This article's lead section contains information that is not included elsewhere in the article. If the information is appropriate for the lead of the article, this information should also be included in the body of the article.(March 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
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
South Semitic
Ancient South Arabian script
Child systems
Geʽez[1][2]
Sister systems
Ancient North Arabian
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.
The Ancient South Arabian script (Old South Arabian: 𐩣𐩯𐩬𐩵ms3nd; modern Arabic: الْمُسْنَدmusnad) 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 ancient language of Eritrea, Geʽez 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.
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 Eritrea and Ethiopia, it evolved later into the Geʽez 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).
History of the alphabet
Graphical descent from Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs 32nd c. BCE
Hieratic 32nd c. BCE
Demotic 7th c. BCE
Meroitic 3rd c. BCE
Proto-Sinaitic 19th c. BCE
Ugaritic 15th c. BCE
Epigraphic South Arabian 9th c. BCE
Geʽez 5–6th c. BCE
Phoenician 12th c. BCE
Paleo-Hebrew 10th c. BCE
Samaritan 6th c. BCE
Aramaic 8th c. BCE
Kharosthi 3rd c. BCE
Brahmi 3rd c. BCE
Brahmic family (see)
Pallava 4th c. CE
Cham 4th c. CE
Dhives Akuru 6th c. CE
Khmer 611 CE
Tibetan 7th c. CE
Phagspa 1269 CE
Devanagari 10th c. CE
Canadian Aboriginal 1840
Hebrew 3rd c. BCE
Square Aramaic Alphabet 2007
Pahlavi 3rd c. BCE
Avestan 4th c. CE
Palmyrene 2nd c. BCE
Nabataean 2nd c. BCE
Arabic 4th c. CE
N'Ko 1949 CE
Syriac 2nd c. BCE
Sogdian 2nd c. BCE
Orkhon (old Turkic) 6th c. CE
Old Hungarian c. 650 CE
Old Uyghur
Mongolian 1204 CE
Mandaic 2nd c. CE
Greek 8th c. BCE
Etruscan 8th c. BCE
Latin 7th c. BCE
Cherokee (syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE
Vai (syllabary) c. 1832 CE
Deseret 1854 CE
Great Lakes Algonquian 19th c. CE
Blackfoot (influence from Canadian) 1888 CE
Fraser (Old Lisu) 1915 CE
Saanich 1978 CE
Osage 2006 CE
Runic 2nd c. CE
Ogham (origin uncertain) 4th c. CE
Lycian 5th c. BCE
Coptic (influence from Demotic) 3rd c. CE
Gothic 3rd c. CE
Armenian 405 CE
Caucasian Albanian (origin uncertain) c. 420 CE
Georgian (origin uncertain) c. 430 CE
Glagolitic 862 CE
Cyrillic c. 940 CE
Old Permic 1372 CE
Libyco-Berber 10th c. BCE
Tifinagh 4th c. CE
Neo-Tifinagh 1970 CE
Paleohispanic (semi-syllabic) 7th c. BCE
Graphically independent
Hangul 1443 CE (proposed connection to Phagspa)
Thaana c. 1601 CE
Adlam 1989 CE
v
t
e
You may need rendering support to display the uncommon Unicode characters in this article correctly.
^ abDaniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. pp. 89, 98, 569–570. ISBN 978-0195079937.
^ abGragg, 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.
^Stein, Peter (2013). "Palaeography of the Ancient South Arabian script. New evidence for an absolute chronology". Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy. 24 (2): 186–195. doi:10.1111/aae.12024. ISSN 0905-7196.
^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."
and 22 Related for: Ancient South Arabian script information
Ancient North Arabian (ANA) is a collection of scripts and a language or family of languages under the North Arabian languages branch along with Old Arabic...
Old SouthArabian (also known as AncientSouthArabian (ASA), Epigraphic SouthArabian, Ṣayhadic, or Yemenite) is a group of four closely related extinct...
family has two main branches: Ancient North Arabian (ANA) and AncientSouthArabian (ASA). The scripts were exclusive to Arabia and the Horn of Africa. All...
Yemen and Oman Old SouthArabian languages, a mostly extinct group of languages spoken in what is now Yemen AncientSouthArabianscript, the writing system...
the earliest scripts, along with Mashq and Kufic. Earlier scripts included Ancient North Arabian and the SouthArabianscript. The script is notably angular...
Arabic and Ancient North Arabian. The Safaitic script is a member of the Ancient North Arabian (ANA) sub-grouping of the South Semitic script family, the...
which was one of the ancient Arab kingdoms in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula. This city was known as Dhāt Kahl in the SouthArabian text, although in...
SouthArabia (Arabic: جنوب الجزيرة العربية) is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia, mainly...
letters Semitic values. The Geʽez script of Ethiopia and Eritrea is an evolution of the AncientSouthArabianscript, in which early Geʽez texts were originally...
influenced by the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system, and adapted for Amharic. The Arabic and AncientSouthArabianscripts are the only other...
understood languages labeled Thamudic, and the ancient languages of Yemen written in the AncientSouthArabianscript. Old Arabic, is however, distinguished from...
The Sabaeans or Sabeans were an ancient group of SouthArabians. They spoke Sabaic, one of the Old SouthArabian languages. They founded the kingdom of...
present-day calligraphers. Languages portal Ancient North ArabianscriptAncientSouthArabianscript Hijazi script Kufic Muhaqqaq Naskh Persian calligraphy...
Freedom of religion in Yemen Missionaries of Charity attack in Aden Najran "Arabian Christians Massacred". Christianity.com. Retrieved 2018-09-06. "Himyar"...
Michael C. A. (1986). "ABCs and letter order in Ancient North Arabian". Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies (16): 101–168. Overview of the abjad...
based on the ancient civilization of the Sabaeans (Old SouthArabian: 𐩪𐩨𐩱 S-b-ʾ) in SouthArabia. This view is echoed by Israeli archaeologist Israel...
Biadsy. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Arabic alphabet. AncientSouthArabianscript Algerian braille Arabic braille Arabic calligraphy Arabic chat...