Talk:Ancient South Arabian script

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some of the images on commons now are misnamed, and the symbol for ṯ seems to be missing altogether (per ). dab (ᛏ) 13:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Correct. Moreover, the name for this script is "Epigraphic South Arabian" or "Monumental South Arabian," not "South Arabian alphabet. A couple of the letters right now have later South Arabian variants for their forms (e.g. "r" and "b") instead of their original forms extant in Ethiopia and Yemen. — ዮም (Yom) | contribs • Talk • E 22:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking at your comment at Ẓāʼ, I think you might be a bit confused. The image for d is not incorrectly named. It represents d, but should have one bar, as in the original (the two bars are a later Sabaean development). It merged with "z" in Ge'ez and is now "z," ዘ.

Correction, the double bar may be older than the single. Either way the naming is correct. — ዮም (Yom) | contribs • Talk • E 22:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I am currently converting the signs to SVG and I will add the missing character.--84.160.251.91 15:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC) (commons:User:Schreiber)

squares rather than transliteration on the right of some of the letters

On the right of some of the letters (e.g. , ) i see squares (ḥ) instead of the corresponding trasliterations. But the transliterations on the right of other letters (e.g. , ) seem fine. What's the solution? Itayb 11:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Arabic Alphabet

There is a difference between language and script/alphabet. For example, when I write the Arabic word "salam", I am using English script to write Arabic language. What we currently call "Arabic alphabet" was actually the Nabataean alphabet in the 7th century CE.

So the following statement should be changed from: Its mature form was reached around 500 BC, and its use continued until the 7th century AD, including Old North Arabian inscriptions in variants of the alphabet, when it was displaced by the Arabic alphabet.

to: Its mature form was reached around 500 BC, and its use continued until the 7th century AD, including Old North Arabian inscriptions in variants of the alphabet, when it was displaced by the Nabataean alphabet.

For more information, please see:

MCA Macdonald, "Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia." Arabian arch. epig. 2000: 11: 28–79. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.67.148.180 (talk) 21:16, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

but that is extremely inaccurate. Although the Arabic alphabet originated from Nabataean alphabet, it is nonetheless extremely different. The one that spread during the 7th Century AD is the Arabic alphabet; during this time writing in Arabia became very widespread so there is a lot of evidence available. During that time Islam spread over the entire area and so did the Arabic language and its alphabet. This claim is bizarre. --Maha Odeh (talk) 12:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Query for Abecedaria

In "Safaitic" language article this quote is given:

"the The Safaitic alphabet comprises 28 letters. Three abecedaries (lists of the alphabet) are known, but all are written in different orders, giving strength to the suggestion that the script was casually learned rather than taught systematically."

Which must refer to this, the South Arabian Script.

Could anyone please supply Wikipedia with these alternate abecedaria if they are easily at-hand? It'll take me some time to find them myself.

Wikipedia User Epigraphist 35.8.141.108 (talk) 19:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

No vowels

I'm no linguist, but this alphabet has no vowels, so I'm adding that. I assume they're Mater lectionis ? --AW (talk) 20:45, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

"Shape" column

What purpose does the "shape" column in the table serve? Doesn't seem scientific or useful, just like someone said "oh, these are what latin letters the arabian letters KINDA look like". but that's not even remotely necessary because we have both unicode and image representations of the letters 128.237.133.65 (talk) 03:47, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

2000 BC ?

Hi, I find it hard to believe that the earliest South Arabian script is from 2000 BC, I know this information is with sources but I tried to find the book mentioned in the pdf "Die archäologischen Denkmäler von Raybūn im unteren Wādī Dauʿan (Ḥaḍramaut). Mare Erythraeum" but I couldn't find it in google, most websites says that the South Arabian script was used from the 8th century BCE until 6th century CE, someone needs to find the reference mentioned in the pdf --Eddiitt0 (talk) 10:28, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Exactly the exact same time it was found in Ethiopia 2A02:C7C:3617:3200:E415:2430:A4A2:FE57 (talk) 22:58, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

This information needs to be updated. Even the cited reference acknowledges that the evidence for a second millennium BCE date has been revised: the ceramics from Yalʿa, near the Sabaean capital Maʾrib, were redated by Garbini (1992) based on radiocarbon data to between 850 and 580 BC. The script incised on these sherds is not among the earliest examples of South Arabian writing, but rather represents a more advanced stage (minuscule script, phase II). For details, see Sedov 1997: 43–47, 94–95. So, the commonly cited 2000 BC date for the earliest South Arabian script is not supported by current evidence.

You can also verify this in the article “Palaeography of the Ancient South Arabian script: New evidence for an absolute chronology” (Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 24, 2013, pp. 186–195), which is the citation given. In this article, the author discusses how recent archaeological and radiocarbon data have led to a reassessment of the chronology for the Ancient South Arabian script. Specifically, the article explains that the securely datable inscriptions and associated finds—such as the Yalʿa ceramics—are now dated to between 850 and 580 BC, not the second millennium BCE. The discussion of radiocarbon dating and script phases can be found in the sections addressing the chronological framework and the typology of scripts, where the author references Garbini’s work and the updated dating of these materials. This supports the conclusion that the earliest South Arabian script in use is now placed in the first millennium BCE, not as early as 2000 BC. 4.53.133.131 (talk) 19:10, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Diacritics /matres lectonis

Hello. I corrected a typo in a sentence that needs citation. Firstly, I don’t think there are diacritics in stone or wood inscriptions. I don’t see any text even late ones that do that in personal research.

Peter Stein, Ancient South Arabian:

“long vowels are regularly expressed by matres lectionis only at the end of a word unit”

“As matres lectionis, only w and y are used in Sabaic”

Those two lines give you the clean scholarly basis for saying Ancient South Arabian, at least in Sabaic, used w and y to mark certain long vowels.

For the negative point on diacritics / full vowel notation:

Unicode proposal on Old South Arabian:

“vowels are not indicated in any way in the script.”

That means you should not say Ancient South Arabian had a developed system of vowel diacritics unless you have some very specific sub-corpus in view. The safer formulation is that it had limited vowel marking through matres lectionis, not vocalic diacritics.

Raw URLs:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333034218_Ancient_South_Arabian

https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2007/07287-n3296-south-arabian.pdf

https://e-learning.tsu.ge/pluginfile.php/5868/mod_resource/content/0/dzveli_armosavluri_enebi_-ugarituli_punikuri_arameuli_ebrauli_arabuli.pdf AurielNetzakh (talk) 17:36, 28 March 2026 (UTC)