From inscriptions to grammar: notes on the grammar of non-Sabaic languages

The corpus of Sabaic inscriptions is ample and covers a broad geographical area, as well as a vast span of time. The German school of Ancient South Arabian studies, created by Professor Muller, has greatly added to our knowledge of the Sabaic language; many grammatical traits have been defined and some of their geographical and chronological variations identified. Texts written in minuscule allow us to study a different cultural and social level of the Sabaic language, not conveyed by monumental inscriptions. In this paper various linguistic traits and rules governing the written form of these non sabaic languages will be presented, including the use of the matres lectionis in wrtiing vowels, and the declensions of nouns.