DOCSLIB.ORG

A Sketch of the Kuria Muria Language Variety and Other Aspects of Modern South Arabian

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Sketch of the Kuria Muria Language Variety and Other Aspects of Modern South Arabian A sketch of the Kuria Muria language variety and other aspects of Modern South Arabian Giuliano Castagna Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Languages Cultures & Societies October 2018 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Giuliano Castagna to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2018 The University of Leeds and Giuliano Castagna ii Acknowledgements A few people must be mentioned here: My mentors, Professor Claudia Angela Ciancaglini and Professor Olivier Durand, of Sapienza University of Rome: Thank you for inspiring me, for teaching me. Thank you sharing your world with me. Simona: friend, colleague, “nipota”, who knows a lot, and lets me know. The fiercest critic and greatest supporter of my work. In sum, the very pillar of my academic self. Svet, who was there all the way. Thanks for listening and for talking to me. Thanks for the afternoons in which we travelled this and other worlds together, while sitting on a modest park bench. Fabio, with whom I share the honour/burden of being “one of the few in the field”: the smiling face of Modern South Arabian studies, whose friendship, enthusiasm and scholarly soundness helped me to pull myself together and drive away the “PhD blues” more than once. Geraldina, Alice: if Dhofar could smile, you would tell me “look! It’s smiling!”. If Salalah could hug me, it would do it with your arms. If I could give a non-rectangular shape to this thesis, I would give it the shape of your hearts. I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Janet Watson for her sound advice, as well as Dr Miranda Morris, Karen Priestley, and Caryn Douglas. I would like to acknowledge the contribution of Mr Mubarak al-Shahri and Mr Fahd al-Shahri, whom I was able to meet thanks to the courtesy of Mr Khalifa al-Bathari. Last, but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH) for supporting the research at the basis of this thesis with a generous grant. iii Abstract This thesis discusses a number of open questions and explores various understudied and unstudied aspects of Modern South Arabian (MSA) linguistics and MSA studies at large. Namely, it contains an extensive literature review which offers a summary of the most significant works in the field, a discussion about the internal sub-grouping and the internal cohesion of Modern South Arabian within Semitic, a grammatical sketch of the Jibbali/Shehret variety spoken on al-Ḥall niyya island in the Kuria Muria Archipelago: this description focuses on the differences between this and the better-studied mainland varieties. The syntax section, however, takes into account not only the insular variety, but also central and eastern Jibbali/Shehret, in order to present a clearer picture of the syntactic features of this language. In the chapter that follows, a discussion about the lexical interferences of Arabic and Austronesian in Modern South Arabian is presented. Furthermore, the thesis contains three appendices: the first one is a description of the Dhofar inscriptions, re-labelled South-eastern Arabian inscriptions in view of new findings in the Yemeni governorate of Mahra and the examination of epigraphic evidence from Soqotra. The second appendix contains a number of texts in Kuria Muria Jibbali/Shehret, ranging from a selection of Miranda Morris’s recordings from the 1980s to recordings proceeding from personal fieldwork made in 2017, with interlinear morpheme glossing. Finally, the third appendix contains a glossary of the above-mentioned