Ancient South Arabian languages

Ancient South Arabian (ASA) designates a group of four Semitic languages, Sabaic, Qatabanic, Minaic and Hadramitic, attested from the end of the 2nd- beginning of the 1st millennium BCE until the advent of Islam in what is now Yemen, in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. ASA inscriptions have also been found in Ethiopia, northern Arabia and Dhofar in Oman.

ASA languages, namely Sabaic, Qatabanic, Minaic and Hadramitic, are named after the four South Arabian kingdoms (Sabaʾ, Qatabān, Maʿīn and Ḥaḍramawt), tribal states whose names were handed down in Greek-Roman sources (Fig. 1).
In English terminology, Old South Arabian (Hasselbach 2010; Gragg 1997) and Epigraphic South Arabian (Beeston 1962; Kogan & Korotayev 1997) are also —though more rarely— used. Coined in the late 70s by Alfred Beeston (1984), the term Ṣayhadic —from the name given by the medieval Islamic geographers to the desert on whose margins the earliest kingdoms were formed— has been suggested again by Michael Macdonald (2000) to distinguish these four main languages from other peripheral and poorly understood idioms that he calls "non-Ṣayhadic". Even though this label did not meet with acceptance by most ASA scholars, it is nonetheless preferred by some linguists.
Beeston was also the first scholar to argue that the four ASA idioms are to be considered independent languages and not dialects, as had been maintained until the mid-twentieth century, and as is sometimes still argued nowadays (Nebes & Stein 2004).

Classification and subgrouping

In the last thirty years Ancient South Arabian, traditionally classified as "South Semitic", has been included in the Central Semitic branch, along with North Arabian (Ancient North Arabian and Arabic) and Northwest Semitic (Canaanite, Aramaic, Ugaritic). This is the result of an influential article in which Norbert Nebes (1994) showed that the three most documented ASA languages, with the exclusion of Hadramitic, had an imperfect base yaqtulu (a Central Semitic innovation) and no trace of the form yaqat[t]al (a proto-Semitic feature retained by other West Semitic languages, namely Modern South Arabian and Ethiopian).
In view of the many isoglosses shared, these languages have traditionally been considered closely related idioms, which were all part of one linguistic family. In addition to the common script, they share in fact a number of isoglosses in phonology (three unvoiced non-emphatic sibilants: s¹, s² and s³; proto-Semitic /p/ realized as /f/), morphology (suffixed -(h)n article; -t suffix in feminine singular nouns in pausal form; four nominal states), syntax (more than one nomen regens or nomen rectum in genitive constructions; infinitive chain) and lexicon.
However, these languages also have distinct traits that are either shared by few languages of the family or are very specific. From the morphological point of view, the most evident opposition is among the s¹-forms (in pronouns and causative verbal stems) of Qatabanic, Minaic and Hadramitic, and the h-forms of Sabaic. But more or less marked differences are also evident in the use of the matres lectionis, in nominal and verbal paradigms as well as in technical vocabulary.
The increasing level of diversity among these languages, which is emerging thanks to the new data available and specific studies undertaken in recent years, has been interpreted in opposite ways by scholars. A first tendency (the so-called "exogenous theory"), goes back to the traditional idea that the Southern Arabian culture was formed as a result of a migration of people from Syria and Palestine, who settled in South Arabia towards the end of the 2nd millennium BCE (Nebes 2001). According to this view, Sabaic is the most recent and innovative language, which settled on an archaic and more conservative southern substratum, and is genetically more closely linked to a North-West Semitic language such as Aramaic than to the other three ASA languages (Stein 2012; Kottsieper & Stein 2014).
On the other hand, an opposite tendency supports the idea of an endogenous formation of the South Arabian culture, and also believes that the South Arabian languages were formed through a long process of differentiation from a common proto-historic phase (Avanzini 2009; Mazzini 2005). They argue that the innovation of yaqtulu in these idioms is not completely certain, and that an arrival of foreign populations in Yemen is historically unlikely. They also believe that the articulation of these languages cannot be summarized in a too sharp opposition between innovative Sabaic and conservative non-Sabaic languages.

Text material and periodization

The ASA corpus is one of the biggest collections of epigraphic documents of the Semitic world, comprising over 12,000 texts in formal (or monumental) script and about 6,000 texts in informal (or minuscule) script.
This documentation can be divided into broad stages, which correspond approximately to the various periods of the history of ancient South Arabia:

1. Early period (1st millennium to the 4th cent. BCE), corresponding to the early period of ancient South Arabian history (predominance of the kingdom of Sabaʾ).
2. Middle period, which is the longest one and has internal subdivisions: from the 4th to 1st cent. BCE (predominance of Qatabān and Ḥaḍramawt, and their alliance with Maʿīn); 1st cent. BCE to early 2nd cent. CE (kings of Sabaʾ and dhu-Raydān); late 2nd to late 3rd cent. CE (wars involving Ḥimyar, Sabaʾ and Ḥaḍramawt).
3. Late period, from the 4th to the 6th cent. CE (unification of Yemen under Ḥimyarite rule and adoption of monotheism).

