Sabaic
Sabaic, sometimes referred to as Sabaean, was an Old South Arabian language that was spoken between c. 1000 BC and the 6th century AD by the Sabaeans. It was used as a written language by some other peoples of the ancient civilization of South Arabia, including the Ḥimyarites, Ḥashidites, Ṣirwāḥites, Humlanites, Ghaymānites, and Radmānites. Sabaic belongs to the South Arabian Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Sabaic is distinguished from the other members of the Old South Arabian group by its use of h to mark the third person and as a causative prefix; all of the other languages use s1 in those cases. Therefore, Sabaic is called an h-language and the others s-languages. Numerous other Sabaic inscriptions have also been found dating back to the Sabean colonization of Africa.
Sabaic | |
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Native to | Yemen |
Region | Arabian Peninsula |
Extinct | 6th century |
Ancient South Arabian | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | xsa |
xsa | |
Glottolog | saba1279 |