Jibbali/Shehret variety. It is argued that Modern South Arabian studies are overall still in an incipient phase, and a research agenda is set up and proposed. iv List of abbreviations Glosses 1 = First person 2 = Second person 3 = Third person ADV = Adverb CIRC = Circumstantial COLL = Collective COND = Conditional CONJ = Conjunction DEF = Definiteness marker DEM = Demonstrative DISJ = Disjunct DU = Dual ELAT = Elative EXIST = Existential F = Feminine FILL = Filler FUT = Future GEN = Genitive exponent HES = Hesitation IMP = Imperative IMPV = Imperfective IND = Indicative v INTJ = Interjection M = Masculine NEG = Negator OBJ = Direct object marker ONOM = Onomatopoeia PART = Participle PASS = Passive PL = Plural PRF = Perfective Q = Question REL = Relativiser SBJT = Subjunctive SG = Singular SGV = Singulative TAG = Tag question marker Literature CSAI = Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions. 2013. http://dasi.humnet.unipi.it/index.php?id=42&prjId=1&corId=0&colId=0&navId=0 HL = Johnstone, Thomas Muir. 1977. Ḥarsūsi Lexicon and English–Ḥarsūsi Word List. London: Oxford University Press. JL = Johnstone, Thomas Muir. 1981. Jibbali Lexicon. London: Oxford University Press. LS = Leslau, Wolf. 1938. Lexique Soqotri (Sudarabique Moderne). Paris: C. Klincksieck. vi ML = Johnstone, Thomas Muir. 1987. Mehri Lexicon and English-Mehri Word-List. London: School of Oriental and African Studies SED = Militarev, Alexander & Leonid Kogan 2000. Semitic Etymological Dictionary. Vol. 1. Anatomy of Man and Animals. Münster: Eisenbrauns. Other ASA = Ancient South Arabian KM = Kuria Muria Jibbali/Shehret MSA = Modern South Arabian PAN = Proto-Austronesian PMP = Proto-Malayo-Polynesian PS = Proto-Semitic PWMP = Proto-Western-Malayo-Polynesian C = any consonant V = any long vowel v = any short vowel [ ] = phonetic transcription / / = phonological transcription < > = graphemic transcription √ = Semitic root Key to transcription system Sounds found in Modern South Arabian languages b = [b] d = [d] vii g = [g] = dʒ ] ~ [ʒ] (voiced postalveolar affricate/fricative, only in Hobyōt) t = [t] k = [k] ʔ = [ʔ] (glottal stop) ṭ = tʼ] ~ tˤ] (ejective alveolar stop ~ pharyngealised voiceless alveolar stop) ḳ = k’] (ejective velar stop) ḏ = [ð] (voiced dental fricative) z = [z] (voiced alveolar fricative) = (voiced alveo-palatal labialised fricative) ġ = [ɣ] (voiced velar fricative) ʕ = [ʕ] (voiced pharyngeal fricative) f = [f] ṯ = θ] (voiceless dental fricative) s = [s] = ʃ] (voiceless non-labialised palato-alveolar fricative) s = (voiceless labialised alveo-palatal fricative) x = [x] (voiceless velar fricative) ḥ = ħ] (voiceless pharyngeal fricative) h = [h] (voiceless laryngeal fricative) ṯ = θ’] (ejective dental fricative) ṣ = s’] (ejective alveolar fricative) ṣ = [ʃ’] (ejective non-labialised palato-alveolar fricative) ṣ = (ejective labialised alveo-palatal fricative) l = [l] = ɬ] (voiceless alveolar lateral fricative) ṣ = [ɬ’] (ejective alveolar lateral affricate) m = [m] n = [n] r = [ɾ] ~ [r] (alveolar tap ~ alveolar trill) viii w = [w] y = [j] (palatal approximant) a ~ a = [a] (low central/front unrounded) e ~ e = [e] (mid-high front unrounded) ɛ ~ ɛ = [ɛ] (mid-low front unrounded) i ~ i = [i] (high front unrounded) ə = [ə] (mid-central unrounded, schwa) o ~ o = [o] (mid-high back rounded) ɔ ~ ɔ = [ɔ] (mid-low back rounded) u ~ u = [u] (high back rounded) = long vowel = long nasalised vowel ᵊ = intrusive (i.e. non-phonological) ultra-short vowel = stress accent = devoicing Sounds found in other languages = dʒ ] ~ [ʒ] (voiced postalveolar affricate/fricative in Arabic) q = [q] (voiceless uvular stop in Arabic, PAN, PMP and PWMP) *R = (alveolar or uvular trill in PAN, PMP and PWMP) (Blust 2013:554) ḍ = dˤ] (pharyngealised voiced alveolar stop in Arabic) ḏ = ðˤ] (pharyngealised voiced dental fricative in Arabic) Tables Table 0-1 The MSA languages (map retrieved from The Archaeology Fund Website)................... 