Qatabānian (or Qatabānic), one of the four better-documented languages of the
Old South Arabian
Old South Arabian (or Ṣayhadic or Yemenite) is a group of four closely related extinct languages spoken in the far southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. They were written in the Ancient South Arabian script.
There were a number of othe ...
(or "Ṣayhadic") sub-group of South
Semitic, was spoken mainly but not exclusively in the kingdom of
Qatabān, located in central Yemen. The language is attested between 500 BC and 200 AD. Some two thousand inscriptions are known written in the
Ancient South Arabian Monumental Script, known as ''Musnad''. These inscriptions are mainly found in Wādī Bayhān and Wādī Ḥārib to the south-east of Ma'rib, and from the plateau to the south of that area. Qatabanian inscriptions increase after the beginning of the 4th century BC when the
Sabaeans
The Sabaeans or Sabeans (Sabaean language, Sabaean:, ; ar, ٱلسَّبَئِيُّوْن, ''as-Sabaʾiyyūn''; he, סְבָאִים, Səḇāʾīm) were an ancient group of South Arabians. They spoke the Sabaean language, one of the Old Sout ...
ceased to dominate the area, and Qatabān became an independent kingdom.
Qatabanian was spoken in an area across the kingdom of Qatabān as far as
Jabal al-'Awd (near
Zafar) in the southwest, and if we are to believe the Greek and Latin writers, it went as far as
Bāb al-Mandab on the Red Sea. At the end of the 2nd century AD,
Saba'
The Sabaeans or Sabeans (Sabaean:, ; ar, ٱلسَّبَئِيُّوْن, ''as-Sabaʾiyyūn''; he, סְבָאִים, Səḇāʾīm) were an ancient group of South Arabians. They spoke the Sabaean language, one of the Old South Arabian languag ...
and
Ḥaḑramawt finally defeated Qatabān, and the inscriptions ended.
The language used to write inscriptions in the kingdom of
Awsān, known as Awsānian (or Awsānite) is virtually identical to Qatabānic, but it is so badly attested (25 inscriptions), that it remains uncertain whether it is a Qatabānic dialect or a distinct language.
Numerals
Qatabānian has an unusual form for the
cardinal number
In mathematics, cardinal numbers, or cardinals for short, are a generalization of the natural numbers used to measure the cardinality (size) of sets. The cardinality of a finite set is a natural number: the number of elements in the set. Th ...
"one" - ''ṭd'' / fem. ''ṭt'' ; this has no known cognates in any of the ancient Semitic languages, although it does appear in modern South Arabian languages (cf.
Jibbālī ''ṭad'', fem. ''ṭit''). Qatabānian also has another word for "one", ''ˤs
1tn'', which is cognate with the
Minaean
The Minaean people were the inhabitants of the kingdom of Ma'in (Minaean: ''Maʿīn''; modern Arabic ''Maʿīn'') in modern-day Yemen, dating back to the 10th century BCE-150 BCE. It was located along the strip of desert called Ṣayhad by m ...
''ˤs
1t'' (and with forms in
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
,
Ugaritic
Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologis ...
and
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
).
The Qatabānian forms for "three" and "six" are the same as the Old Sabaean words: ''s
2lṯ'' (fem. ''s
2lṯt'') and ''s
1dṯ'' (fem. ''s
1dṯt'').
Qatabānian expresses distributives by repeating the number, thus: b-ˤs
2r ˤs
2r ḫbṣtm mṣˤm l-ṭt ṭt ywmm "ten full Ḫabṣat coins each for each day".
References
Bibliography
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*
*
*
* {{cite book , last1=Stein , first1=Peter , chapter=Ancient South Arabian , editor-first=Stefan , editor-last=Weninger , title=The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook , publisher=
De Gruyter Mouton
Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature.
History
The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...
, location=Berlin , date=2011 , isbn=3110186136 , pages=1042–1073
Languages attested from the 5th century BC
Old South Arabian languages
Languages of Yemen