Undeciphered -k language of ancient Yemen

(no name)

Region| Yemen
Era| attested early centuries CE

Language family

unclassified

Language codes
ISO 639-3| None (`mis`)
Glottolog| `sout2466`[1]

Among inscriptions in the Sayhadic (Old South Arabian) languages of ancient Yemen, there are a few undeciphered inscriptions that suggest a different, otherwise unknown language or languages. This language is unnamed in literature. Beeston (1981:181) summarizes our meager knowledge of it:[2]

> One inscription from Marib is a votive text beginning with a formulaic preamble in 'classical' Sabaic, but then switches abruptly to an unknown language: though this contains a fair number of lexical items congruous with Sabaic, it shows an incidence of words ending in -k which would be wholly unnatural in Sabaic, and it cannot in any way be interpreted as Sabaic. A preponderance of words ending in -k is found also in an as yet indecipherable text from the southern esca[r]pment. A third is a still unpublished rock inscription again showing a high proportion of -k endings – and which, most interestingly, looks as if it is in verse.

The language was subsequently identified as Ḥimyaritic and closely related to Sabaic. The texts actually represent rhymed poetry,[3] the final -k representing both suffixes of the 2. person singular and pronominal suffixes.

## Notes

1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "South-Arabian-Unknown-k". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/sout2466.
2. ↑ A. F. L. Beeston 1981, 'Languages of Pre-Islamic Arabia', Arabica 28:2/3
3. ↑ Stein, Peter (2008-01-01). "The “Ḥimyaritic” Language in pre-Islamic Yemen. A Critical Re-evaluation". Semitica et Classica 1: 203–212. doi:10.1484/J.SEC.1.100253. ISSN 2031-5937. https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/J.SEC.1.100253.

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