RegionArabian Peninsula
Extinct6th century
Ancient South Arabian
Language codes
ISO 639-3xsa
xsa
Glottologsaba1279
Votive stele with Sabaic inscription addressed to the main Sabaean deity Almaqah, mentioning five other South Arabian gods, two reigning sovereigns and two governors: "Ammī'amar son of Ma'dīkarib dedicated to Almaqah Ra'suhumū. With 'Athtar, with Almaqah, with dhāt-Ḥimyam, with dhât-Ba'dân, with Waddum, with Karib'īl, with Sumhu'alī, with 'Ammīrayam and with Yadhrahmalik." Alabaster, c. 700 BC, Yemen, area of Ma'rib (?).

Sabaic, sometimes referred to as Sabaean, was an

Ḥimyarites, Ḥashidites, Ṣirwāḥites, Humlanites, Ghaymānites, and Radmānites.[1] Sabaic belongs to the South Arabian Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family.[2] Sabaic is distinguished from the other members of the Old South Arabian group by its use of h to mark the third person and as a causative prefix; all of the other languages use s1 in those cases. Therefore, Sabaic is called an h-language and the others s-languages.[3] Numerous other Sabaic inscriptions have also been found dating back to the Sabean colonization of Africa.[4][5]

Script

Sabaic was written in the

Hebrew and Arabic marked only consonants, the only indication of vowels being with matres lectionis. For many years the only texts discovered were inscriptions in the formal Masnad script (Sabaic ms3nd), but in 1973 documents in another minuscule and cursive script were discovered, dating back to the second half of the 1st century BC; only a few of the latter have so far been published.[6]

The South Arabic alphabet used in

Ge'ez language however is no longer considered to be a descendant of Sabaic or of Old South Arabian;[7] and there is linguistic evidence that Semitic languages were concurrently in use, being spoken in Eritrea and Ethiopia as early as 2000 BC.[8]

Sabaic is attested in some 1,040 dedicatory inscriptions, 850 building inscriptions, 200 legal texts, and 1300 short graffiti (containing only personal names).[9] No literary texts of any length have yet been brought to light. This paucity of source material and the limited forms of the inscriptions has made it difficult to get a complete picture of Sabaic grammar. Thousands of inscriptions written in a cursive script (called Zabur) incised into wooden sticks have been found and date to the Middle Sabaic period; these represent letters and legal documents and as such includes a much wider variety of grammatical forms.

Varieties

Bronze plaque, written in Sabaic. A dedication from Rabibum Yakhdaf 𐩧𐩨𐩨𐩣 𐩡 𐩺𐩭𐩳𐩰

In the Late Sabaic period the ancient names of the gods are no longer mentioned and only one deity

Muḍarī
, which became the language of culture and writing, totally supplanting Sabaic.

The dialect used in the western Yemeni highlands, known as Central Sabaic, is very homogeneous and generally used as the language of the inscriptions. Divergent dialects are usually found in the area surrounding the Central Highlands, such as the important dialect of the city of

Himyarites, whose spoken language was Semitic but not South Arabic, used Sabaic as a written language.[14]

Phonology

Vowels

Ancient stone slabs with Sabaic inscriptions found at Yeha, Ethiopia

Since Sabaic is written in an

enclitic particles -mw, and -my probably used for emphasis.[15]

Diphthongs

In the Old Sabaic inscriptions the Proto-Semitic

diphthongs
aw and ay seemed to have been retained, being written with the letters w and y; in the later stages the same words are increasingly found without these letters, which leads some scholars (such as Stein) to the conclusion that they had by then contracted to ō and ē (though aw → ū and ay → ī would also be possible)

