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Sabaean language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Sabaean | ||
|---|---|---|
| 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 Sabaean |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | sem | |
| ISO 639-3: | sem | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
The Sabaean language was an Old South Arabian language spoken in Yemen up until the 8th Century AD. It was written in the South Arabian alphabet.
The South Arabic alphabet used in Ethiopia and Yemen beginning in the 8th century BC (both 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[1], and there is linguistic evidence of Semitic languages being spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea since at least 2000 BC.[2]
- ^ Weninger, Stefan "Ge'ez" in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha, p.732.
- ^ Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press, 1991, pp.57.
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