South Arabian

Old South Arabian

Old South Arabian , though little heard of today, was the language of the great civilizations of South Arabia (e.g. Sheba and Merib ) with a written form of the language found on rock inscriptions showing it to be the forerunner of the modern Ge'ez Alphabet still in use in Ethiopia and Eritrea .

Moden South Arabian

The Modern South Arabian or '''Eastern South Semitic''' languages are spoken mainly by tiny minority populations on the Arabian peninsula in Yemen and Oman .

Mehri is the largest with 70,643 speakers in Yemen , 50,763 in Oman , and 14,358 farther afield due to emigration in Kuwait . Population total for all countries is 135,764 (SIL 2000). The Muslim ethnic goup itself is called Mahra .

Soqotri is another relatively numerous example, with speakers on the island of Socotra isolated from the pressures of Arabic on the mainland. According to the 1990 census in Yemen , the number of speakers there was 57,000 (including, perhaps, Soqotris living on the mainland). The population total for all countries (including work emigrants) is estimated at 64,000.

Shehri (Jibbali), with an estimated 25,000 speakers, is best known as the language of the rebels during the rebellion in Oman 's Dhofar province along the Yemeni border in the 1970s.

Bathari Language - 200 speakers est.

Harsusi Language - 1-2,000 speakers est., in Oman

Hobyot Language - 100 speakers est., in Oman

EXTERNAL LINKS

Language family tree for South Arabian Semitic from the Ethnologue

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South Arabian

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