Consonants

Sabaic, like

Proto-Semitic, contains three sibilant phonemes, represented by distinct letters; the exact phonetic nature of these sounds is still uncertain. In the early days of Sabaic studies, Old South Arabian was transcribed using Hebrew letters. The transcriptions of the alveolars or postvelar fricatives remained controversial; after a great deal of uncertainty in the initial period the lead was taken by the transcription chosen by Nikolaus Rhodokanakis and others for the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum (s, š, and ś), until A. F. L. Beeston proposed replacing this with the representation with s followed by the subscripts 1–3. This latest version has largely taken over the English-speaking world, while in the German-speaking area, for example, the older transcription signs, which are also given in the table below, are more widespread. They were transcribed by Beeston as s1, s2, and s3. Bearing in mind the latest reconstructions of the Proto-Semitic sibilants, we can postulate that s1 was probably pronounced as a simple [s]or [ʃ], s2 was probably a lateral fricative [ɬ], and s3 may have been realized as an affricate [t͡s]. The difference between the three sounds is maintained throughout Old Sabaic and Middle Sabaic, but in the Late period s1 and s3 merge. The subscript n did not start appearing until after the Early Sabaic period.[11] The Middle Sabaic Haramitic dialect often shows the change s3 > s1, for example: ˀks1wt ("clothes"), normal Sabaic ks3wy.[16]

The exact nature of the emphatic consonants q, ṣ, ṭ, ẓ and ḍ also remains a matter for debate: were they pharyngealized as in Modern Arabic, or were they glottalized as in

Ethiopic (and reconstructed Proto-Semitic)? There are arguments to support both possibilities. In any case, beginning with Middle Sabaic the letters representing ṣ and ẓ are increasingly interchanged, which seems to indicate that they have fallen together as one phoneme. The existence of bilabial fricative f as a reflex of the Proto-Semitic *p is partly proved by Latin transcriptions of names. In late Sabaic ḏ and z also merge.In Old Sabaic the sound n only occasionally assimilates to a following consonant, but in the later periods this assimilation is the norm.[9] The minuscule Zabūr script does not seem to have a letter that represents the sound ẓ, and replaces it with ḍ instead; for example: mfḍr ("a measure of capacity"), written in the Musnad script as: mfẓr.[16]

Sabaic consonants

Bilabial Dental Alveolar Post-
alveolar 		Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal
Plosive voiceless
t
 		k q? ʔ ⟨ʾ⟩
voiced b
d
 		ɡ
emphatic tˀ ⟨ṭ⟩ kʼ ⟨ḳ⟩?
Fricative voiceless f θ ⟨ṯ⟩ s ⟨s3 /s⟩ ʃ ⟨s1 /š⟩ x ⟨ḫ⟩ ħ ⟨ḥ⟩ h
voiced ð ⟨ḏ⟩ z ɣ ⟨ġ⟩ ʕ ⟨ˀ⟩
emphatic θˀ ⟨ẓ⟩? sˀ ⟨ṣ⟩?
Nasal m
n
Lateral voiceless
ɬ
 ⟨s2 /ś⟩
voiced
l
emphatic ɬˀ ⟨ḍ⟩?
Rhotic
r
Semivowel w j ⟨y⟩

Grammar

Personal pronouns

As in other Semitic languages Sabaic had both independent pronouns and pronominal suffixes. The attested pronouns, along with suffixes from Qatabanian and Hadramautic are as follows:

  Pronominal suffixes Independent pronouns
Sabaic Other languages Sabaic
Singular
 First person -n   ʾn
Second person m. -k -k ʾnt; ʾt
Second person f. -k    
Third person
m.
 -hw, h -s1w(w), s1 h(w)ʾ
3rd Person
f.
 -h, hw -s1, -s1yw (Qataban.), -ṯ(yw), -s3(yw) (Hadram.) hʾ
Dual 2nd Person -kmy ʾtmy  
3rd Person com. -hmy -s1mn (min.), -s1my (Qataban.; Hadram.) hmy
3rd Person m.   -s1m(y)n (Hadram.)  
Plural 1st Person -n    
2nd Person m. -kmw   ʾntmw
2nd Person f.      
3. Person
m.
 -hm(w) -s1m hmw
3. Person
f.
 -hn -s1n hn

No independent pronouns have been identified in any of the other South Arabian languages. First- and second-person independent pronouns are rarely attested in the monumental inscription, but possibly for cultural reasons; the likelihood was that these texts were neither composed nor written by the one who commissioned them: hence they use third-person pronouns to refer to the one who is paying for the building and dedication or whatever. The use of the pronouns in Sabaic corresponds to that in other Semitic languages. The pronominal suffixes are added to verbs and prepositions to denote the object; thus: qtl-hmw "he killed them"; ḫmr-hmy t'lb "Ta'lab poured for them both"; when the suffixes are added to nouns they indicate possession: 'bd-hw "his slave").The independent pronouns serve as the subject of nominal and verbal sentences: mr' 't "you are the Lord" (a nominal sentence); hmw f-ḥmdw "they thanked" (a verbal sentence).

