Sabaic, sometimes referred to as Sabaean, was a Sayhadic language that was spoken between c. 1000 BC and the 6th century AD by the Sabaeans. It was used as a written language by some other peoples of the ancient civilization of South Arabia, including the Himyarites, Ḥashidites, Ṣirwāḥites, Humlanites, Ghaymānites, and Radmānites.
Sabaic is very similar to Arabic and the languages may have been mutually intelligible.[Robin, C. J. (2010). Langues et écritures. In A. Al‐Ghabban (Ed.), Routes d’Arabie. Editions du musée du Louvre. Pp. 123–124.]
Script
Sabaic was written in the South Arabian alphabet, and like
Hebrew and
Arabic marked only consonants, the only indication of vowels being with
Mater 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.
The South Arabian alphabet used in Yemen, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Ethiopia beginning in the 8th century BC, in all three locations, later evolved into the still-in-use Geʽez script. The Geʽez language however is no longer considered to be a descendant of Sabaic or of Sayhadic;[Weninger, Stefan. "Ge'ez" in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha, p.732.] and there is linguistic evidence that Semitic languages were concurrently in use, being spoken in Eritrea and Ethiopia as early as 2000 BC.[Stuart, Munro-Hay (1991). Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity page 57. Edinburgh: University Press.]
Sabaic is attested in some 1,040 dedicatory inscriptions, 850 building inscriptions, 200 legal texts, and 1300 short graffiti (containing only personal names).[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] 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
-
Sabaic: the language of the kingdom of Sheba and later also of Himyar; also documented in the kingdom of Da'amot;
[A. Avanzini: Le iscrizioni sudarabiche d'Etiopia: un esempio di culture e lingue a contatto. In: Oriens antiquus, 26 (1987), Seite 201–221] very well documented, c. 6000 inscriptions
-
Old Sabaic: mostly boustrophedon inscriptions from the 9th until the 8th century BC and including further texts in the next two centuries from Ma'rib and the Highlands.
-
Middle Sabaic: 3rd century BC until the end of the 3rd century AD. The best-documented language.
-
Amiritic/ Ḥaramitic: the language of the area to the north of Ma'īn
-
Central Sabaic: the language of the inscriptions from the Sabaean heartland
-
South Sabaic: the language of the inscriptions from Radmān and Himyar
-
"Pseudo-Sabaic": the literary language of Arabian tribes in Najran, Ḥaram and Qaryat al-Faw
-
Late Sabaic: 4th–6th centuries AD.
In the Late Sabaic period the ancient names of the gods are no longer mentioned and only one deity Raḥmānān is referred to. The last known inscription in Sabaic dates from 554 or 559 AD.
The language's eventual extinction was brought about by the later rapid expansion of Islam, bringing with it
Classical Arabic (or
Mudhar Arabic), 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 Ḥaram in the eastern al-Jawf.[Rebecca Hasselbach, Old South Arabian in Languages from the World of the Bible, edited by Holger Gzella] Inscriptions in the Haramic dialect, which is heavily influenced by North Arabic, are also generally considered a form of Sabaic. The Himyarites, whose spoken language was Semitic but not South Arabian, used Sabaic as a written language.[Norbert Nebes and Peter Stein, op. cit]
Phonology
Vowels
Since Sabaic is written in an
abjad script leaving vowels unmarked, little can be said for certain about the vocalic system. However, based on other Semitic languages, it is generally presumed that it had at least the vowels
a,
i, and
u, which would have occurred both short and long
ā,
ī, and
ū. In Old Sabaic, the long vowels
ū and
ī are sometimes indicated using the letters for
w and
y as
Mater lectionis. In the Old period this is used mainly in word-final position, but in Middle and Late Sabaic it also commonly occurs medially. Sabaic has no way of writing the long vowel
ā, but in later inscriptions, in the Radmanite dialect the letter
h is sometimes infixed in plurals where it is not etymologically expected: thus
bnhy ('sons of'; constructive state) instead of the usual
bny; it is suspected that this
h represents the vowel
ā. Long vowels
ū and
ī certainly seem to be indicated in forms such as the personal pronouns
hmw ('them'), the verbal form
ykwn (also written without the glide
ykn; 'he will be'), and in
enclitic particles -
mw, and -
my probably used for emphasis.
[Rebecca Hasselbach, in Languages from the World of the Bible (ed. by Holger Gzella), pg. 170]
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, Sayhadic 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.
