Taymanitic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
RegionTaymāʾ
Erasecond half of the 6th century BC
| Taymanitic | |
|---|---|
| Region | Taymāʾ |
| Era | second half of the 6th century BC |
| 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]
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]