Foreign L oanw ords in Sab aic

A. F. L. Beeston
St. John’s College, Oxford

When Professor W alter Müller and I, together with Professors J. Ryckmans and
the late Mahmud al-Ghul, were compiling the Sabaic Dictionary (SD), we noted
certain words as loanwords, with the siglum [LW]; but we abstained from offering
justification for so doing, largely because so many of the cases seemed to demand
an amount of discussion inconsistent with our general aim of maximum conciseness.
I have long feit th a t this was something th a t needed to be remedied, and there is a
special appropriateness in dedicating this small study to Professor Müller, inasmuch
as it was his acumen which detected one of the most curious instances (see no. 34
below).
Loanwords enter a language in phases which can be roughly categorized under
three headings, although they actually form a continuous spectrum in which precise
boundaries cannot be established. To start with, an alien word may be employed
with full consciousness on the part of the user th at it does not form part of the
lexicon of the context in which it is placed. Modern European usage often signalizes
this consciousness by typographical means, as in ‘Mary Smith née Jones’. In a
second phase, the word has been fully accepted into the lexicon of the receptor
language, but still with a consciousness of its foreign origin, as with English ‘café’,
often (though not always) retaining its original French accent. In the final phase,
consciousness of the alien origin has been completely forgotten by all except by
linguistic researchers, as with ‘business tycoon’, in which practically no ordinary
user today is aware th a t ‘tycoon’ is an originally Japanese word.
Detection of LWs is often far from easy, specially within the Semitic languages,
which share a stock of ‘common Semitic’ words inherited by each language where
they are attested from an ‘old Semitic’ fund. But one index tending to suggest the
possibility of a LW is a specialized meaning which in the source language may be
secondary or even unattested; another pointer is the retention of an orthography
characteristic of the source language but not of the receptor. An instance exhibiting
both features is English ‘chauffeur’. Larousse glosses the French word as (1) ouvrier
qui est chargé de la conduite et de la surveillance d ’un feu, d ’un four, d ’une chaudiěre;
(2) conducteur professionel d ’automobile ou de camion. In English, however, sense
(1) which was the primary and original sense of the French word (the second sense
having only developed after the invention of the automobile), has been completely
lost, and even sense (2) has become restricted to drivers of private automobiles and
cannot be applied to lorry-drivers. The English word has also retained the French
orthography with inital ch for /š /, though in native English words this represents
/tš /. Similarly, ‘café’ in English does not mean ‘coffee’ which is the basic meaning
in French, but is applied only to establishments where coffee and other refreshments
are served.
Admittedly, the orthographic test will hardly figure in my following remarks,
but it is worth recalling one specially notable instance concerning a proper name:
40 A. F. L. BEESTON