1 Table 2-1 Mehri consonants adapted from Watson (2012:11) .................................................... 70 Table 2-2 Jibbali/Shehret consonants, adapted from Rubin (2014b:25) ...................................... 71 Table 2-3 Ḥarsusi consonants, adapted from Johnstone (HL:xii) .................................................. 72 Table 2-4 Baṭḥari consonants, adapted from Gasparini (2018:23) .............................................. 73 ix Table 2-5 Hobyōt consonants, adapted from Nakano (2013:v) .................................................... 74 Table 2-6 Soqoṭri consonants, adapted from Naumkin et al (2014:11-12) .................................. 75 Table 2-7 Mehri vowels, adapted from Watson (2012:22-28) ..................................................... 76 Table 2-8 Jibbali/Shehret vowels, adapted from Rubin (2014b:40) ............................................. 76 Table 2-9 Ḥarsusi vowels, adapted from Johnstone (HL:xiii) ........................................................ 77 Table 2-10 Baṭḥari vowels, adapted from Gasparini (2018:42) ................................................... 77 Table 2-11 Hobyōt vowels, adapted from Nakano (2013:viii) ...................................................... 78 Table 2-12 Soqoṭri vowels, adapted from Naumkin et al (2014:17-18) ....................................... 79 Table 2-13 The "future participle" in Mehri .................................................................................. 80 Table 2-14 MSA negation patterns ............................................................................................... 81 Table 2-15 MSA external
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Scienza E Cultura Universitalia
    SCIENZA E CULTURA UNIVERSITALIA Costantino Sigismondi (ed.) ORBE NOVUS Astronomia e Studi Gerbertiani 1 Universitalia SIGISMONDI, Costantino (a cura di) Orbe Novus / Costantino Sigismondi Roma : Universitalia, 2010 158 p. ; 24 cm. – ( Scienza e Cultura ) ISBN … 1. Storia della Scienza. Storia della Chiesa. I. Sigismondi, Costantino. 509 – SCIENZE PURE, TRATTAMENTO STORICO 270 – STORIA DELLA CHIESA In copertina: Imago Gerberti dal medagliere capitolino e scritta ORBE NOVVS nell'epitaffio tombale di Silvestro II a S. Giovanni in Laterano (entrambe le foto sono di Daniela Velestino). Collana diretta da Rosalma Salina Borello e Luca Nicotra Prima edizione: maggio 2010 Universitalia INTRODUZIONE Introduzione Costantino Sigismondi L’edizione del convegno gerbertiano del 2009, in pieno anno internazionale dell’astronomia, si è tenuta nella Basilica di S. Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri il 12 maggio, e a Seoul presso l’università Sejong l’11 giugno 2009. La scelta della Basilica è dovuta alla presenza della grande meridiana voluta dal papa Clemente XI Albani nel 1700, che ancora funziona e consente di fare misure di valore astrometrico. Il titolo di questi atti, ORBE NOVUS, è preso, come i precedenti, dall’epitaffio tombale di Silvestro II in Laterano, e vuole suggerire il legame con il “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” di Copernico, sebbene il contesto in cui queste parole sono tratte vuole inquadrare Gerberto nel suo ministero petrino come il nuovo pastore per tutto il mondo: UT FIERET PASTOR TOTO ORBE NOVVS. Elizabeth Cavicchi del Massachussets Institute of Technology, ha riflettuto sulle esperienze di ottica geometrica fatte da Gerberto con i tubi, nel contesto contemporaneo dello sviluppo dell’ottica nel mondo arabo con cui Gerberto era stato in contatto.
