Talk:Sabaic

Untitled
can somebody please add some info on the people who spoke the language? Gringo300 17:35, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Need more information
I would be nice to show examples of how to speak it. And how it changed over the years. Plus also how we learned the Sabaean language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.211.144 (talk) 20:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Additonally, there names of earliest inscriptions and their dates. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.57.59.196 (talk) 01:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Nobody actually knows how it was spoken. Due to the fact that most vowels aren't written and even the many of the written consonants are we don't really know how they spoke it. The language didn't survive, only similar related (and almost extinct) dialects are spoken this day. There are however probably indeed many similarities with other Semitic languages such as Hebrew. Though when it comes to pronunciation there are many problems, especially the three different types of s in Sabaic, which probably are similar to the Saw, Sheen and Sin, but not exactly. And also which sabaic s corresponds to which is also questioned. A.F.L. Beeston has made a decent case and proposal on this matter but this is more like a probable theory and strong case than an established or generally accepted fact.

There is no such thing as truly famous named inscriptions, which mostly get referred to with their scientific archeologic code. Most famous inscriptions are those of Karib il watar at the temple of 'Almuqah in Sirwah, he is the most famous and successful mkrb (federator, early kingship title) who recorded his many military campaigns. It has been dated between the 8th to the 6th century BC. (Dating is a very hard and very often discussed aspect of the Sabaic and Sabaean studies. Titirius (talk) 10:27, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Clarifying South Semitic 2000 BC
Modern Ethiopic Semitic languages are influenced by the native Afro-Asiatic languages, which is similar to the South Semitic Afro-Asiatic varieties spoken in Ethiopia-Eritrea today. Cadenas2008 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:36, 1 April 2012 (UTC).

Sabaic vs. Sabaean
The general scholarly (linguistic) consensus is to use the -ic endings for the languages and the other endings to refer to the state and people, hence: Sabaic, Minaic, etc. Should we move this page to Sabaic language? &mdash; ዮም  |  (Yom)  |  Talk  • contribs • Ethiopia 17:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think "Sabaean" is the more common name. Jidan 22:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

No Yom is right. Check the work of for example Korotayev and A.F.L. Beeston both academic experts who both agree that there's a very large difference between Saba' (SB'), Sabaic and Sabaean. The first referencing to the region of the state or even better the commonwealth of Saba' (Sb' w-gwm or Sb'w-sh'bn (spelling might be off here, writing from memory here)). The second referring to the language and the latter referring to the cultural group,... Very informative is the first chapter from 'Ancient Yemen: some general trends of evolution of the Sabaic language and Sabaean culture,A., Korotayev, 1995.' and the first page of the article 'Apologia for 'the Sabaean cultural-political area' by the same author which is partly about this distinction. So indeed the language should be referred to as Sabaic and not Sabaean. The same is true for Minaic and Qatabanic. Titirius (talk) 16:03, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Can we not change the title of the article to Sabaic. It is written as Sabaic in the table at the bottom. Also 'Sabaic' is the term used by Beeston in his grammar, and by Nebes and Stein in their section on Ancient South Arabian in The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. The German Wkipedia also has Sabäisch. If I am not mistaken (I don't have the book to hand) it appears as Sabaic in the Semitic Languages by Robert Hetzron. Where can we get the authority to change it to Sabaic? Ducky69 (talk) 19:55, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

On the speakers of Sabaic
The current sentence: "...by the Sabaeans; it was used as a written language by some other peoples (sha`bs) of Ancient Yemen, including the Hashidites, Sirwahites, Humlanites, Ghaymanites, Himyarites, Radmanites etc. [1]. It was written in the South Arabian alphabet."

This seems unnecessary long and being on the edge of making mistakes on the meaning of these 'scientific words'. The author seems to try and make sure not to make a mistake, but because of that he made it unnecessary complex without adding any decent amount of new and valuable information. Also all these ethnicities, tribes, (or whatever word you want to use) only add confusion to people who didn't have already read a lot on Sabaic language and Sabaean culture and history. Let's be frank, this article is a very simple and short explanation on the Sabaic language, anyone with some reading done on the subject has no use for it. So let's make it clear for people with almost no knowledge or understanding of the subject. This doesn't mean we have to make it less informative or correct.

Hence I suggest rewriting it to something along the line of this.

...by the Sabaeans, an ancient south Arabian people living in and around the city of current day Marib or ancient Maryab. As the Sabaean commonwealth expanded, the language got spread and adopted in their long time possessions which encompass most of Northwest Yemen."

