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The Ancient South Arabian script (Old South Arabian 𐩣𐩯𐩬𐩵 ms3nd; modern Arabic: الْمُسْنَد musnad) branched from the Proto-Sinaitic script in about the late 2nd millennium BCE. It was used for writing the Old South Arabian languages Sabaic, Qatabanic, Hadramautic, Minaean, and Hasaitic, and the Ethiopic language Ge'ez in Dʿmt. The earliest instances of the Ancient South Arabian script are painted pottery sherds from Raybun in Hadhramaut in Yemen, which are dated to the late 2nd millennium BCE.[3] There are no letters for vowels, which are marked by matres lectionis.

Ancient South Arabian script
Script type
Abjad
Time period
Late 2nd millennium BCE to 6th century CE
Directionright-to-left script 
LanguagesOld South Arabian, Ge'ez
Related scripts
Parent systems
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Child systems
Ge'ez[1][2]
Sister systems
Phoenician alphabet
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Sarb (105), Old South Arabian
Unicode
Unicode alias
Old South Arabian
Unicode range
U+10A60U+10A7F
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and  , see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
South Arabian inscription addressed to the Sabaean national god Almaqah
South Arabian inscription addressed to the Sabaean national god Almaqah

Its mature form was reached around 800 BCE, and its use continued until the 6th century CE, including Ancient North Arabian inscriptions in variants of the alphabet, when it was displaced by the Arabic alphabet.[4] In Ethiopia and Eritrea, it evolved later into the Ge'ez script,[1][2] which, with added symbols throughout the centuries, has been used to write Amharic, Tigrinya and Tigre, as well as other languages (including various Semitic, Cushitic, and Nilo-Saharan languages).


Properties



Letters


Sabaean letter examples on page 274 of the book Illustrirte Geschichte der Schrift by Carl Faulmann, 1880
Sabaean letter examples on page 274 of the book "Illustrirte Geschichte der Schrift" by Carl Faulmann, 1880
Sabaean letter examples on page 275 of the book Illustrirte Geschichte der Schrift by Carl Faulmann, 1880
Sabaean letter examples on page 275 of the book "Illustrirte Geschichte der Schrift" by Carl Faulmann, 1880
LetterUnicode
name[5]
Transcription[6]IPACorresponding letter in
ImageTextPhoenicianGe'ezHebrewArabic Syriac
𐩠 he h /h/ 𐤄 ה ه ܗ
𐩡 lamedh l /l/ 𐤋 ל ܠ
𐩢 heth /ħ/ 𐤇 ח ܚ
𐩣 mem m /m/ 𐤌 מ ܡ
𐩤 qoph q /q/ 𐤒 ק ܩ
𐩥 waw w /w/ 𐤅 ו ܘ
𐩦 shin s² (š) /ɬ/ 𐤔 ש ܫ
𐩧 resh r /r/ 𐤓 ר ܪ
𐩨 beth b /b/ 𐤁 ב ܒ
𐩩 taw t /t/ 𐤕 ת ܬ
𐩪 sat s¹ (s) /s/
𐩫 kaph k /k/ 𐤊 כ ܟ
𐩬 nun n /n/ 𐤍 נ ܢ
𐩭 kheth /x/
𐩮 sadhe // 𐤑 צ ص ܨ
𐩯 samekh s³ (ś) // 𐤎 ס س ܤ
𐩰 fe f /f/ 𐤐 פ ف ܦ
𐩱 alef ʾ /ʔ/ 𐤀 א ܐ
𐩲 ayn ʿ /ʕ/ 𐤏 ע ܥ
𐩳 dhadhe /ɬˤ/ ض
𐩴 gimel g /ɡ/ 𐤂 ג ܓ
𐩵 daleth d /d/ 𐤃 ד ܕ
𐩶 ghayn ġ /ɣ/ غ
𐩷 teth // 𐤈 ט ܛ
𐩸 zayn z /z/ 𐤆 ז ܙ
𐩹 dhaleth /ð/ ذ
𐩺 yodh y /j/ 𐤉 י ܝ
𐩻 thaw /θ/
𐩼 theth /θˤ/ ظ
Wikipedia, written with Musnad letters, from right to left on the upper line and from left to right on the bottom one. Notice how the letters are mirrored.
Wikipedia, written with Musnad letters, from right to left on the upper line and from left to right on the bottom one. Notice how the letters are mirrored.

