Sab'yn Status

[Ibrahim]

Great stuff! I stumbled across this study of Modern South Arabian on a pdf a while ago: http://llacan.vjf.cnrs.fr/fichiers/S...MLanguages.pdf, although I seem to remember someone saying ESA is actually closer to Ge'ez (classical Ethiopian) than these languages. It's all rather technical, but probably easier to understand if you speak a Semitic language such as Arabic already (which I obviously don't)

I do: the languages of today (MSAL), indeed have less in common wih Arabic than sabaean does to Arabic: phonology is also very different: but most of the words I saw for ESA matched arabic words perfectly (consonant wise), but MSAL's cognates are barely recognizable: they have IIRC evolved many new vowels, while retaining all or most of proto semetic's consonents-more consonents than Arabic in Fact, or ESA). grammar is far more different too, at least as far as I can tell .that said, the three languages should belong to 3 seperate branches of the semetic languages: Arabic northernmost, then sabaean, then MSAL, and lastly Ge'ez, the most "southern". but whether ESA is closer to Arabic or Ge'ez, elmetiacos, I dunno..I just learn the language. I'll need more words, and a better understanding of their grammar to tell.

I do not yet have a list properly made for sabaean pronouns-but If I do, I can get a better idea.


@Subotan: I'm no specialist in languages-just a curious fulan