Qatabānian (or Qatabānic),
one of the four better-documented languages of the
Old South Arabian
Ancient South Arabian (ASA; also known as Old South Arabian, Epigraphic South Arabian, Ṣayhadic, or Yemenite) is a group of four closely related extinct languages ( Sabaean/Sabaic, Qatabanic, Hadramitic, Minaic) spoken in the far southern ...
(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 and 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
Sheba, or Saba, was an ancient South Arabian kingdom that existed in Yemen from to . Its inhabitants were the Sabaeans, who, as a people, were indissociable from the kingdom itself for much of the 1st millennium BCE. Modern historians agree th ...
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'
Sheba, or Saba, was an ancient South Arabian kingdom that existed in Yemen from to . Its inhabitants were the Sabaeans, who, as a people, were indissociable from the kingdom itself for much of the 1st millennium BCE. Modern historians agree th ...
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 poorly 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, a cardinal number, or cardinal for short, is what is commonly called the number of elements of a set. In the case of a finite set, its cardinal number, or cardinality is therefore a natural number. For dealing with the cas ...
"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
Ma'in (; ) was an ancient South Arabian kingdom in modern-day Yemen. It was located along the strip of desert called Ṣayhad by medieval Arab geographers, which is now known as Ramlat al-Sab'atayn. Wadd was the national god of Ma'in. The sp ...
''ˤs
1t'' (and with forms in
Akkadian,
Ugaritic
Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeology, archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit, including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycl ...
and
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
).
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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{{Semitic languages
Languages attested from the 5th century BC
Old South Arabian languages
Languages of Yemen