Old South Arabian
Group of four extinct languages / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Old South Arabian[1][2][3] (also known as Ancient South Arabian (ASA), Epigraphic South Arabian, Ṣayhadic, or Yemenite) is a group of four closely related extinct languages (Sabaean/Sabaic, Qatabanic, Hadramitic, Minaic) spoken in the far southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. The earliest preserved records belonging to the group are dated to the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE.[4] They were written in the Ancient South Arabian script.
Old South Arabian | |
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Yemenite Ṣayhadic | |
Geographic distribution | Southern Arabia |
Linguistic classification | Afro-Asiatic
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Subdivisions |
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Glottolog | sayh1236 |
There were a number of other Old South Arabian languages (e.g. Awsānian), of which very little evidence has survived, however. A pair of possible surviving Sayhadic languages is attested in the Razihi language and Faifi language spoken in far north-west of Yemen, though these varieties of speech have both Arabic and Sayhadic features, and it is difficult to classify them as either Arabic dialects with a Sayhadic substratum, or Sayhadic languages that have been restructured under pressure of Arabic.