    [Show full text]
  • LCSH Section J
    J (Computer program language) J.G.L. Collection (Australia) New York, N.Y.) BT Object-oriented programming languages BT Painting—Private collections—Australia BT Apartment houses—New York (State) J (Locomotive) (Not Subd Geog) J.G. Strijdomdam (South Africa) Downtown by Philippe Starck (New York, N.Y.) BT Locomotives USE Pongolapoort Dam (South Africa) Office buildings—New York (State) J & R Landfill (Ill.) J. Hampton Robb Residence (New York, N.Y.) J.P. Morgan, Jr., House (New York, N.Y.) UF J and R Landfill (Ill.) USE James Hampden and Cornelia Van Rensselaer USE Phelps Stokes-J.P. Morgan House (New York, J&R Landfill (Ill.) Robb House (New York, N.Y.) N.Y.) BT Sanitary landfills—Illinois J. Herbert W. Small Federal Building and United States J. Paul Getty Center (Los Angeles, Calif.) J. & W. Seligman and Company Building (New York, Courthouse (Elizabeth City, N.C.) USE Getty Center (Los Angeles, Calif.) N.Y.) UF Small Federal Building and United States J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa (Malibu, Calif.) USE Banca Commerciale Italiana Building (New Courthouse (Elizabeth City, N.C.) USE Getty Villa (Malibu, Calif.) York, N.Y.) BT Courthouses—North Carolina J. Paul Getty Museum Herb Garden (Malibu, Calif.) J 29 (Jet fighter plane) Public buildings—North Carolina This heading is not valid for use as a geographic USE Saab 29 (Jet fighter plane) J-holomorphic curves subdivision. J.A. Ranch (Tex.) USE Pseudoholomorphic curves UF Getty Museum Herb Garden (Malibu, Calif.) BT Ranches—Texas J. I. Case tractors BT Herb gardens—California J. Alfred Prufrock (Fictitious character) USE Case tractors J.
    [Show full text]
  • Delateralisation in Arabic and Mehri
    Dialectologia 23 (2019), 1-23. ISSN: 2013-2247 Received 22 May 2017. Accepted 3 October 2017. DELATERALISATION IN ARABIC AND MEHRI Munira Al-AZRAQI Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia** [email protected] Abstract The Arabic lateral ḍ was considered extinct. However, it was found lately in use in some Arabic dialects such as RiJāl Almaʕ in southwest Saudi Arabia and in some varieties of the Mehri language. Nevertheless, delateralisation is apparent. To assess the extent of delateralisation, this study investigates the current usage of the lateral *ḍ among RiJāl Almaʕ speakers in Abha city, southwest Saudi Arabia and Mehri speakers in Dammam, east Saudi Arabia. 74 speakers, 38 speakers of RiJāl Almaʕ in Abha city and 36 Mehri speakers in Dammam city, participated in this study. Their age ranges from 15 to 75 years old. The data comprises almost 56 hours of audio recording captured during informal interviews. The findings show that there is a delateralisation occurring among some younger and educated speakers of Mehri and RiJāl Almaʕ. Keywords delateralisation, Arabic, Mehri, RiJāl Almaʕ DESLATERALIZACIÓN EN ÁRABE Y EN MEHRI Resumen La ḍ lateral árabe se consideraba extinguida. Sin embargo, últimamente se ha constatado su uso en algunos dialectos árabes como RiJāl Almaʕ en el suroeste de Arabia Saudita y en algunas variedades de la lengua Mehri. Con todo, la deslateralización es aparente. Para evaluar el alcance de la deslateralización, este estudio investiga el uso actual de la lateral *ḍ entre los hablantes de RiJāl Almaʕ en la ciudad de Abha, situada al suroeste de Arabia Saudita, y entre los hablantes de Mehri en Dammam, al este de Arabia Saudita.
    [Show full text]
  • Classical and Modern Standard Arabic Marijn Van Putten University of Leiden
    Chapter 3 Classical and Modern Standard Arabic Marijn van Putten University of Leiden The highly archaic Classical Arabic language and its modern iteration Modern Standard Arabic must to a large extent be seen as highly artificial archaizing reg- isters that are the High variety of a diglossic situation. The contact phenomena found in Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic are therefore often the re- sult of imposition. Cases of borrowing are significantly rarer, and mainly found in the lexical sphere of the language. 1 Current state and historical development Classical Arabic (CA) is the highly archaic variety of Arabic that, after its cod- ification by the Arab Grammarians around the beginning of the ninth century, becomes the most dominant written register of Arabic. While forms of Middle Arabic, a style somewhat intermediate between CA and spoken dialects, gain some traction in the Middle Ages, CA remains the most important written regis- ter for official, religious and scientific purposes. From the moment of CA’s rise to dominance as a written language, the whole of the Arabic-speaking world can be thought of as having transitioned into a state of diglossia (Ferguson 1959; 1996), where CA takes up the High register and the spoken dialects the Low register.1 Representation in writing of these spoken dia- lects is (almost) completely absent in the written record for much of the Middle Ages. Eventually, CA came to be largely replaced for administrative purposes by Ottoman Turkish, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was function- ally limited to religious domains (Glaß 2011: 836).