in Bayt al-Ašwal 1, the name Yahūdā retains its Aramaic orthography yhwd’ with
alif representing ā, quite contrary to Standard Sayhadic orthography.
The present study is confined to Sabaic, being primarily based on SD, where the
textual references will be found. In Minaic, almost all the LWs are concentrated in
one text, the ‘Giza sarcophagus’ R 3427, which has been extensively discussed in
Sayed 1984 and Beeston 1984b. In Qat. and Hadr. there are virtually no recognisable
LWs, unless one counts the occurrence of the religious technicality hqny in a Sab.
form with initial h instead of Sibilant; and see no. 24 below.
The archaic phase (pre-Christian era) of Sab. has yielded only one easily recog­
nisable LW, the hapax [1] ’fklt of R 3945/16. This presents some difficult problems.
The word is ultimately of Sumerian origin, and attested in Akkadian as apkallu,
meaning basically „wise, a sage“. In Akkadian mythology there were seven beings
so called, who were regarded as having taught men the arts and sciences; several of
the major deities of the Akkadian pantheon are described as apkal ilī „wise one of
the gods“; with human connotation it applies to a haruspex or diviner, e.g. apkal
šamni, one who divines by means of oil. In the North Arabian area ’fkl is attested
in Palmyrene, Nabataean and Lihyanite, and discussed in Jaussen & Savignac 1920
(ii.384-5), also in Hasaean (East Arabian Ja 1052 (Jamme 1966)). In the Palmy­
rene, Nabataean and Hasaean instances, the term is followed by the name of a deity,
which has led many scholars to render the term as „priest (of D )“. However, in the
Kičāb al-Aghānī (cited by Jaussen k. Savignac) the title afkal is applied to an indivi­
dual who is also designated kāhin „soothsayer“, and the editors remark, „il pourrait
se faire que les deux appellations s’appliquassent å deux fonctions differentes, mais
il est beaucoup plus probable que ces deux termes ne désignent qu’une seule et
même dignité“, and, given the Akkadian meaning of the word, it seems by far the
most likely th a t the Arabian afkal was a diviner, seer or haruspex who delivered the
oracles of the deity named.
The Sab. context presents a syntactic difficulty. It gives an account of how the
Sabaean mkrb defeated Nashan (in the western Jawf), destroyed the town and the
palace, and bd‘/b zh r/n s2n /s 3l ’m / ’fklt: the rendering offered by Rhodokanakis is
„auf Našān eine Buße an die Priester (zu entrichten) legte“. I cannot help feeling
uneasy about this. Certainly there are verbs of ‘giving’ (notably hqny) which govern
two accusatives, but in their finite form the personal recipient precedes the donum\
and would it be possible for the nominal form to govern the recipient without a
preposition? The answer seems to be in the negative, when one considers the phra-
seology of line 20 of this text, bd‘/ b ‘ly /m h ’m rm /s3l ’m / l ’lrnqh/wl/s1b ’, where the
recipient is introduced by the preposition. The only way out of the difficulty th at I
can suggest is th a t ’fklt is not a plural noun meaning „diviners“ but an abstractum,
adverbial to the main verb bḍ‘, „he imposed on the Nashanites, by divinatory means,
a penalty“. This is congruous with the immediately following sentence, which can
then be seen not as some separate measure, but the manner of carrying out the ora-
cular directive: „he ordered those Nashanites to be massacred, in respect of whom
the divine directive (sžfthrnw) had emanated from the gods“.1

*It may be objected that this suggestion puts a different slant on the word s3 V from its use
elsewhere in the text, specially line 3 where it is explicitly a financial exaction. But some incongruity
had already been noted by Rhodokanakis 1927 (p. 78 note 2), where he holds that the s3 V here was
„wie ich vermute, zur Bestreitung des sabäischen Kultus in Našān“, but adds „Es wäre auffallend,
 FOREIGN LOANWORDS IN SABAIC 41