Nouns

Case, number and gender

Old South Arabian nouns fall into two genders: masculine and feminine. The feminine is usually indicated in the singular by the ending –t : bʿl "husband" (m.), bʿlt "wife" (f.), hgr "city" (m.), fnwt "canal" (f.). Sabaic nouns have forms for singular, dual and plural. The singular is formed without changing the stem, the plural can however be formed in a number of ways even in the very same word:

  • Inner ("Broken") Plurals: as in Classical Arabic they are frequent.
    • ʾ-Prefix: ʾbyt "houses" from byt "house"
    • t-Suffix: especially frequent in words having the m-prefix: mḥfdt "towers" from mḥfd "tower".
    • Combinations: for example ʾ–prefix and t-suffix: ʾḫrft "years" from ḫrf "year", ʾbytt "houses" from byt "house".
    • without any external grammatical sign: fnw "canals" from fnwt (f.) "canal".
    • w-/y-Infix: ḫrwf / ḫryf / ḫryft "years" from ḫrf "year".
    • Reduplicational plurals are rarely attested in Sabaic: ʾlʾlt "gods" fromʾl "god".
  • External ("Sound") plurals: in the masculine the ending differs according to the grammatical state (see below); in the feminine the ending is -(h)t, which probably represents *-āt ; this plural is rare and seems to be restricted to a few nouns.

The dual is already beginning to disappear in Old Sabaic; its endings vary according to the grammatical state: ḫrf-n "two years" (indeterminate state) from ḫrf "year".

Sabaic almost certainly had a case system formed by vocalic endings, but since vowels were involved they are not recognizable in the writings; nevertheless a few traces have been retained in the written texts, above all in the construct state.[17]

Grammatical states

As in other Semitic languages Sabaic has a few grammatical states, which are indicated by various different endings according to the gender and the number. At the same time external plurals and duals have their own endings for grammatical state, while inner plurals are treated like singulars. Apart from the construct state known in other Semitic languages, there is also an indeterminate state and a determinate state, the functions of which are explained below. The following are the detailed state endings:

  Constr. state Indet. state Det. state
Masculine Singular -∅ -m -n
Dual -∅ / -y -n -nhn
External plural -w / -y -n -nhn
Feminine Singular -t -tm -tn
Dual -ty -tn -tnhn
External plural -t -tm -tn

The three grammatical states have distinct syntactical and semantic functions:

  • The Status indeterminatus: marks an indefinite, unspecified thing : ṣlm-m "any statue".
  • The Status determinatus: marks a specific noun: ṣlm-n "the statue".
  • The Status constructus: is introduced if the noun is bound to a genitive, a personal suffix or — contrary to other Semitic languages — with a relative sentence:
    • With a pronominal suffix: ʿbd-hw "his slave".
    • With a genitive noun: (Ḥaḑramite) gnʾhy myfʾt "both walls of Maifa'at", mlky s1bʾ "both kings of Saba"
    • With a relative sentence: kl 1 s1bʾt 2 w-ḍbyʾ 3 w-tqdmt 4 s1bʾy5 w-ḍbʾ6 tqdmn7 mrʾy-hmw8 "all1 expeditions2, battles3 and raids4, their two lords 8 conducted5, struck6 and led7" (the nouns in the construct state are italicized here).

