Anyone Still Doing the Sab'yn?

[Elmetiacos]

On one of my webcrawls, I came across this article:
http://llacan.vjf.cnrs.fr/fichiers/Senelle/SAMLanguages.pdf
about South Arabian languages. I don't know if it's any use because I don't know enough about Semitic grammar, but I wondered if it might be of some help in getting rid of the Hebrew placeholder names? :beam:

[Redmeth]

Thanks for the link, I'll forward it.

We do need people with good knowledge of the Saba there has been no FC for around a year so if you feel you have the knowledge or you spot some things which you can fix or improve with them come out and speak.

[Elmetiacos]

I know nothing. I'm afraid I just stumbled across the document and wondered if it might be some use.

[Calypze]

On one of my webcrawls, I came across this article:
http://llacan.vjf.cnrs.fr/fichiers/Senelle/SAMLanguages.pdf
about South Arabian languages. I don't know if it's any use because I don't know enough about Semitic grammar, but I wondered if it might be of some help in getting rid of the Hebrew placeholder names? :beam:

Hebrew placeholder names? Wouldn't it be more accurate to use Arabic placeholder names?

[Hax]

Makes me wonder for a Sab'yn voicemod!

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Hebrew placeholder names? Wouldn't it be more accurate to use Arabic placeholder names?
No, ancient arabic is closer to hebrew than modern arabic, or something to that extent.

[Ibrahim]

No, ancient arabic is closer to hebrew than modern arabic, or something to that extent.

indeed. In fact, modern arabic is practically a different language from ancient arabic
e.g: (My computer isn't arabic enabled: bear with me)

A.A: 3ijlu ibnu haf3ami banaa li'akhiihi rarabiili ibni haf3ami qabra (from a first century BC incription)
palestinian arabic(a dialect): 3ijl (ibn*) haf3am bana la'akhooh (or lakhooh) rababiil (ibn*) haf3am abr/ abir

*ibn is mostly dropped in modern dialects (at least in Palestine and kuwait)

another: ithhab ila as-suqi wa a'ti bil'akli (go to the market and bring food back)
modern: roo7 lis-su' ujeeb il-akil (same meaning)
3='ayn
7=ha'
'=glottal stop (hamza)

I hope that was clear

[Elmetiacos]

I understand the language of the Sabaeans was South Arabian anyway, which is closer to Eithiopian Ge'ez than Arabic.

[Nabaati]

No, ancient arabic is closer to hebrew than modern arabic, or something to that extent.

I don't believe that this is actually true, at least not for Modern Standard Arabic.


indeed. In fact, modern arabic is practically a different language from ancient arabic
e.g: (My computer isn't arabic enabled: bear with me)

A.A: 3ijlu ibnu haf3ami banaa li'akhiihi rarabiili ibni haf3ami qabra (from a first century BC incription)
palestinian arabic(a dialect): 3ijl (ibn*) haf3am bana la'akhooh (or lakhooh) rababiil (ibn*) haf3am abr/ abir

*ibn is mostly dropped in modern dialects (at least in Palestine and kuwait)

another: ithhab ila as-suqi wa a'ti bil'akli (go to the market and bring food back)
modern: roo7 lis-su' ujeeb il-akil (same meaning)
3='ayn
7=ha'
'=glottal stop (hamza)

I hope that was clear

Well of course modern dialect shouldn't be used in place of South Epigraphic Arabian! That would be akin to using Australian English to represent Proto-West-Germanic. There's been huge changes in phonology and morphology in English over the centuries, much less vocabulary, whereas I believe all other Germanic languages are more conservative, at the very least on the morphology front. The question is how different are Modern Standard Arabic and Hebrew (1) from SEA. Hebrew, notoriously, has undergone a large amount of sound change (e.g.s Canaanite vowel shift which led to a 5 vowel system instead of 3, syllabic final lenition), whereas:

"[Modern Standard] Arabic preserves Proto-Semitic phonology almost perfectly (Epigraphic South Arabian is even more conservative)." (The World's Major Languages, Bernard Comrie, ed., p. 665)

This clearly points to MSA being used for SEA, IF SEA ITSELF IS NOT USED. SEA is of course known (albeit in a limited manner), but vowels were not written. I know not seeing vowels in the game upsets people, but if historical accuracy is the goal of the mod, certainly SEA should be used and not a modern related language (2).