    [Show full text]
  • Arabic and Contact-Induced Change Christopher Lucas, Stefano Manfredi
    Arabic and Contact-Induced Change Christopher Lucas, Stefano Manfredi To cite this version: Christopher Lucas, Stefano Manfredi. Arabic and Contact-Induced Change. 2020. halshs-03094950 HAL Id: halshs-03094950 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-03094950 Submitted on 15 Jan 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Arabic and contact-induced change Edited by Christopher Lucas Stefano Manfredi language Contact and Multilingualism 1 science press Contact and Multilingualism Editors: Isabelle Léglise (CNRS SeDyL), Stefano Manfredi (CNRS SeDyL) In this series: 1. Lucas, Christopher & Stefano Manfredi (eds.). Arabic and contact-induced change. Arabic and contact-induced change Edited by Christopher Lucas Stefano Manfredi language science press Lucas, Christopher & Stefano Manfredi (eds.). 2020. Arabic and contact-induced change (Contact and Multilingualism 1). Berlin: Language Science Press. This title can be downloaded at: http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/235 © 2020, the authors Published under the Creative Commons Attribution
    [Show full text]
  • Sirius - Wikipedia Coordinates: 06 H 4 5 M 08.9 1 7 3 S, −1 6 ° 4 2 ′ 5 8.01 7 ″
    12/2/2018 Sirius - Wikipedia Coordinates: 06 h 4 5 m 08.9 1 7 3 s, −1 6 ° 4 2 ′ 5 8.01 7 ″ Sirius Sirius (/ˈsɪriəs/, a romanization of Greek Σείριος, Seirios, lit. "glowing" or "scorching") is a star system Sirius A and B and the brightest star in the Earth's night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The system has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris (α CMa). What the naked eye perceives as a single star is a binary star system, consisting of a white main-sequence star of spectral type A0 or A1, termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA2, called Sirius B. The distance separating Sirius A from its companion varies between 8.2 and 31.5 AU.[24] Sirius appears bright because of its intrinsic luminosity and its proximity to Earth. At a distance of 2.6 parsecs (8.6 ly), as determined by the Hipparcos astrometry satellite,[2][25][26] the Sirius system is one of Earth's near neighbours. Sirius is gradually moving closer to the Solar System, so it will slightly increase in brightness over the next 60,000 years. After that time its distance will begin to increase and it will become fainter, but it will continue to be the brightest star in the Earth's night sky for the next 210,000 years.[27] The position of Sirius (circled). Sirius A is about twice as massive as the Sun (M☉) and has an absolute visual magnitude of 1.42.
    [Show full text]
  • Cognate Words in Mehri and Hadhrami Arabic
    Cognate Words in Mehri and Hadhrami Arabic Hassan Obeid Alfadly* Khaled Awadh Bin Mukhashin** Received: 18/3/2019 Accepted: 2/5/2019 Abstract The lexicon is one important source of information to establish genealogical relations between languages. This paper is an attempt to describe the lexical similarities between Mehri and Hadhrami Arabic and to show the extent of relatedness between them, a very little explored and described topic. The researchers are native speakers of Hadhrami Arabic and they paid many field visits to the area where Mehri is spoken. They used the Swadesh list to elicit their data from more than 20 Mehri informants and from Johnston's (1987) dictionary "The Mehri Lexicon and English- Mehri Word-list". The researchers employed lexicostatistical techniques to analyse their data and they found out that Mehri and Hadhrmi Arabic have so many cognate words. This finding confirms Watson (2011) claims that Arabic may not have replaced all the ancient languages in the South-Western Arabian Peninsula and that dialects of Arabic in this area including Hadhrami Arabic are tinged, to a greater or lesser degree, with substrate features of the Pre- Islamic Ancient and Modern South Arabian languages. Introduction: three branches including Central Semitic, Historically speaking, the Semitic language Ethiopian and Modern south Arabian languages family from which both of Arabic and Mehri (henceforth MSAL). Though Arabic and Mehri descend belong to a larger family of languages belong to the West Semitic, Arabic descends called Afro-Asiatic or Hamito-Semitic that from the Central Semitic and Mehri from includes Semitic, Egyptian, Cushitic, Omotic, (MSAL) which consists of two branches; the Berber and Chadic (Rubin, 2010).
