Harman Patil (Editor)

Taymanitic

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Region
  
Taymāʾ

ISO 639-3
  
None (mis)

Era
  
mid-1st millennium BCE

Glottolog
  
taym1240

Language family
  
Afroasiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Taymanitic

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.

Contents

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'.

Characteristics

Taymanitic exhibits two major features which are innovative:

  1. The change w > y in word-initial position: yrḫ for *warḫum 'moon, month' and ydʿ for wadaʿa 'to know'.
  2. The mergers *z, *ḏ > *z, *s3, *ṯ > *s3, and *ṣ, *ẓ > *ṣ (loss of interdentals).

Unlike Arabic, Taymanitic does not exhibit the merger of Proto-Semitic [s] and [ts].

References

Taymanitic Wikipedia
(Text) CC BY-SA


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