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.

This article's lead section contains information that is not included elsewhere in the article. (March 2019)

Ancient South Arabian script
Script type	Abjad
Time period	Late 2nd millennium BCE to 6th century CE
Direction	right-to-left script
Languages	Old South Arabian, Ge'ez
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Ancient South Arabian script
Child systems	Ge'ez[1][2]
Sister systems	Phoenician alphabet
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Sarb (105), ​Old South Arabian
Unicode
Unicode alias	Old South Arabian
Unicode range	U+10A60–U+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.

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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

• It is usually written from right to left but can also be written from left to right. When written from left to right the characters are flipped horizontally (see the photo).
• The spacing or separation between words is done with a vertical bar mark (|).
• Letters in words are not connected together.
• It does not implement any diacritical marks (dots, etc.), differing in this respect from the modern Arabic alphabet.

Letters

Letter		Unicode name[5]	Transcription[6]	IPA	Corresponding letter in
Image	Text				Phoenician	Ge'ez	Hebrew	Arabic	Syriac
	𐩠	he	h	/h/	𐤄‎	ሀ	ה	ه	ܗ
	𐩡	lamedh	l	/l/	𐤋‎	ለ	ל	ﻝ	ܠ
	𐩢	heth	ḥ	/ħ/	𐤇‎	ሐ	ח	ﺡ	ܚ
	𐩣	mem	m	/m/	𐤌‎	መ	מ	ﻡ	ܡ
	𐩤	qoph	q	/q/	𐤒‎	ቀ	ק	ﻕ	ܩ
	𐩥	waw	w	/w/	𐤅‎	ወ	ו	ﻭ	ܘ
	𐩦	shin	s² (š)	/ɬ/	𐤔‎	ሠ	ש	ﺵ	ܫ
	𐩧	resh	r	/r/	𐤓‎	ረ	ר	ﺭ	ܪ
	𐩨	beth	b	/b/	𐤁‎	በ	ב	ﺏ	ܒ
	𐩩	taw	t	/t/	𐤕‎	ተ	ת	ﺕ	ܬ
	𐩪	sat	s¹ (s)	/s/		ሰ		ﺱ
	𐩫	kaph	k	/k/	𐤊‎	ከ	כ	ﻙ	ܟ
	𐩬	nun	n	/n/	𐤍‎	ነ	נ	ﻥ	ܢ
	𐩭	kheth	ḫ	/x/		ኀ		ﺥ
	𐩮	sadhe	ṣ	/sˤ/	𐤑‎	ጸ	צ	ص	ܨ
	𐩯	samekh	s³ (ś)	/s̪/	𐤎‎		ס	س	ܤ
	𐩰	fe	f	/f/	𐤐‎	ፈ	פ	ف	ܦ
	𐩱	alef	ʾ	/ʔ/	𐤀‎	አ	א	ﺍ	ܐ
	𐩲	ayn	ʿ	/ʕ/	𐤏‎	ዐ	ע	ﻉ	ܥ
	𐩳	dhadhe	ḍ	/ɬˤ/		ፀ		ض
	𐩴	gimel	g	/ɡ/	𐤂‎	ገ	ג	ﺝ	ܓ
	𐩵	daleth	d	/d/	𐤃‎	ደ	ד	ﺩ	ܕ
	𐩶	ghayn	ġ	/ɣ/				غ
	𐩷	teth	ṭ	/tˤ/	𐤈‎	ጠ	ט	ﻁ	ܛ
	𐩸	zayn	z	/z/	𐤆‎	ዘ	ז	ﺯ	ܙ
	𐩹	dhaleth	ḏ	/ð/				ذ
	𐩺	yodh	y	/j/	𐤉‎	የ	י	ﻱ	ܝ
	𐩻	thaw	ṯ	/θ/				ﺙ
	𐩼	theth	ẓ	/θˤ/				ظ

Numbers

Six signs are used for numbers:

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:

• 17 is written as 1 + 1 + 5 + 10: ‏𐩲𐩭𐩽𐩽‎
• 99 is written as 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 5 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 50: 𐩾𐩲𐩲𐩲𐩲𐩭𐩽𐩽𐩽𐩽

Thousands are written two different ways:

• Smaller values are written using just the 1000 sign. For example, 8,000 is written as 1000 × 8: ‏𐩱𐩱𐩱𐩱𐩱𐩱𐩱𐩱‎
• Larger values are written by promoting the signs for 10, 50, and 100 to 10,000, 50,000, and 100,000 respectively:
  • 31,000 is written as 1000 + 10,000 × 3: ‏𐩲𐩲𐩲𐩱‎ (easily confused with 1,030)
  • 40,000 is written as 10,000 × 4: ‏𐩲𐩲𐩲𐩲‎ (easily confused with 40)
  • 253,000 is written as 2 × 100.000 + 50.000 + 3 × 1000: ‏𐩣𐩣𐩾𐩱𐩱𐩱‎ (easily confused with 3,250)

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

Zabūr

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+10A60–U+10A7F.

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

Gallery

• Photos from National Museum of Yemen:

• Photos from Yemen Military Museum:

• Photo from the British Museum

• 
  Incense burner, from Yemen, 5th-4th century BCE. An ancient South Arabian inscription about the names of incense

See also

• Ancient North Arabian script
• Arabist and archeologist Eduard Glaser
• Geographer Carl Rathjens

References

Citations

References

External links

• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
• Omniglot's entry on South Arabian
• Carved, Signed, Crossed Out – Documents on Wooden Sticks from Ancient South Arabia - Peter Stein - ANE Today - Oct 2022

На других языках

[de] Altsüdarabische Schrift