South Arabian alphabet Totally Explained

Everything about South Arabian Alphabet totally explained

The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad المُسند) branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic dialects of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadrami (Ḥaḍramī), Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez (or proto-Ethiosemitic) in D`mt. The earliest inscriptions in the alphabet date to the 9th century BC in Akkele Guzay, Eritrea and in the 8th century BC, found in Babylonia and in Yemen. Its mature form was reached around 500 BC, and its use continued until the 7th century AD, including Old North Arabian inscriptions in variants of the alphabet, when it was displaced by the Arabic alphabet. In Ethiopia it evolved later into the Ge'ez alphabet, which, with added symbols throughout the centuries, has been used to write Amharic, Tigrinya and Tigre, as well as other languages (including various Semitic, Cushitic, and Nilo-Saharan languages).

Zabur Script

Zabur is the name of the cursive form of the South Arabian script that was used by the ancient Yemenis (Sabaeans) in addition to their monumental script (or Musnad) (see, for example, Ryckmans, J., Müller, W. W., and ‛Abdallah, Yu., Textes du Yémen Antique inscrits sur bois. Louvain-la-Neuve, 1994 (Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, 43)).
The cursive zabur script—also known as "South Arabian Minuscules"—was used by the ancient Yemenis to inscribe everyday documents on wooden sticks in addition to the rock-cut monumental musnad letters displayed below.

Sign inventory

(epigraphic) Old South Arabian alphabet
Character Transcription IPA	h [h]	l [l]	ḥ [ħ]	m [m]	q [q]	w [w]	s² [ɬ]	r [r]	b [b]	t [t]	s¹ [s]	k [k]	n [n]	ḫ [x]	s³ [s̪]	f [f]	ʾ [ʔ]	ʿ [ʕ]	ḍ [ɬʼ]	g [g]	d [d]	ġ [ɣ]	ṭ [tʼ]	z [z]	ḏ [ð]	y [j]	ṯ [θ]	ṣ [tˢʼ]	ẓ [θʼ]
Other transcriptions							ś,š				š,s				s,ś

By shape
Character Transcription IPA	r [r]	ʿ [ʕ]	w [w]	q [q]	y [j]	ṯ [θ]	ṣ [tˢʼ]	ẓ [θʼ]	h [h]	ḥ [ħ]	ḫ [x]	ʾ [ʔ]	s¹ [s]	k [k]	ġ [ɣ]	b [b]	n [n]	g [g]	l [l]	m [m]	s² [ɬ]	s³ [s̪]	t [t]	f [f]	z [z]	d [d]	ḏ [ð]	ḍ [ɬʼ]	ṭ [tʼ]
	Circle								Y			Π					Vert			Diagonal							Box

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