Verbs

Conjugation

As in other West Semitic languages Sabaic distinguishes between two types of finite verb forms: the perfect which is conjugated with suffixes and the imperfect which is conjugated with both prefixes and suffixes. In the imperfect two forms can be distinguished: a short form and a form constructed using the n (long form esp. the n-imperfect), which in any case is missing in Qatabānian and Ḥaḍramite. In actual use it is hard to distinguish the two imperfect forms from each other.[18] The conjugation of the perfect and imperfect may be summarized as follows (the active and the passive are not distinguished in their consonantal written form; the verbal example is fʿl "to do"):

  Perfect Imperfect
Short form Long form
Singular 1. P. fʿl-k (?)    
2. P. m. fʿl-k    
2. P. f. fʿl-k t-fʿl t-fʿl-n
3. P. m. fʿl y-fʿl y-fʿl-n
3. P. f. fʿl-t t-fʿl t-fʿl-n
Dual 3. P. m. fʿl(-y) y-fʿl-y y-fʿl-nn
3. P. f. fʿl-ty t-fʿl-y t-fʿl-nn
Plural 2. P. m. fʿl-kmw   t-fʿl-nn
3. P. m. fʿl-w y-fʿl-w y-fʿl-nn
3. P. f. fʿl-y, fʿl-n (?) t-fʿl-n(?) t-fʿl-nn(?)

Perfect

The perfect is mainly used to describe something that took place in the past, only before conditional phrases and in relative phrases with a conditional connotation does it describe an action in the present, as in Classical Arabic. For example: w-s3ḫly Hlkʾmr w-ḥmʿṯt "And Hlkʾmr and ḥmʿṯt have pleaded guilty (dual)".

Imperfect

The imperfect usually expresses that something has occurred at the same time as an event previously mentioned, or it may simply express the present or future. Four

moods
can be distinguished:

  1. Hathor
    " (Minaean).
  2. Precative is formed with l- and expresses wishes: w-l-y-ḫmrn-hw ʾlmqhw "may Almaqahu grant him".
  3. Jussive is also formed with l- and stands for an indirect order: l-yʾt "so should it come".
  4. Vetitive is formed with the negative ʾl". It serves to express negative wishes: w-ʾl y-hwfd ʿlbm "and no ʿilb-trees may be planted here“.

Imperative

The imperative is found in texts written in the zabūr script on wooden sticks, and has the form fˁl(-n). For example: w-'nt f-s3ḫln ("and you (sg.) look after").

Derived stems

By changing the consonantal roots of verbs they can produce various derivational forms, which change their meaning. In Sabaic (and other Old South Arabian languages) six such stems are attested. Examples:

  • qny "to receive" > hqny "to sacrifice; to donate"
  • qwm "to decree" > hqm "to decree", tqwmw "to bear witness"

Syntax

Position of clauses

The arrangement of clauses is not consistent in Sabaic. The first clause in an inscription always has the order (particle - ) subject – predicate (SV), the other main clauses of an inscription are introduced by w- "and" and always have – like subordinate clauses – the order predicate – subject (VS). At the same time the Predicate may be introduced by f.[19]

Examples:

At the beginning of an inscription; SVO
s1ʿdʾl w-rʾbʾl s3lʾ w-sqny ʿṯtr kl ġwṯ
S1ʿdʾl and Rʾbʾl they have offered up (3rd person plural perfect) and have consecrated (3rd person plural perfect)
Athtar
 complete repair
Subject Predicate Indirect object Direct object
"S1ʿdʾl and Rʾbʾl have offered up and consecrated all the repairs to
Athtar
".
Introduced by w; SVO
w-ʾws1ʾl f-ḥmd mqm ʾlmqh
and Awsil and he thanked (3rd-person sg. perfect) Does (stat. constr.) Almaqah
"and" – subject "and" – predicate Object
"And Awsil thanked the power of Almaqah"

Subordinate clauses

Sabaic is equipped with a number of means to form subordinate clauses using various conjunctions:

Main clause with ensuing object clause
Main clause Subordinate clause
w-y-s1mʿ-w k-nblw hmw ʾgrn b-ʿbr ʾḥzb ḥbs2t
"and" – 3rd p. pl. imperfect Conjunction – 3rd p. pl. perfect Attribute Subject Preposition Prepositional object
And they heard that they sent these Najranites to Abyssinian tribes
And they heard, that these Najranites had sent a delegation to the Abyssinian tribes.
Conditional clause with apodosis
Subordinate clause Subordinate clause
w-hmy hfnk f-tʿlmn b-hmy
"And" – conjunction 2. person sg. perfect "Then" – imperative Pronominal phrase
And if you sent and sign on it
And if you send (it), sign it.

