The Soqotri people, sometimes referred to as Socotran, are a South

Arabian The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

native to the

Gulf of Aden The Gulf of Aden (; ) is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Channel, the Socotra Archipelago, Puntland in Somalia and Somaliland to the south. ...

island of

Socotra Socotra, locally known as Saqatri, is a Yemeni island in the Indian Ocean. Situated between the Guardafui Channel and the Arabian Sea, it lies near major shipping routes. Socotra is the largest of the six islands in the Socotra archipelago as ...

. They speak the Soqotri language, a Modern South Arabian language in the Afroasiatic family.

General

The Soqotri primarily inhabit the Socotra Archipelago, on Socotra island and the Abd al Kuri, Darsah and Samhah districts of the Amanat Al Asimah governorate,

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

. According to ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

'', there are an estimated 71,400 Soqotri. As of the last 1990 Socotra census, they numbered around 57,000. Most Soqotri are

Sunni Muslim Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Musli ...

. Historically, Soqotri were

Nestorian Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian ...

Christians A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words '' Christ'' and ''C ...

, from the Christianization of the island between the 4th and 6th centuries up until the 15th century, when the island was occupied by the Mehri Sultanate in 1480. This led to slow Islamisation of the Soqotri.

Language

The Soqotri speak the Soqotri language (also known as Saqatri, Socotri, Sokotri and Suqutri). It belongs to the

Modern South Arabian languages The Modern South Arabian languages, also known as Eastern South Semitic languages, are a group of endangered languages spoken by small populations inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen and Oman, and Socotra Island. Together with the Ethiose ...

which are closer to the Ethiopian Semitic languages than to

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

(

Central Semitic languages Central Semitic languages are one of the three groups of West Semitic languages, alongside Modern South Arabian languages and Ethiopian Semitic languages. Central Semitic can itself be further divided into two groups: Arabic and Northwest Semi ...

). Despite historical contacts with the Arabic language, there is no mutual understanding between native speakers of the Modern South Arabian languages and native speakers of Arabic. Moreover, there is no mutual understanding between the speakers of the Modern South Arabian languages themselves, and the Soqotri language is only spoken on the island of Socotra. Soqotri has several dialects, which consist of ’Abd Al-Kuri, Central Soqotri, Northern Soqotri, Southern Soqotri and Western Soqotri. North Soqotri comprises North Central and Northwest Central (highland) Soqotri. The language is written using the Naskh variant of the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

. Soqotri is also transcribed with the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

Genetics

Most Soqotri belong to the paternal haplogroup J, bearing the basal J*(xJ1,J2) clade at its highest frequencies (71.4%). The remaining individuals mainly carry the J1 subclade (14.3%). YFull and FTDNA however, failed to find J* people anywhere in the world although there are 2 J2-Y130506 persons and 1 J1 person from Soqotra Island. Maternally, the Soqotri primarily belong to the haplogroups N (24.3% N*; 6.2% N1a) and R0 (17.8% R0a1b; 13.8% R0a; 6.2% R0a1). The basal N* clade occurs at its highest frequencies among them. The next most common mtDNA lineages borne by Soqotri individuals are the haplogroups J (9.2% J*; 3.1 J1b), T (7.7% T2; 1.2% T*), L3 (4.3% L3*), H (3.1%), and R (1.2 R*). A 2024 study sampled whole-genomes from 39 Soqotri inhabitants from 650-1750 CE, and found that the individuals had a strong genetic relation to Hadhrami Arabs, another Southern Arabian population. These Medieval Soqotri inhabitants were said to derive 86% of their ancestry from Arabs of the Hadramawt region in Yemen, with the Soqotri genome remaining stable over a millennium. The deep ancestry of both the Soqotra and Hadramawt groups was said to be similar to that of Natufians, rather than being from the later Levantine/Anatolian farmers.

Notes

References

Ethnologue - Soqotri language
{{Demographics of Yemen Tribes of Arabia Yemeni tribes Afroasiatic peoples Ethnic groups in Yemen Socotra archipelago Ethnic groups in the Middle East

General

Language

Genetics

See also

Notes

References