A technicality connected with land tenure [2] gwl, attested already in early texts,
has been compared with Ethiopian gWəlt, but in this case it appears much more
probable th a t it is a borrowing into Ethiopian from Sab. than the other way round.
The Middle-Sabaean period, first to third cent. AD, brought the Sabaeans into
frequent confict with Abyssinians (Habashites) settled in the Red Sea Tihamah
coastal area; a certain number of words used only in relation to Habashite can be
confidently acknowledged as LWs into the Sabaic context. These were probably in
phase 1 of the borrowing process (see above, namely th a t they were still feit as
alien). Of such we have:
[3] ’ḥzb „war bands“, Geez ḥəzb „throng, multitude (etc)“.
[4] ḍb’t „troops“, despite the fact th at the verbal root ḍb’ is well attested as native
Sab., is probably, in this particular form (with only one attestation), a LW from
Geez säba’it/däba’it.
[5] mhrk „booty“, with only one attestation and no recognizable Sab. verbal root,
can be regarded as Geez məhərka (unless of course it is only a mistake for the very
common Sab. mhrgt „spoils“).
[6] dglmt„ornamental rings, bracelets, anklets“ in Mi‘sāl 2/13, is from Geez dəgwəlrna
(Müller 1983. 278).
[7] ’‘ṣd „villages“, from Geez ‘äsăd (Shitomi 1981. 128).
A couple of terms which seem to have an Arabic (or at least North Arabian) origin
are [8] ‘sê r „nomad group“, Ar. ‘ašīrah, which in the Sab. texts applies only to
groups on the northern periphery of the Sayhadian area; and [9] ’dwr, ’dyr „villages“,
which can hardly be anything but Ar. dūr, dayr, common even today in Tihamah
place-names, where the Yemeni highlands have only bayč.
It is somewhat surprising to encounter in this relatively late period two borrow-
ings which have an ultim ate Sumerian origin, though of course transm itted through
Akkadian: [10] ṭf „tablet, plaque“ < Akk. ṭuppu2; [11] hykl, ḥykl „temple, palace“
< Akk. ekallu. However, the fact th a t these are not attested in the ancient period
does not prove th a t they could not have entered the language already much earlier
than the first attestation.
Some other terms of miscellaneous origins are as follows:
[12] frzn „iron“ has cognates in Akk. parzülu and Heb. barzel, but the ultimate
source is unknown, certainly non-Semitic.
[13] bltč, with pl. blč, „pallant (a coin)“ is based on the fact th a t the earliest South
Arabian coinage was im itated from Athenian coins bearing the head of Pallas-
Athene.
[14] gnwz „storehouses“ < Iranian ganj.
[15] s1V „drachma“ < Nabataean sl‘; the spelling with s1 rather than the expected
s3 is attributable to the fact th a t the text comes from Haram, where this shift is
characteristic (Beeston 1984a. §2:3).
[16] nfs1 „funerary monument, funerary stela“ is probably, in this sense, the Naba­
taean technical term n/s, but it is doubtful whether the term was ever incorporated
into the mainstream Sab. lexicon, since all occurrences seem to be associated with

daß die Priester als Empfänger nur hier und in diesem Zusammenhang (...) genannt werden,
wenn sie die staatlichen Unterworfenentribute einzukassieren gehabt hätten. In Z. 3 /4 , 17, 20 ist
wenigstens von ihnen keine Rede“.
2I do not believe that there is any connection with Ar. daff „flank“, cited by the Corpus editor.
42 A. F. L. BEESTON

the area to the north of the Sayhadic domain. The deceased in C 721 is a Najranite;
in C 445 ‘g lm /b n /s1 ‘dlt/qryn was probably a native of Q rytm /ḏt/K hlm (Qaryat al-
Faw)3; C 699, 700 contain ancestral lists typical of North Arabian and East Arabian
inscriptions.
[17] brt has only two attestations, C 721 and 722, both in collocation with nfs1,
and the parallelism between nfs1/w brt and nfs1/wqbr certifies the meaning „grave“.
The cognates are Akk. būru, būrču „pit (G rube)“, and perhaps (though this has
been disputed) Heb. bōr in Is. 14:19 ’abnē bōr may have specific reference to the
stones used for in-filling the actual grave pit. It is perhaps possible th a t this word
came direct from Mesopotamia into East Arabia.
The Late Sab. (monotheistic) period, fourth to sixth cent. AD, produces as might
have been anticipated a crop of LWs from Jewish and Christian sources. [18] rḥrn,
trḥm „be merciful“ is not attested in this form earlier than the fourth Century;
the genuine Sab. root is probably rḫm occurring in the divine epithet Yrḫrn. The
monotheistic designation Rḥmn-n is, I would suggest, derived from pagan Palmyrene
R ḥ m n ’.
Another instance of this phenomenon may be Late Sab. [19] ḥwb „sin“. The
native Sab. root is ḫyb „to fail, to be indebted“, with a number of attestations in
non-theological contexts. The transference into the theological sphere is modelled
in Syriac ḥwb „be indebted > be guilty (of sin)“, as found also in Ar. ḥūb, hawbah
„sin“.
A cluster of LWs comes from Judaic sources (either Heb. or Aramaic): [20] ‘lm
„world“, [21] kfr „wipe away (sin)“, [22] qrbn „offering“, and several words in the
inscription Bayt al-Ašwal 1 which present problems.
[23] br’ „create“, though very well attested in earlier periods in the sense „build,
construct“, must be accounted a borrowing when it is used in this text for the divine
activity of „creating all things“.
[24] slt: we have a Hadramitic graffito with slwt < slōṯā „prayer“, and sli in Ja 866 is
certainly the same word; but in the phrase b-slt/s2 ‘bhw/ys3r ’l of the Bayt al-Ašwal
text, I would prefer a rendering „with the (financial?) assistance of his community
Israel“ (Ar. silah, root wsl) than with Müller „durch das (fürsprechende) Gebet
seiner Gemeinde“ (Degen-Müller 1974. 119).
[25] zkt in the phrase b-rd’/w zkt of the same text, and in two other late texts, has
its closest parallel in Arabic zakāt with its glossing in the lexica (said to be the
„primary signification“, see Lane) as „increase or augmentation resulting from the
blessing of G od“, i.e. „grace and favour“. The fact th at it is missing from the earlier
Sab. lexicon (where the concept is generally expressed by rdw) suggests a LW status,
but it is a problem how and where it evolved from the central sense of the Semitic
root „pure, innocent“ (Akk., Heb., Syr.).
Christian technicalities come from Syriac and Greek. From Syriac we have:
[26] qs1s 1 „priest“ < qaššīšā, and [27] ms1ḥ „Anointed/Messiah“ < rnšīḥā.
[28] rḥ „Spirit“ in the expression rḥ/qds1 for the third Person of the Trinity; however
[.↑nfs1 in the same context has been commonly restored as [29] rnnfs1 and accounted
a LW from Ethiopic.
[30] qds1 „holiness“, see the preceding two entries; also a denominative verb in the