Sabaic is the best documented language, with a corpus of over 6,000 inscriptions covering the entire chronological span of ASA history (Fig. 2). The other languages are much less documented (especially Hadramitic), and are attested up to the Christian era (Minaic), the mid 2nd cent. CE (Qatabanic) and the 3rd cent. CE (Hadramitic).
Despite such a high number of texts and a lexical repertoire of more than 200,000 individual words (Stein 2012), only a third of the ASA inscriptions are of some length, while the rest is made up of graffiti or proper names. The content of the inscriptions is generally limited and the language is very formal, with a prevalence of fixed forms (mostly of the 3rd person) and repetitive formularies.
The discovery of the texts in minuscule writing has been extremely helpful in reconstructing the nominal and verbal morphology, especially of Sabaic and Minaic; however, our knowledge of Qatabanic and Hadramitic still relies only on monumental inscriptions. The result is that Sabaic is by far the best-described language, while there is a greater lack of data on some of the other languages, where paradigms are often incomplete. Moreover, systematic studies on the grammar and lexicon of non-Sabaic languages have not yet been carried out, and their historical development has not been established.

Alessia Prioletta

References and suggested reading

• Avanzini A. 2009. Origin and Classification of the Ancient South Arabian Languages. JSS 54: 205–220. DOI: 10.1093/jss/fgn048
• Beeston A.F.L. 1962. A Descriptive Grammar of Epigraphic South Arabian. London: Luzac.
• Beeston A.F.L. 1984. Sabaic Grammar (JSS Monograph 6). Manchester: University of Manchester.
• Gragg G. 1997. Old South Arabian phonology. In A.S. Kaye (ed.), Phonologies of Asia and Africa: 161–168. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
• Hasselbach R. 2012. Old South Arabian. In H. Gzella (ed.), Languages from the World of the Bible: 160–193. Boston, Berlin: De Gruyter. URI: library.oapen.org
• Kogan L. & Korotayev A. 1997. Sayhadic (Epigraphic South Arabian). In R. Hetzron (ed.), The Semitic Languages: 220–241. London: Routledge.
• Kottsieper I. & P. Stein. 2014. Sabaic and Aramaic – a common origin? In O. Elmaz & J.C.E. Watson (eds), Languages of Southern Arabia. Papers from the Special Session of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held on 27 July 2013 (Supplement to the PSAS 44): 81–88. Oxford: Archaeopress. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43782852
• Macdonald M.C.A. 2000. Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia. AAE 11: 28–79. DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0471.2000.aae110106.x
• Mazzini G. 2005. Ancient South Arabian documentation and the reconstruction of Semitic. In P. Fronzaroli & P. Marrassini (eds), Proceedings of the 10th meeting of Hamito-Semitic (Afroasiatic) Linguistics, Firenze 18-20 April 2001 (Quaderni di Semitistica 25): 215–238. Florence: Università di Firenze.
• Multhoff A. 2019. Ancient South Arabian. In J. Huehnergard & N. Pat-El (eds), The Semitic Languages: 321–341. London, New York: Routledge.
• Nebes N. 1994. Zur Form der Imperfektbasis des unvermehrten Grundstammes im Altsüdarabischen. In W. Heinrichs & G. Schoeler (eds), Festschrift Ewald Wagner zum 65. Geburtstag. Bd. 1. Semitische Studien unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Südsemitistik (Beiruter Texte und Studien 54): 59-81. Beirut - Stuttgart: Steiner.
• Nebes N. 2001. Zur Genese der altsüdarabischen Kultur. Eine Arbeitshypothese. In R. Eichmann & H. Parzinger (eds), Migration und Kulturtransfer. Der Wandel vorder- und zentralasiatischer Kulturen im Umbruch vom 2. zum 1. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend. Akten des internationalen Kolloquiums Berlin, 23. bis 26 November 1999 (Kolloquien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte 6): 427–435. Bonn: Habelt.
• Nebes N. & P. Stein. 2004. Ancient South Arabian. In R.D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages: 454–487. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Stein P. 2011. Ancient South Arabian. In S. Weninger (ed.) in collaboration with G. Kahn, M. P. Streck and J.C.E. Watson, The Semitic Languages. An International Handbook (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 36): 1042–1073. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
• Stein P. 2012. Aspekte von Sprachbewusstsein im antiken Südarabien. In J. Thon, G. Veltri, E.-J. Waschke (eds), Sprachbewusstsein und Sprachkonzepte im alten Orient, alten Testament und rabbinischen Judentum (Orientwissenschaftliche Hefte 30): 29-59. Halle: ZIRS.
• Stein P. 2012. Sabaica — Aramaica (1). In T. Polański (ed.), Studia Andreae Zaborski Dedicata (Folia Orientalia 49): 503–522. Cracow: Polish Academy of Sciences.