Editing Sabaic (section)

=== Vowels ===
[[File:Ancient Blocks With Sabaean Inscriptions, Yeha, Ethiopia (3146498586).jpg|thumb|Ancient stone slabs with Sabaic inscriptions found at [[Yeha]], [[Ethiopia]]]]
Since Sabaic is written in an [[abjad]] script leaving vowels unmarked, little can be said for certain about the vocalic system. However, based on other Semitic languages, it is generally presumed that it had at least the vowels ''a'', ''i'', and ''u'', which would have occurred both short and long ''ā'', ''ī'', and ''ū''. In Old Sabaic, the long vowels ''ū'' and ''ī'' are sometimes indicated using the letters for ''w'' and ''y'' as [[Mater lectionis|matres lectionis]]. In the Old period this is used mainly in word-final position, but in Middle and Late Sabaic it also commonly occurs medially. Sabaic has no way of writing the long vowel ''ā'', but in later inscriptions, in the Radmanite dialect the letter ''h'' is sometimes infixed in plurals where it is not etymologically expected: thus ''bnhy'' ('sons of'; constructive state) instead of the usual ''bny''; it is suspected that this ''h'' represents the vowel ''ā''. Long vowels ''ū'' and ''ī'' certainly seem to be indicated in forms such as the personal pronouns ''hmw'' ('them'), the verbal form ''ykwn'' (also written without the glide ''ykn''; 'he will be'), and in [[enclitic]] particles -''mw'', and -''my'' probably used for emphasis.<ref>Rebecca Hasselbach, in ''Languages from the World of the Bible'' (ed. by Holger Gzella), pg. 170</ref>