Indian Antiquary Vol 04

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 33

JANUARY, 1875.]
SKETCH OF SABÆAN GRAMMAR.
جنتان
في مسكنهم
:
۱۴ لقد
SKETCH OF SABAN GRAMMAR.
DY E. RELATSEK, M.C.E., Hon. Mem. B. Br. R. A. S. During the latter part of the first half of this inscriptions, which aro by the Arabs called contury, when certain inscriptions were first Hem ya ritic. brought to Europe from the southern part of According to Muhammadan tradition the Arabia, hazy notions were entertained about town of Hemyar was not originally the seat of them. It was not even certain whether they empire; it was Saba, the present Mareb, onght to be read from right to left, as all the which was annihilated by the breaking of a Semitic languages, or in the contrary direction, dam not only husbanding the waters flowing and conjectures were hazarded about their from the mountains for the irrigation of the Abyssinian, Ethiopic, or even Phoenician origin. land, but also enhancing the power of the Fresnel, the French Consul for Jeddah, made a monarch, who thus kept in his hands the key of collection, which was published, and gradually fertilization, and was enabled to grant or to scholars, like Osiander and others, ventured to withhold it as he listed. The memory of this read and to interpret them. The number of these catastrophe, considered as a chastisement from inscripcions, small and large—the shortest con- God, in which many inhabitants perished, and sisting only of a few words, and the longest in consequence whereof the seat of governof many lines, engraved on stone, but some also ment was transferred to the town of Hem yar, on metal plates--amounts now to inore than survived till the Quran was written, and is cight hurdred; but as the language ceased
alluded to in sura xxxiv. 14 and 15, as the to be sp ken, probably about the beginning of inundation of Ala'rem, i.e. of the dams that the Christian era, and no other written mo- confined the water :
Ulu numents of it exist, considerable difficulty is
! experienced in eliciting the true sense of these records, though at present the mode of deciphering theva has become so woll fixed that their spesso reading presents not much difficulty, except in
/ 911 S/./S/U/ / asets where the letters aro indistinct either 1.0 je li to joid wg Angle yahy ! 19Scot in the originals or the copies. There is also
10 IU / Ull Ulu! it blacksmitir in Mareb who, allured by the profit arising from the sale of copper tablets, inanufa tures spurious ones from old inscrip- "14. The people of Saba had indeed in their tions, and has been exposed in the Journal of the dwelling-places a sign :-Two gardens, on the German Oriental Society as a forger; some right and on the left! [It was said to them] fabricated texts also were published there by Eat ye of the bounty of your Lord and be Pretoris in 1872 (pp. 126-433).
thankful unto him! [Yours is) a goodly country The cognute languages, but especially the and a gracious Lord. 15. But they turned Arabic, Ethiopic, and Hebrew, afford the most aside from this injunction]: and ve sent upon valuable aid to the scholars who have signalized
them the inundation of Ala'rem." themselves in this field of Oriental research ; as The names Hemy a r and Saba are also of yet they do not all quite agree in their transla- frequent occurrence in the inscriptions themtious, but they may nevertheless be depended selves, but it appears that the expression Hemupon as safe guides in researches of this kind. yaritic instead of Sabæan language, which has The number of such men at present is small;
hitherto been current, will in course of time have the chief scholars are Prætorius, Lenormant, to give way to the latter, as being perhaps more Socin, Levy, and Halévy,--the latter of whom expressive and comprehensive. was boll cnongh to go personally to Southern The Languages of Southern Arabia. Arabia and copy nearly seven hundred of these There is great probability that the language
, um lods
vion, wtb or use
نا رسلنا عليهم سيل العرم
Se M. Coussin de Perceval, Hist. des Arabes, Tome III. He and M. de Sacy agreo in fixing this flood of Irem in te second century A.D.--ED.