Relative clauses

In Sabaic, relative clauses are marked by a

Relativiser like ḏ-, ʾl, mn-; in free relative clauses this marking is obligatory. Unlike other Semitic languages in Sabaic resumptive pronouns
are only rarely found.

Free Relative clause after mn-mw
mn-mw ḏ- -y-s2ʾm-n ʿbdm f-ʾw ʾmtm
"who" – enclitic Relativiser 3rd-person singular n-imperfect Object "and/ or" Object
who he buys a male slave or a female slave
Whoever buys a male or female slave [...]
Attributive relative clause (Qataban.) with nominal predicate
Main clause Relative clause
ḏn mḥfdn yḥḏr ḏm b-s2hd gnʾ hgr-sm
Demonstrative pronoun Subject Relativiser Preposition Prepositional object Possessor
this the tower yḥḏr which opposite wall her city
this tower yḥḏr, which stands opposite the walls of her city (is located).
Attributive relative clause with a prepositional predicate and resumptive
ʾl-n ḏ- -l- -hw smyn w-ʾrḍn
God – Nunation Relativiser Preposition Object (resumptive) Subject
the God which for him heaven and earth
God, for Whom the heavens and the earth are = God, to Whom the heaven and the earth belong

Vocabulary

Although the Sabaic vocabulary is found in relatively diverse types of inscriptions (an example being that the south Semitic tribes derive their word wtb meaning "to sit" from the northwest tribe's word yashab/wtb meaning "to jump"),

Sana'a.[21]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-19-922237-1
    .
  2. ^ Kogan & Korotayev 1997.
  3. ^
    ISBN 9780511486890
    .
  4. ^ The Athenaeum. J. Lection. 1894. p. 88.
  5. ISBN 978-0-19-068766-3
    .
  6. ^ Kogan & Korotayev 1997, p. 221.
  7. ^ Weninger, Stefan. "Ge'ez" in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha, p.732.
  8. ^ Stuart, Munro-Hay (1991). Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity page 57. Edinburgh: University Press.
  9. ^ a b N. Nebes, P. Stein: Ancient South Arabian, in: Roger D. Woodard (Hrsg.): The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004
  10. ^ A. Avanzini: Le iscrizioni sudarabiche d'Etiopia: un esempio di culture e lingue a contatto. In: Oriens antiquus, 26 (1987), Seite 201–221
  11. ^ a b c d Avanzini, A (April–June 2006). "A Fresh Look at Sabaic". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 126 (2): 253–260. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  12. ^ 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.
  13. ^ Rebecca Hasselbach, Old South Arabian in Languages from the World of the Bible, edited by Holger Gzella
  14. ^ Norbert Nebes and Peter Stein, op. cit
  15. ^ Rebecca Hasselbach, in Languages from the World of the Bible (ed. by Holger Gzella), pg. 170
  16. ^ a b Kogan & Korotayev (1997), p. 223
  17. ^ Hierzu: P. Stein: Gibt es Kasus im Sabäischen?, in: N. Nebes (Hrg.): Neue Beiträge zur Semitistik. Erstes Arbeitstreffen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Semitistik in der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft vom 11. bis 13. September 2000, S. 201–222
  18. ^ Details see: Norbert Nebes: Verwendung und Funktion der Präfixkonjugation im Sabäischen, in: Norbert Nebes (Hrsg.): Arabia Felix. Beiträge zur Sprache und Kultur des vorislamischen Arabien. Festschrift Walter W. Müller zum 60. Geburtstag. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, Pp. 191–211
  19. ^ Norbert Nebes: Die Konstruktionen mit /FA-/ im Altsüdarabischen. (Veröffentlichungen der Orientalischen Kommission der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz, Nr. 40) Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1995
  20. ^ Mendenhall, George (2006). "Arabic in Semitic Linguistic History". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 126 (1): 17–25.
  21. ^ The usual modern Arabic word for "church" is kanīsah, from the same origin.

Bibliography

  • A. F. L. Beeston: Sabaic Grammar, Manchester 1984
    ISBN 0-9507885-2-X
    .

Kogan, Leonid; Korotayev, Andrey (1997). "Sayhadic Languages (Epigraphic South Arabian)". Semitic Languages. London: Routledge. pp. 157–183.

External links

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