(1) I don't know what variety of Hebrew is being used or even if there's much difference in the small amount of text being translated.
(2) Caveat: I don't know if all of the vocabulary is known for SEA to achieve the desired translations. Perhaps Arabic roots could be used to fill in in such instances.

[Elmetiacos]

The problem with no putting in vowels at all is that it makes it very difficult to actually talk about the game in real life, without sounding like some sort of creation of H.P. Lovecraft. "I can't decide whether to build mlykym mtwl or a mhrmthmw Almagah..." :dizzy2:

[Ibrahim]

I don't believe that this is actually true, at least not for Modern Standard Arabic.



Well of course modern dialect shouldn't be used in place of South Epigraphic Arabian! That would be akin to using Australian English to represent Proto-West-Germanic. There's been huge changes in phonology and morphology in English over the centuries, much less vocabulary, whereas I believe all other Germanic languages are more conservative, at the very least on the morphology front. The question is how different are Modern Standard Arabic and Hebrew (1) from SEA. Hebrew, notoriously, has undergone a large amount of sound change (e.g.s Canaanite vowel shift which led to a 5 vowel system instead of 3, syllabic final lenition), whereas:

"[Modern Standard] Arabic preserves Proto-Semitic phonology almost perfectly (Epigraphic South Arabian is even more conservative)." (The World's Major Languages, Bernard Comrie, ed., p. 665)

This clearly points to MSA being used for SEA, IF SEA ITSELF IS NOT USED. SEA is of course known (albeit in a limited manner), but vowels were not written. I know not seeing vowels in the game upsets people, but if historical accuracy is the goal of the mod, certainly SEA should be used and not a modern related language (2).


(1) I don't know what variety of Hebrew is being used or even if there's much difference in the small amount of text being translated.
(2) Caveat: I don't know if all of the vocabulary is known for SEA to achieve the desired translations. Perhaps Arabic roots could be used to fill in in such instances.

a). I know one doesn't use a modern dialect for SEA (c'mon); I was giving examples to clarify and give examples to the difference of dialect from MSA (thus pushing home M.A.Antoninus' point). from what I've seen, MSA may not be a too good an idea though; mehri, soqotri, and several dialects still exist (all from SEA or like language/dialect) and are even more conservative than MSA (judging from the first post in this thread-the PDF link). I understand that Arabic is a decent alternative, but why use it if it's decendants are here, and can be used indirectly, for point b

b).also, has anyone tried to reconstruct the vowels of SEA using surviving decendants? out of curiosity...no head biting!:beam: :balloon2: :balloon2:

[Nabaati]

I should point out first that I made a mistake. The language/language group is referred to as Epigraphic South Arabian, not South Epigraphic Arabian as I wrote previously


a). I know one doesn't use a modern dialect for SEA (c'mon); I was giving examples to clarify and give examples to the difference of dialect from MSA (thus pushing home M.A.Antoninus' point). from what I've seen, MSA may not be a too good an idea though; mehri, soqotri, and several dialects still exist (all from SEA or like language/dialect) and are even more conservative than MSA (judging from the first post in this thread-the PDF link). I understand that Arabic is a decent alternative, but why use it if it's decendants are here, and can be used indirectly, for point b

Ah yes, I see. You are quite correct in that modern dialects are quite different from MS or Qur'anic Arabic, although how different depends on the dialect.

As for the other languages, I can't say anything about them as I had never heard of them before looking on wikipedia just now [I haven't looked at the PDF]. Although it appears that they belong to the South Eastern Semitic Branch and not the South Western. I'm not a semiticist, so I don't know what the difference is.


b).also, has anyone tried to reconstruct the vowels of SEA using surviving decendants? out of curiosity...no head biting!:beam: :balloon2: :balloon2:

Well, as someone who has more than a passing interest in Egyptian, I can say that you would need one of the following to do so:

1) a known daughter language (it looks like ESA died out in the mid 1st millenium CE, so you're SOL there)
2) Toponyms
3) Transcriptions in other languages

The first is what really gives you info about vowels, the other two mostly just tell you how regular the language was.


