South Arabian alphabet

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South Arabian alphabet

The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad ???????) 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 SabaeanSabaean language

The Sabaean language was an Old South Arabian language spoken in Yemen up until the 8th Century AD....
, Qatabanian, HadramiHadrami

Hadrami pronounced "Al-Hadharem" was one of the five sheikdoms of Upper Yafa....
, MinaeanFacts About Minaean language

The Minaean language was an Old South Arabian Language spoken in Yemen between 1000 BC and A.D....
, HimyariteHimyarite language

The Himyarite language was a Semitic tongue spoken in the south-western Arabian peninsula until the the 10th century....
, and proto-Ge'ezGe'ez language

Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that had developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the ...
(or proto-EthiosemiticEthiopian Semitic languages

Ethiopian Semitic languages is a language group which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South...
) in D`mt. The earliest inscriptions in the alphabet date to the 9th century BC in Akkele GuzayAkkele Guzay

Akkele Guzay was a province in the interior of Eritrea....
, EritreaEritrea

Eritrea is a country in northern East Africa....
and in the 8th century BC, found in BabyloniaBabylonia

Babylonia, named for its capital city, Babylon, was an ancient state in the south part of Mesopotamia , combining the territ...
and in YemenYemen

Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a Middle Eastern country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asi...
. Its mature form was reached around 500 BC, and its use continued until the 7th century7th century

The 7th century is the period from 601 - 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era....
AD, including Old North Arabian inscriptions in variants of the alphabet, when it was displaced by the Arabic alphabetArabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing Arabic and various other languages, together with various closely related...
. In Ethiopia it evolved later into the Ge'ez alphabetGe'ez alphabet

Ge'ez is an abugida script which was originally developed to write Ge'ez, a Semitic language....
, which, with added symbols throughout the centuries, has been used to write AmharicAmharic language

name=Amharic|nativename=???? amaria...
, TigrinyaTigrinya language

Tigrinya is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigray-Tigrinya people in central Eritrea, where it is one of the main working ...
and TigreTigre language

Tigre is a Semitic language of the North Ethiopic branch, descended from Ge'ez and closely related to Tigrinya....
, as well as other languages (including various SemiticSemitic languages

The Semitic languages are a family of languages spoken by more than 200 million people across much of the Middle East, North...
, CushiticCushitic languages

The Cushitic languages are a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic languages, named after the Biblical figure Cush by analogy with Se...
, and Nilo-SaharanNilo-Saharan languages

The Nilo-Saharan languages are a group of African languages spoken mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, i...
languages).

Zabur Script

Zabur is the name of the cursive form of the South Arabian script that was used by the ancient Yemenis in addition to their monumental script (or MusnadMusnad Summary

Musnad may refer to:*South Arabian alphabet...
) (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 cursiveCursive

Cursive is any style of handwriting in which all the letters in a word are connected, making a word one single stroke....
zabur script—also known as "South Arabian Minuscules"—was used by the ancient Yemenis to inscribe everyday documents on wooden sticks in addition to the rock-cut monumental musnad letters displayed below.

Sign inventory

(epigraphic) Old South Arabian alphabet
Character Transcription IPA	h [h]	l [l]	? [h]	m [m]	q [q]	w [w]	s²Sawt Sawt is a kind of popular music found in the Persian Gulf area, especially in Kuwait and Bahrain.... [?]	r [r]	b [b]	t [t]	s¹ [s]	k [k]	n [n]	? [x]	s³ [s?]	f [f]	? [?]	? [?]	? [?']	g [g]	d [d]	g [?]	? [t']	z [z]	? [ð]	y [j]	? [?]	? [t?']	??a' ' is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet .... [?']
Other transcriptions							sSawt Overview Sawt is a kind of popular music found in the Persian Gulf area, especially in Kuwait and Bahrain.... ,š				š,s				s,s

By shape
Character Transcription IPA	r [r]	? [?]	w [w]	q [q]	y [j]	? [?]	? [t?']	??a' ' is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet .... [?']	h [h]	? [h]	? [x]	? [?]	s¹ [s]	k [k]	g [?]	b [b]	n [n]	g [g]	l [l]	m [m]	s²Sawt Sawt is a kind of popular music found in the Persian Gulf area, especially in Kuwait and Bahrain.... [?]	s³ [s?]	t [t]	f [f]	z [z]	d [d]	? [ð]	? [?']	? [t']
	Circle								Y			?					Vert			Diagonal							Box

South Arabian alphabet

Zabur Script

Sign inventory

External links