Ancient South Arabian script

The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad المُسند) branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in ca. the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic dialects of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadrami, Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez (or proto-Ethiosemitic) in D`mt. The earliest inscriptions in the alphabet date to the 9th century BC in Akkele Guzay, Eritrea^[1] and in the 8th century BC, found in Babylonia and in Yemen. Its mature form was reached around 500 BC, and its use continued until the 7th century AD, when it was displaced by the Arabic alphabet. In Ethiopia it evolved later into the Ge'ez alphabet, which, with added symbols throughout the centuries, has been used to write Amharic, Tigrinya and Tigre, as well as other languages (including other Semitic languages, Cushitic, and Nilo-Saharan. A cursive Zabur script was used by the ancient Yemenis to write everyday documents in addition to the monumental Musnad letters displayed below.