The problem with no putting in vowels at all is that it makes it very difficult to actually talk about the game in real life, without sounding like some sort of creation of H.P. Lovecraft. "I can't decide whether to build mlykym mtwl or a mhrmthmw Almagah..."

Well, if you really feel the need to discuss EB with other people (hmm...), you can do like egyptologists and put an e between consonants and pronounce emphatic consonants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emphatic_consonants) like regular ones. That is, if you really feel the need.

[Ibrahim]

well knowing dialects of Arabic is natural-if you are one (note my name=Ibrahim):laugh4: :laugh4:
anyways..knowing that mehri, Soqotri, etc, are decendants of a sister language to it, they should try recontructing from here...at least it's closer than MSA

[Elmetiacos]

So wouldn't it be possible, until a beter solution presents itself, to take the consonants and put vowels that would fit, e.g. modern Mehri, which I understand is still very archaic in its phonology?

[Nabaati]

So wouldn't it be possible, until a beter solution presents itself, to take the consonants and put vowels that would fit, e.g. modern Mehri, which I understand is still very archaic in its phonology?

But is the morphology? That's a question that is impossible or next to impossible to answer unless someone invents a time machine. It's all well and good to assume they had the same vowels since other aspects of the phonology are reported to be conservative, but that doesn't guarantee that the actual placement of the vowels in words was similar. Since there are no vowels written in ESA, knowledge of its morphology would have to be pretty limited. To my mind it would be just as valid and much easier to use Arabic if people want vowels.

[Elmetiacos]

Well, I bet it would still be closer than Hebrew... :yes:

[Urnamma]

For those of you that made them, thanks for the constructive comments. However, all the scholarly work I've seen points to the language being fundamentally different from even pre-conquest Arabic (lakhmids and ghassanids). The language is closer to Hebrew in a sense, in that it more resembles late Mesopotamian dialects than Arabic. But even this is deficient, because the Ethiopid and Egyptian influences are also strongly present in the way it is spoken.

[Nabaati]

For those of you that made them, thanks for the constructive comments. However, all the scholarly work I've seen points to the language being fundamentally different from even pre-conquest Arabic (lakhmids and ghassanids). The language is closer to Hebrew in a sense, in that it more resembles late Mesopotamian dialects than Arabic. But even this is deficient, because the Ethiopid and Egyptian influences are also strongly present in the way it is spoken.

I would be very interested in seeing the sources you used for this information. At the very least the post-vocalic spirantization should be dropped because based on what I've seen, phonological spirantization of any kind was not evident in the writing. So what I'm saying here is, for example, the units with aravim in them should be `arabim, assuming for the moment that -im is the correct plural morpheme. I guess it's clear I'm not convinced of that.

[Ibrahim]

For those of you that made them, thanks for the constructive comments. However, all the scholarly work I've seen points to the language being fundamentally different from even pre-conquest Arabic (lakhmids and ghassanids). The language is closer to Hebrew in a sense, in that it more resembles late Mesopotamian dialects than Arabic. But even this is deficient, because the Ethiopid and Egyptian influences are also strongly present in the way it is spoken.

@ urnamma: is there at least some surviving contemporary source that gives possible pronunciation
(i.e a greek or roman corruption) of SEA words, thus giving some idea as to vowels (yes I know, greeks and romans tended to corrupt and butcher semetic words, and persiam too)?

out of curiosity: is it known when the definite/indefinite article in arabic came into being? and from where did these articles (al-, and the tanween) come from?

[Nabaati]

out of curiosity: is it known when the definite/indefinite article in arabic came into being? and from where did these articles (al-, and the tanween) come from?

Don't know about when, but I do know that the origin of "?al" is debated in comparative semitics. I've never seen anything about when or where with regard to tanwiin. (Gotta love Arabic for making a verbal noun from the name of a letter of the alphabet.)

[Ibrahim]

Any websites for comparative semetic?

[Nabaati]

Any websites for comparative semetic?
None that I know of, but the books are out there. You would need to know some historical linguistics, though. If you have access to scholarly journals, I suggest looking for articles by David Testen. He's a nice a fellow who graduated from our department a number of years ago. I know he's done work in this area.