3This gentilic qry-n is to be distinguished from the personal name qryn-m of C 702.
 FOREIGN LOANWORDS IN SABAIC 43

sense of „celebrate the Liturgy“ < Syr. qaddeš.

[31] msHl is a highly problematic term; my speculative suggestion th a t it might
mean „monastery“ and be derived from the Syr. technical use of ’eščlī „to adopt
a life of religious retirem ent“ remains dubious in default of any attestation of the
noun of place in Syriac.
From Greek come the Christian terms
[32] qls1-n < éxxXrjαtα applied epigraphically to the churches in Zafar and Mocha;
in later Arabic tradition, al-Qillīs has been understood as the proper name of the
church in San‘ā ’, by a common process of using an originally common noun as a
semi-proper name with specific reference (as with „the Tower“ signifying the Tower
of London).
[33] sbs1 „reference“, possibly < αéßαc; (Müller 1980. 79-80).
[34] ’s3ḥmt „righteous and sober (life)“ (to use phraseology of the English Book of
Common Prayer) < (Müller 1980. 75-8).
Besides the above, there is a miscellaneous collection of terms found only in Late
Sab. which have been regarded as LWs.
[35] qntn „hundredweight“ < Greek xevxr]vdpiov ; although of original Latin origin,
this must have reached South Arabia by way of Greek.
[36] s1dl „fine flour“ < Latin semidalis, but probably by way of Ethiopic səndale.
Although the verb form s3gd „bow“ can well be regarded as an inheritance from
common Semitic, the noun [37] m s1gd „place of prayer“, with typical Late Sab. shift
of s3 > s1, is perhaps best considered a LW from Arabic, which seems to be the
case also with Syriac masgḏā.
[38] s1rwyt „troops“ has an Ar. cognate in sariyyah „expeditionary force“, but in
view of its form is perhaps more probably a direct LW from Geez särwe, pl. särawič
(Müller 1978. 167).
[39] brdn-n „(two?) couriers“ is the Iranian word barid; but the first n would appear
to be part of the stem of the word, and perhaps suggests some contamination from
the equally Iranian word barḏūn „pack-animal“.
The ambassadors received by Abraha from Persia are described by the Standard
Sab. term tnblt, attested together with its verbal root nbl already in Middle Sab.
The term mḥs2kt used for the envoys from Aksum and Byzantium seems also to be
native Sab., since the root (though not this form) occurs in Middle Sab. But when
the envoys from the princes of Ghassan and Hira are termed [40] rs1l, we clearly
have a LW < Ar. rusul.
[41] ’flk „ships“ is evidently cognate with Ar. fulk, but both are LWs from Greek
écpoXxiov (Littm ann 1924. 97).
[42] ’s3dq is bracketed with ’flk and must denote some special type of ships. G.
Ryckmans (ad Ry 533/9) proposed equating it to Ar. sundūq „box“4, given by the
lexica as a dialectal variant of the form now Standard, sundūq. But it is certainly
non-Arabic in origin (possibly Indian?), and may have reached Arabic from Sab.
rather than the other way round.
A word which should probably be deleted altogether from the Sab. lexicon is [43]
‘zly in A braha’s titulature. Kropp (1991. 136) has convincingly argued th at this is
not a noun governing the following word mlkn „(viceroy?) of the king“, but is part
4The semantic relationship between „box“ and „ship“ is illustrated in the use of Latin αrcα for
the vessel in which Noah embarked.
44 A. F. L. BEESTON

