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Modern South Arabian languages

Group of South Semitic languages of Arabia and Socotra From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modern South Arabian languages
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The Modern South Arabian languages,[1][2] 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 Ethiosemitic and Sayhadic languages, the Western branch, they form the South Semitic sub-branch of the Afroasiatic language family's Semitic branch.

Quick Facts Geographic distribution, Linguistic classification ...

Mehri and Hobyot are spoken in both Yemen and Oman. Soqotri is only spoken in the Yemeni archipelago of Socotra, and the Harsusi, Bathari, and Shehri languages are only spoken in Oman.[3]

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Classification

In his glottochronology-based classification, Alexander Militarev presents the Modern South Arabian languages as a South Semitic branch opposed to a North Semitic branch that includes all the other Semitic languages.[4][5] They are no longer considered to be descendants of the Old South Arabian language, as was once thought,[citation needed] but instead "nephews".

Languages

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Phonology

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Modern South Arabian languages are known for their apparent archaic Semitic features, especially in their system of phonology. For example, they preserve the lateral fricatives [ɬ] and *ṣ́/ḏ̣ [ɬʼ] of Proto-Semitic.

Modern South Arabian languages maintain the distinction which is lost in all spoken Arabic dialects but preserved in Classical Arabic between the two coronal emphatics represented by the Arabic letters ض /dˤ/ ḍād and ظ /ðˤ/ ẓāʾ. In contrast to Arabic, where this distinction is represented by a stop-continuant contrast at the alveolar or pre-dental place of articulation, Modern South Arabian languages preserve a lateral-central distinction (ض /ɬʼ/ vs. ظ /θʼ ~ ðʼ/). The lateral ض /ɬʼ/ is the emphatic counterpart to the lateral /ɬ/, which has become iconic of the Modern South Arabian languages, owing to its relative rarity in the world’s languages.[8]

Semiticists are nearly unanimous in the opinion that Proto-Semitic contained three plain sibilants, referred to by the shorthand *s1, *s2 , and *s3, and confusing also as š, ś, and s. The realizations of these phonemes in earlier times is debated, these three plain sibilants have been preserved in Mehri and Shehri, on the other hand in Arabic *s and merged into Arabic /s/ س and became Arabic /ʃ/ ش.

More information Proto-Semitic, Soqotri ...

Origins

Militarev identified a Cushitic substratum in Modern South Arabian, which he proposes is evidence that Cushitic speakers originally inhabited the Arabian Peninsula alongside Semitic speakers (Militarev 1984, 18–19; cf. also Belova 2003). According to Václav Blažek, this suggests that Semitic peoples assimilated their original Cushitic neighbours to the south who did not later emigrate to the Horn of Africa. He argues that the Levant would thus have been the Proto-Afro-Asiatic Urheimat, from where the various branches of the Afro-Asiatic family subsequently dispersed. To further support this, Blažek cites analysis of rock art in Central Arabia by Anati (1968, 180–84), which notes a connection between the shield-carrying "oval-headed" people depicted on the cave paintings and the Arabian Cushites from the Old Testament, who were similarly described as carrying specific shields.[9]

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Reconstruction

Proto-Modern South Arabian reconstructions by Roger Blench (2019):[10]

More information Gloss, singular ...
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References

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