Taymanitic

Taymanitic
Taymanitic
Region	Taymāʾ
Era	second half of the 6th century BC
Language family	Afroasiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Northwest Semitic? Taymanitic; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Ancient North Arabian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	taym1240

Taymanitic was the language and script of the oasis of Taymāʾ in northwestern Arabia, dated to the second half of the 6th century BC.^[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. 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]

It is clear that Taymanitic script expressed a distinct linguistic variety that is not Arabic and not closely related to Hismaic or Safaitic, while it can tentatively be suggested that it was more closely related to Northwest Semitic.^[1]

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes^[1]
		Bilabial	Alveolar			Palatal	Velar	Pharyn- geal	Glottal
		Bilabial	plain	sibilant	lateral	Palatal	Velar	Pharyn- geal	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	ts			k		ʔ
	voiced	b	d	dz			ɡ
	ejective		tʼ	tsʼ	tɬʼ		kʼ
Fricative	voiceless			s	ɬ		x	ħ	h
Fricative	voiced						ɣ	ʕ
Liquid	trill		r
Liquid	central				l
Semivowel						j	w

Vowels

**Monophthong phonemes**
	Short		Long
	Front	Back	Front	Back
Close	i	u	iː	uː
Open	a		aː

There were two diphthongs of a vowel and semivowel: /aj/ and /aw/.^[1]

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).

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

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Kootstra, Fokelien (15 August 2016). "The Language of the Taymanitic Inscriptions and its Classification". Arabian Epigraphic Notes. LeiCenSAA: 68.
^ ^a ^b Al-Jallad, Ahmad (2018). "The earliest stages of Arabic and its linguistic classification". In Benmamoun, Elabbas; Bassiouney, Reem (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics. Routledge. pp. 315–331. ISBN 9781315147062.

[:2-1] Kootstra, Fokelien (15 August 2016). "The Language of the Taymanitic Inscriptions and its Classification". Arabian Epigraphic Notes. LeiCenSAA: 68.

[:0-2] Al-Jallad, Ahmad (2018). "The earliest stages of Arabic and its linguistic classification". In Benmamoun, Elabbas; Bassiouney, Reem (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics. Routledge. pp. 315–331. ISBN 9781315147062.

[1]

[2]