    [Show full text]
  • Durham Research Online
    Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 18 October 2017 Version of attached le: Accepted Version Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Bellem, Alex and Watson, Janet C. E. (2017) 'South Arabian sibilants and the Sert¡ s §scontrast.', in To the Madbar and back again : studies in the languages, archaeology, and cultures of Arabia dedicated to Michael C.A. Macdonald. Leiden ; Boston: Brill, pp. 622-644. Studies in Semitic languages and linguistics. (92). Further information on publisher's website: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004357617032 Publisher's copyright statement: Additional information: Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk PRE-PUBLICATION VERSION TO APPEAR IN L. Nehmé & A. Al-Jallad (eds) To the Madbar and Back Again: Studies in the languages, archaeology, and cultures of Arabia dedicated to Michael C.A. Macdonald, Brill (2018) South Arabian sibilants and the Śḥerɛ̄ t s̃ ~ š contrast1 Alex Bellem, Durham University & Janet C.E.
    [Show full text]
  • The Modern South Arabian Languages
    HETZRON, R. (ed.). 1997. The Semitic Languages. London : Routledge, p. 378-423. The Modern South Arabian Languages Marie-Claude SIMEONE-SENELLE CNRS - LLACAN. Meudon. France 0. INTRODUCTION 0.1. In the South of the Arabian Peninsula, in the Republic of the Yemen and in the Sultanate of Oman, live some 200,000 Arabs whose maternal language is not Arabic but one of the so- called Modern South Arabian Languagues (MSAL). This designation is very inconvenient because of the consequent ambiguity, but a more appropriate solution has not been found so far. Although there exists a very close relationship with other languages of the same Western South Semitic group, the MSAL are different enough from Arabic to make intercomprehension impossible between speakers of any of the MSAL and Arabic speakers. The MSAL exhibit many common features also with the Semitic languages of Ethiopia; their relationships with Epigraphic South Arabian (SahaydicLanguages, according to Beeston) remain a point of discussion. There are six MSAL: Mehri (=M), HarsVsi (=H), BaT©ari (=B), HobyOt (=Hb), Jibbßli (=J), SoqoTri (=S. As regards the number of speakers and the geographical extension, Mehri is the main language. It is spoken by the Mahra tribes (about 100,000 speakers) and some Beyt Kathir, in the mountains of Dhofar in Oman, and in the Yemen, in the far eastern Governorate, on the coast, between the border of Oman and the eastern bank of Wadi Masilah, and not in the Mukalla area, contrary to Johnstone's statement (1975:2); in the North-West of the Yemen, Mehri is spoken as far as Thamud, on the border of the Rubº al-Khali.
    [Show full text]
  • Old South Arabian
    Old South Arabian Rebecca Hasselbach 1. Introduction The term “Old South Arabian” (OSA) designates the languages attested in inscriptions from pre-Islamic southwest Arabia. Most of the inscrip- tions were discovered in the area of today’s Yemen, specifically the east- ern central Yemeni highlands and the wadi deltas leading to Ramlat as-Sabʿatayn. A smaller number of inscriptions has been found in today’s Oman and northern Arabia. Since medieval Arab grammarians referred to this area as “Ṣayhad,” the language of the inscriptions is also called “Ṣayhadic” ( Beeston 1984: 1). This designation, however, is not gener- ally used today. The terms “Old South Arabian” and “Epigraphic South Arabian” are more commonly encountered in the scholarly literature. 1.1. Origin and history The historical period of southwest Arabia begins in the early first millen- nium bce, although material records, which include rock paintings that originate between the fifth and second millennia bce, have shown that the area was settled long before this time (Müller 1987: 50). It is a matter of dispute when the tribes that produced the inscriptional material mi- grated into southwest Arabia and where they came from (Schippmann 2001: 17). The most widely accepted theory today is that an unknown group migrated into the area in the late third millennium bce, since we do not find evidence for significant changes in the material culture after that time. Furthermore, there is evidence that the population of south- west Arabia was of a mixed nature at the beginning of the first millen- nium ce, so that we can say with relative certainty that there must have occurred several waves of migration (Schippmann 2001: 17).
