Taymanitic
| Taymanitic | |
|---|---|
| Region | Taymāʾ |
| Era | mid-1st millennium BCE |
Afroasiatic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | taym1240 |
Taymanitic is the dialect and script of the oasis of Taymāʾ in northwestern Arabia, attested starting in the 6th century BCE, though references to the existence of an indigenous script in Taymāʾ are attested in outside sources from the 8th century BCE.[1]
Classification
Taymanitic does not participate in the key innovations of Proto-Arabic, precluding it from being considered a member of the Arabic language family. Nevertheless, it shares one key isogloss with Northwest Semitic: the change w > y in word-initial position. Examples include yrḫ for *warḫum 'moon, month' and ydʿ for wadaʿa 'to know'.[2]
Phonology
Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labia- lized velar |
Pharyn- geal |
Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | ɡ | ʔ | |||||||
| Ejective plosive | tʼ | kʼ | ||||||||||||
| Affricate | ts | dz | ||||||||||||
| Ejective affricate | tsʼ | |||||||||||||
| Lateral fricative | ɬ | |||||||||||||
| Lateral ejective affricate | tɬʼ | |||||||||||||
| Fricative | s | x | ɣ | ʕ | ħ | h | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | |||||||||||||
Vowels
| Short | Long | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | Front | Back | |
| Close | i | u | iː | uː |
| Open | a | aː | ||
| Closer component is front |
Closer component is back | |
|---|---|---|
| Opener component is unrounded | aɪ | aʊ |
Characteristics
Taymanitic exhibits two major features which are innovative:[2]
- The change w > y in word-initial position: yrḫ for *warḫum 'moon, month' and ydʿ for wadaʿa 'to know'.
- The mergers *z, *ḏ > *z, *s3, *ṯ > *s3, and *ṣ, *ẓ > *ṣ (loss of interdentals).
References
- ^ dan. "The Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia - Home". krc.orient.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2016-05-29.
- ^ a b "Al-Jallad. The earliest stages of Arabic and its linguistic classification (Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, forthcoming)". www.academia.edu. Retrieved 2015-12-08.
- ^ a b "The Language of the Taymanitic Inscriptions and its Classification". Retrieved 2016-09-14.