?”What is the truth about “Yemen is the origin of the Arabs
Many people mistakenly believe that Yemen is Arab in terms of people, language, civilization, and identity. There are those who believe that Yemen is the origin of Arabs and Arabism. This is all untrue. Yemen was not an Arab country in the first place, so how could it be the origin of the Arabs!!
The original historical language of Yemen and Oman is a South Semitic language. The Arabs in the Islamic era called it “Himyar language,” which is a different language from Arabic and is not understood by the Arabs.
As for Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, they are Central Semitic languages. The original place of the Arabic language is the Hijaz, Najd, some parts of the southern Levant, southern Iraq, and some parts of Jordan. We can say that the historical original place of the Arabs and the Arabic language is the central region located between Yemen and the Levant.
Despite the Arabization of Yemen and Oman linguistically with the spread of Islam, a population of between 100,000 and 200,000 citizens who speak Mehri as their mother tongue remains to this day in Yemen and Oman. The Mehri language today can be considered a language descended from the ancient Yemeni “Himyar language”.
1) Simple examples of Mehri words currently used in Yemen and Oman:
ṭād [ṭād] = one.
brīt or ḥebrīt [habrit] = daughter.
rībay = companion, friend.
dabh = honey.
2) The ancient Arabs recognized the difference between the “language of Himyar” and the “language of the Arabs”:
Many ancient Arabs and non-Arabs wrote confirming that the “language of Himyar” is a different language from the language of the Arabs. There is a famous saying in the Arab-Islamic heritage by Abu Amr bin Al-Alaa Al-Basri (died in 770 AD) in which he said: “The language of Himyar and the far reaches of Yemen is not with our tongue, and their Arabic is not with our Arabic.” Ibn Khaldun said: “The language of Himyar is another language different from the language of Mudar
Linguistic and historical facts contradict the idea of “the Yemeni origin of the Arabs,” the idea of “the Arabism of Yemen,” and the idea of “Arab Arabs and Arabized Arabs.” The Yemenis are a separate South Semitic people, different from the Arabs and Hebrews, which are northern or Central Semitic peoples according to linguistic divisions.
Today, specialist linguists agree that the Mehri language, which currently exists in southern Yemen and part of Oman, is a different language from Arabic, that it is an independent language in itself, and that there is no direct relationship between them. Arabic is not a Mahri/Hymyarite dialect, and Mahri and Himyarite is not an Arabic dialect. Also, speakers of any Arabic language or dialect currently do not understand the Yemeni “Mahari” language due to the radical difference between the two languages.
The Yemeni-Omani language “Mehri” is a sister language to the “Amharic” language widespread in Ethiopia, which is an official language of Ethiopia and is spoken by about 60 million Ethiopians as a first or second language. Yemeni Mahri is also a sister language to the Tigrinya language spoken in Eritrea.
Source: websites