Sabaean
Extinct languageLanguage Information
Sabaean (Sabean) was spoken in ancient Yemen and parts of southern Arabia. It was the language of the Kingdom of Saba (the biblical Sheba). It is extinct, and it is known from thousands of inscriptions found in Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia.
Sabaean is the best known of the Old South Arabian languages, written in a distinctive alphabet of 29 letters, from about the 8th century B.C. to the 6th century A.D. Traders from Saba also settled in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the South Arabian script influenced the development of the Ge'ez (Ethiopic) script.
Sabaean is the best known of the Old South Arabian languages, written in a distinctive alphabet of 29 letters, from about the 8th century B.C. to the 6th century A.D. Traders from Saba also settled in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the South Arabian script influenced the development of the Ge'ez (Ethiopic) script.
- Language Family
- Afro-Asiatic (Hamito-Semitic)
- Subgroup
- Semitic
- Branch
- South Arabian