    [Show full text]
  • Language, Script and Society in the Axumite Kingdom1
    Language, Script And Society In The Axumite Kingdom1 Rainer Voigt 1. Classical Ethiopic as a Christian Language One of the decisive turning points in Ethiopian history occurred in the first half of the 4th century A.D. when Ethiopia further opened herself up to the Hellenistic culture and by now also to the Near-Eastern Christian culture. This is witnessed by the Axumite royal inscriptions, which – though not anchored in the cultural awareness of the Ethiopians – “had caught the attention of several travellers early on” („schon in früherer Zeit von verschiedenen Reisenden bemerkt“). We owe our first summary to David Heinrich Müller (Epigraphische 1894), who edited the Axumite inscriptions with a commentary based on “impressions taken by Theodore Bent”. Further royal inscriptions by King ‘Ezana were collected during the Deutsche Aksum-Expedition (DAE) under the leadership of Enno Littmann, who published his findings in the monumental work entitled: Sabaische, griechische und altabessinische Inschriften (1913).2 He took up this topic again in his article „Äthiopische Inschriften“ (1950). These inscriptions, already fully but by no means exhaustively explained and commented upon, have been supplemented by only one additional inscription, found in Axum in 1981 and published in 1991 (v. S. Uhlig: Trilinguale 2001) by E. Bernand / A. J. Drewes / R. Schneider (Recueil des inscriptions de l’Éthiopie 1 A previous version of this paper was given at the Second International Enno Littmann Conference, that took place in Aksum / Tigrai (Ethiopia) in January 2006, and at the 19th Annual Conference of the Institute of Language Studies, that was organized in June 2007 in Addis Ababa.
    [Show full text]
  • Studia Alphabetica: on the Origin and Early History of the Northwest Semitic, South Semitic and Greek Alphabets
    Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 1991 Studia Alphabetica: On the Origin and Early History of the Northwest Semitic, South Semitic and Greek Alphabets Sass, Benjamin Abstract: This book touches on aspects, chiefly chronological ones, that are relevant to the emergence of the Northwest Semitic, South Semitic and Greek alphabets. In chapter two a conceptual and chronological link is suggested between the Middle Kingdom system of transliterating Semitic names and the birth of the Northwest Semitic alphabet. Chapter three traces the early development of the South Semitic scripts in finds from Arabia, Mesopotamia and the Levant, in search of the period most suitable for the emergenceof the alphabet in the kingdom of Sheba. The birth-date of the Greek alphabet, a subject on which scholarly agreement is still lacking, is discussed in chapter four. The author combines the relevant Semitic and Greek epigraphical evidence in order to elicit the time of the adoption of the Greek alphabet from the Phoenician one. Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-152367 Monograph Published Version Originally published at: Sass, Benjamin (1991). Studia Alphabetica: On the Origin and Early History of the Northwest Semitic, South Semitic and Greek Alphabets. Freiburg, Switzerland / Göttingen, Germany: Universitätsverlag / Vandenhoeck Ruprecht. Sass Stud ia Al phabetica ORBIS BIBLICUS ET ORIENTALIS Im Auftrag des Biblischen Instituts der Universität Freiburg Schweiz, des Seminars für Biblische Zeitgeschichte der Universität Münster i. W. und der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für orientalische Altertumswissenschaft herausgegeben von Othmar Keel unter Mitarbeit von Erich Zenger und Albert de Pury About the Author Born in 1948 in Jerusalem, Benjamin Sass graduated from the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    [Show full text]