of the full oflâcial name ’b rh /‘zly in Geez, „He (God) has illuminated my darkness“,
of which ‘A braha’ occurring elsewhere is an abbreviation.

W O R D IN D E X

’fklt 1 ms1ḥ 27
’s3ḥmt 34 nfs1 16
‘Im 20 mnfs1 29
‘s2r 8 qds1 30
‘sd 7 qls1n 32
‘zly 43 qntn 35
bltt 13 qrbn 22
br’ 23 qs1s1 26
brdnn 39 rḥ 28
brt 17 rḥm 18
dglmt 6 rs1l 40
dwr/dyr 9 sJdl 36
db’t 4 ms1gd 37
flk 41 sH ‘ 15
frzn 12 s1rwyt 38
gnwz 14 ms1 tl 31
gwl 2 ss dq 42
mhrk 5 sbs1 33
hykl/ḥykl 11 slt 24
ḥwb 19 îf 10
ḥzb 3 zkč 25
kfr 21

REFERENCES

Beeston, A.F.L., 1984a: Sabaic Grammar (Journal of Semitic Studies Monograph

No. 6) Manchester.
— , 1984b: Further remarks on the Zayd-’il sarcophagus text, PSAS 14, 100-102.
Degen, R. und Müller, W.W., 1974: Eine hebräisch-sabäische Bilinguis aus Bait al-
Ašwal, NESE 2, 117-123.
Jamme, A., 1966: Sabaean and Hasaean inscriptions from Saudi Arabia (Studi Se-
mitici 23) Istituto di Studi del Vicino Oriente, Roma.
Jaussen, A. et Savignac, R., 1920: Mission archéologique en Arabie. Vol. II (Publi­
cations de la Société Frangaise des Fouilles Archéologiques) Paris.
Kropp, M., 1991: Abreha’s names and titles, PSAS 21, 135-145.
Littmann, E., 1924: Morgenländische W örter im Deutschen. Zweite Auflage. Tübin­
gen.
 FOREIGN LOANWORDS IN SABAIC 45

Müller, W.W., 1978: Abessinier und ihre Namen und Titel in vorislamischen südara­
bischen Texten, NESE 3, 159-168.
— , 1980: Eine paulinische Ausdrucksweise in einer spätsabäischen Inschrift, Raydān
3, 75-81.
—, 1983: Äthiopische Marginalglossen zum sabäischen Wörterbuch, Ethiopian Stu­
dies Dedicated to Wolf Leslau. Wiesbaden.
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Wien, Phil.-hist. Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 206. Band, 2. Abhandlung) Wien
und Leipzig.
Sayed, A.M.A.H., 1984: Reconsideration of the Minaean inscription of Zayd’il bin
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Shitomi, Y., 1981: Une note sur ‘sd, Raydān 4, 127-129.