While not only more clear for people it also makes a more correct use of words. Though perhaps less concrete it's not less accurate, as the tribes named in the original are not all of the about 12 tribes who spoke Sabaic. Also the word sha'b is confusing as it can refer to three distinct levels of social-political organisation. Also the mention of Sirwahites is practically redundant as they were not a distinct people but just plain Sabaeans, Sirwah even was the capital of the Sabaeans before Maryab. Also I'm not too sure if the Himyarites, who were long time part of the Qatabanic federation, actually spoke or wrote Sabaic. They lived the furthest away from Maryab of all Yemenites living west of the Sayhad and weere under Qatabanic rule for multiple centuries, hence they'd probably spoke Qatabanic. I can't say I'm 100% sure, but I think even when they later become independent they still used Qatabanic (late Qatabanic at this time though). The only Sabaic they spoke was probably the title of their king (mlk) who took the Sabaic title for reasons of justification and personal grandeur. Titirius (talk) 10:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Obviously this also means that the table needs to be readdressed. First of all people in Ethiopia didn't speak Sabaic unless they were Sabaean immigrants or the likes. In Oman nobody spoke Sabiac. In Western Oman people spoke Hadramawtic and more to the east well we only have so few text and remains. (Shisur is one of the few places a few short inscriptions were found). Saudi Arabia wasn't barely if at all part of the Sabaean language group. The South west, where the Ma'in and others lived, the language spoken was Minaic, in the North West Aramaic dialects together with the nomadic languages of Thumadic and Safaitic. In the East you'd have Greek, Persian and mainly Hasaitic. So I'd set it at 'North of Yemen' or 'Yemen'. With Region set as Arabia. Titirius (talk) 11:08, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I am tempted to remove the reference to Sirwahites, since Sirwah appears to have been a centre of Sabaeans. In the German Wikipedia under Sirwah for instance we read 'Dennoch blieb die Stadt ein wichtiges Zentrum der Sabäer'(however the city (Sirwah)remained an important centre for the Sabaeans', and some important Sabaean inscriptions seem to hail from there. I also need to check, but is Radman not just another major Sabaean city which served as the capital for a time? If so Radmanites seems superfluous. I also feel uncomfortable about the use of the word sha'b; true it is the Classical North Arabic word for 'a people' but is it relevant in the Old South Arabian arena? Ducky69 (talk) 17:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Ejectives?
Why aren't ejectives used here or presented as a possible realization of of the Empathic consonants? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SonOfAxum (talk • contribs) 18:25, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Planning to Move to Sabaic
Hope you're all well. Between 2006 & 2012 there was some discussion of moving this page to Sabaic (discussion above). One person objected. Three others were in favour of a move, but appear not to have known how to move the page. The reasons given there are essentially those I have for making the move: Contemporary work on the language in English typically uses Sabaic for the language & Sabaeans for the people. There are exceptions, but I think they're fairly clearly exceptions. (Most notable: Joan Copeland Biella's Dictionary of Old South Arabic: Sabaean Dialect, but people are more likely to use Beeston, Ghul, Müller, & Ryckmans' Sabaic Dictionary, or Universität Jena's Sabäisches Wörterbuch, the authors of which describe it as The Sabaic Online Dictionary in English.) In Google Scholar, "sabaic language" turns up about twice as many hits as "sabaean language" (both very small numbers, but it's a difficult comparison—the much larger number of hits for "sabaic" are overwhelmingly for the language; those for "sabaean" are for the people; some of the hits for "sabaean language" are actually not referring to Sabaic as such, but to a language pertaining to the Sabaean people, eg, "Qatabanic was not a Sabaean language"). If there are no objections, I'll make the move in a week. If there are objections, let's talk about them. Pathawi (talk) 11:27, 26 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I think that the core resources for the language that a student or researcher in 2023 is likely to use employ Sabaic. A couple of these are listed above, but to put them in one place:
 * AFL Beeston's Sabaic Grammar
 * Norbert Nebes' & Peter Stein's chapter "Ancient South Arabian" in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages
 * Beeston, Ghul, Müller, & Ryckmans' Sabaic Dictionary
 * Sabäisches Wörterbuch
 * Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions (Corpus of Sabaic Inscriptions)
 * Pathawi (talk) 11:38, 26 March 2023 (UTC)