The Middle Sabaic Haramitic dialect often shows the change
s3 >
s1, for example:
ˀks1wt ("clothes"), normal Sabaic
ks3wy.
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.
Sabaic consonants
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:
|
|
| Singular number | First person | - n | | ʾn |
| Second person m. | - k | - k | ʾnt; ʾt |
| Second person f. | - k | | |
| Third person Masculine | - hw, h | - s1w(w), s1 | h(w)ʾ |
| 3rd Person Feminine | - 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 Masculine | - hm(w) | - s1m | hmw |
| 3. Person Feminine | - 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
Sayhadic 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" from ʾl "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.[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]
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:
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.
[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] 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"):
|
|
| Short form | Long form |
|
| 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 |
|
| 3. P. f. | fʿl- ty | t- fʿl- y | 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
Grammatical Mood can be distinguished:
-
Realis mood: in Sabaic this has no special marker, though it has in some of the other languages: b-y-s2ṭ "he trades" (Qatabānian). With the meaning of the perfect: w- y-qr zydʾl b-wrḫh ḥtḥr "Zaid'il died in the month of Hathor" (Minaean).
-
Irrealis mood is formed with l- and expresses wishes: w-l-y-ḫmrn-hw ʾlmqhw "may grant him".
-
Irrealis mood is also formed with l- and stands for an indirect order: l-yʾt "so should it come".
-
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 mood 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 Sahyadic 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.
[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]
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
! colspan="6" | 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 | | to | Abyssinian tribes |
| And they heard, that these had sent a delegation to the Abyssinian tribes. |
| + Conditional clause with apodosis
! colspan="2" | Subordinate clause
! colspan="2" | 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
! colspan="2" | Main clause
! colspan="4" | 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"),
nevertheless it stands relatively isolated in the Semitic realm, something that makes it more difficult to analyze. Even given the existence of closely related languages such as Ge'ez and Classical Arabic, only part of the Sabaic vocabulary has proved able to be interpreted; a not inconsiderable part must be deduced from the context and some words remain incomprehensible. On the other hand, many words from agriculture and irrigation technology have been retrieved from the works of Yemeni scholars of the Middle Ages and partially also from the modern Yemeni dialects. Foreign loanwords are rare in Sabaic, a few Greek and Aramaic words are found in the
Rahmanism, Christian and Jewish period (5th–7th centuries AD) for example:
qls1-n from the Greek ἐκκλησία "church", which still survives in the Arabic
al-Qillīs referring to the church built by
in Sana'a.
[The usual modern Arabic word for "church" is kanīsah, from the same origin.]
See also
Bibliography
-
A. F. L. Beeston: Sabaic Grammar, Manchester 1984 .
-
A.F.L. Beeston, M.A. Ghul, W.W. Müller, J. Ryckmans: Sabaic Dictionary / Dictionnaire sabéen /al-Muʿdscham as-Sabaʾī (Englisch-Französisch-Arabisch) Louvain-la-Neuve, 1982
-
Joan Copeland Biella: Dictionary of Old South Arabic. Sabaean dialect. Eisenbrauns, 1982
-
Maria Höfner: Altsüdarabische Grammatik (Porta linguarum Orientalium, Band 24) Leipzig, 1943
-
Anne Multhoff: Die sabäischen Inschriften aus Marib. Katalog, Übersetzung und Kommentar The (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel 9). Verlag Marie Leidorf, Rahden (Westfalen) 2021, .
-
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) S. 454–487 (grammatical sketch with Bibliography).
-
Jacques Ryckmans, Walter W. Müller, Yusuf M. Abdallah: Textes du Yémen antique inscrits sur bois Texts (Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 43). Institut Orientaliste, Louvain 1994.
-
Peter Stein, Untersuchungen zur Phonologie und Morphologie des Sabäischen Studies (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel 3). Rahden 2003, .
-
Peter Stein: Die altsüdarabischen Minuskelinschriften auf Holzstäbchen aus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München 1: Die Inschriften der mittel- und spätsabäischen Periode The (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel 5). Tübingen u.a. 2010.
-
Peter Stein: Die altsüdarabischen Minuskelinschriften auf Holzstäbchen aus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München. Band 2: Die altsabäischen und minäaischen Inschriften The (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel. Band 10). Wiesbaden, 2023.
-
Peter Stein, Lehrbuch der sabäischen Sprache Sabaean. 2 volumes. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, (volume 1) and (volume 2).
-
Sabaic Online Dictionary
External links
