page_title: Sabaean language
section_title: Vowels
hierarchical_section_title: Sabaean language / Phonology / Vowels
caption_attribution_description: The Iqa-bet, a two-story stone storage building next to the Church of Abba Afse in Yeha, Tigray Region, northern Ethiopia, houses ancient artifacts as well as Ethiopian Orthodox Christian religious objects. This photo shows blocks bearing inscriptions in Sabaean language. I don't know whether all the blocks are stone or whether some are stone and others are fired clay. Arranged atop the blocks are other ancient artifacts that were no doubt found nearby and brought to the Iqa-bet for safekeeping and display. The one on the far right, with two vertical holes, looks like a piece of engineered masonry. According to Wikipedia: &quot;The Sabaean (or, to be more exact, rather Sabaic) languagewas an Old South Arabian language spoken in Yemen from c. 1000 BC to the 6th century AD, by the Sabaeans; it was used as a written language by some other peoples . . . It was written in the South Arabian alphabet.&quot; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaean_language Wikipedia also states: &quot;The Sabaeans (Arabic: السبأيين‎) were an ancient people speaking an Old South Arabian language who lived in what is today Yemen, in south west Arabian Peninsula; from 2000 BC to the 8th century BC. Some Sabaeans also lived in D'mt, located in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, due to their hegemony over the Red Sea.&quot; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaeans This explains the presence of Sabaean inscriptions in Yeha, Ethiopia. There is disagreement on Yeha's role and significance during the D'mt Kingdom in what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. However, it is certain Yeha, with its imposing Temple of the Moon, was an important center in the D'mt Kingdom 2,500 years ago. I wish I knew what these inscriptions say. Anyone?
context_page_description: Sabaean, also known as Sabaic, was an Old South Arabian language spoken in Yemen between c. 1000 BC and the 6th century AD, by the Sabaeans. It was used as a written language by some other peoples of ancient Yemen, including the Ḥimyarites, Ḥashidites, Ṣirwāḥites, Humlanites, Ghaymānites, and Radmānites. The Sabaean language belongs to the South Arabian subgroup of the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Sabaean is distinguished from the other members of the Old South Arabian group by the use of h to mark the third person, and as a causative prefix; the other languages all use s₁ in these cases; Sabaean is therefore called an h-language, and the others s-languages.
context_section_description: Since Sabaean is written in an abjad script leaving vowels unmarked, little can be said for certain about the vocalic system. However, based on other Semitic languages, it is generally presumed that it had at least the  vowels a, i and u, which would have occurred both short and long ā, ī, ū. In Old Sabaean the long vowels ū and ī are sometimes indicated using the letters for w and y as matres lectionis. In the Old period this is used mainly in word final position, but in Middle and Late Sabaean it also commonly occurs medially. Sabaean has no way of writing the long vowel ā, but in later inscriptions in the Radmanite dialect the letter h is sometimes infixed in plurals where it is not etymologically expected: thus bnhy (sons of; Constructive State) instead of the usual bny; it is suspected that this infix represents the vowel ā. Long vowels ū and ī certainly seem to be indicated in forms such as the personal pronouns hmw (them), the verbal form ykwn (also written without the glide ykn; he will be), and in enclitic particles -mw, and -my probably used for emphasis.
caption: Ancient stone slabs with Sabaean inscriptions found at Yeha, Ethiopia
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