Numbers


Six signs are used for numbers:

1510501001000
𐩽𐩭𐩲𐩾𐩣𐩱

The sign for 50 was evidently created by removing the lower triangle from the sign for 100.[7] The sign for 1 doubles as a word separator. The other four signs double as both letters and numbers. Each of these four signs is the first letter of the name of the corresponding numeral.[7]

An additional sign (𐩿) is used to bracket numbers, setting them apart from surrounding text.[7] For example, 𐩿𐩭𐩽𐩽𐩿

These signs are used in an additive system similar to Roman numerals to represent any number (excluding zero). Two examples:

Sample numbers from one to twenty
12345678910
𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩭𐩭𐩽𐩭𐩽𐩽𐩭𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩭𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩲
11121314151617181920
𐩲𐩽𐩲𐩽𐩽𐩲𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩲𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩲𐩭𐩲𐩭𐩽𐩲𐩭𐩽𐩽𐩲𐩭𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩲𐩭𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩲𐩲

Thousands are written two different ways:

Perhaps because of ambiguity, numerals, at least in monumental inscriptions, are always clarified with the numbers written out in words.


Zabūr


Zabur inscription
Zabur inscription

Zabūr, also known as "South Arabian minuscules",[8] is the name of the cursive form of the South Arabian script that was used by the Sabaeans in addition to their monumental script, or Musnad.[9]

Zabur was a writing system in ancient Yemen along with Musnad. The difference between the two is that Musnad documented historical events, meanwhile Zabur writings were used for religious scripts or to record daily transactions among ancient Yemenis. Zabur writings could be found in palimpsest form written on papyri or palm-leaf stalks.[10][11]


Unicode


The South Arabian alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.2.

The Unicode block, called Old South Arabian, is U+10A60U+10A7F.

Note that U+10A7D OLD SOUTH ARABIAN NUMBER ONE (𐩽) represents both the numeral one and a word divider.[7]

Old South Arabian[1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+10A6x 𐩠 𐩡 𐩢 𐩣 𐩤 𐩥 𐩦 𐩧 𐩨 𐩩 𐩪 𐩫 𐩬 𐩭 𐩮 𐩯
U+10A7x 𐩰 𐩱 𐩲 𐩳 𐩴 𐩵 𐩶 𐩷 𐩸 𐩹 𐩺 𐩻 𐩼 𐩽 𐩾 𐩿
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 15.0



See also



References



Citations


  1. Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. pp. 89, 98, 569–570. ISBN 978-0195079937.
  2. Gragg, Gene (2004). "Ge'ez (Aksum)". In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Cambridge University Press. p. 431. ISBN 0-521-56256-2.
  3. Stein, Peter (2013). "Palaeography of the Ancient South Arabian script. New evidence for an absolute chronology". Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy. 24 (2): 186. ISSN 0905-7196.
  4. Ibn Durayd, Ta‘līq min amāli ibn durayd, ed. al-Sanūsī, Muṣṭafā, Kuwait 1984, p. 227 (Arabic). The author purports that a poet from the Kinda tribe in Yemen who settled in Dūmat al-Ǧandal during the advent of Islam told of how another member of the Yemenite Kinda tribe who lived in that town taught the Arabic script to the Banū Qurayš in Mecca and that their use of the Arabic script for writing eventually took the place of musnad, or what was then the Sabaean script of the kingdom of Ḥimyar: "You have exchanged the musnad of the sons of Ḥimyar / which the kings of Ḥimyar were wont to write down in books."
  5. "Unicode Character Database: UnicodeData.txt". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2017-09-11.
  6. Hayajneh, Hani (2011). "Ancient South Arabian". In Weninger, Stefan; Khan, Geoffrey; Streck, Michael P.; Watson, Janet C. E. (eds.). The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Walter de Gruyter. p. 1042-1073. ISBN 978-3-110-25158-6.
  7. Maktari, Sultan; Mansour, Kamal (2008-01-28). "L2/08-044: Proposal to encode Old South Arabian Script" (PDF).
  8. Stein 2005.
  9. Ryckmans, Müller & ‛Abdallah 1994, p. 43.
  10. Ryckmans 1993, p. 127.
  11. S. Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen, p. 70

References





На других языках


[de] Altsüdarabische Schrift

Die altsüdarabische Schrift ist ein im südlichen Arabien (heutiges Jemen), insbesondere im Reich Saba vom 8. Jh. v. Chr. bis zum 6. Jahrhundert benutztes Konsonantenalphabet mit 29 Zeichen, in einer vom phönizischen Alphabet abweichenden Reihenfolge.
- [en] Ancient South Arabian script



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