Mehri people

The Mehri (المهرة), also known as the al-Mahrah tribe (قبيلة المهرة), are named after Mahra bin Haydan are an Arabian ethnic group primarily inhabiting South Arabia especially in the Al-Mahra Governorate in Yemen and the island of Socotra in the Guardafui Channel. They can also be found in the Sultanate of Oman, and the eastern region of the Arabian Peninsula. They have participated in the conquests of North Africa, Morocco and Andalusia, and they lived there. Some of them work in fishing, and some of them live in the desert, and it is to them that the Mahri camels are attributed in the Arab heritage. The Mahra were famous for their Mahri language, which is a Semitic language belonging to the eastern family within the group of South Semitic languages, and it is a language closely related to other neighboring languages, such as the Shehri and Socotri languages. They have an ancient history, and they were mentioned in a number of Sabaean writings in Al-Musnad script, and they had a sultanate that lasted for five centuries, and it remained in existence until 1967, which is the Sultanate of Al-Mahra. Mahras are descended from Mahra bin Heydan bin 'Amr bin el-Hafi Quda'a bin Malik bin 'Amr bin Murra bin Zeyd bin Malik bin Ḥimyar, who was from Quda'a. The Mehri are one of the largest tribes in the Al Mahrah Governorate of Yemen and in the island of Socotra and Dhofar Governorate of Oman. Mehri group members are also found in other countries in the Arabian Peninsula like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. According to Ethnologue, there are around 115,200 total Mehri speakers. Of those, 50,000 live in Yemen (2011), 50,800 in Oman (2000), and 14,400 in Kuwait (2000), and according to Saudi officials there are around 20,000 Mehri speakers in Saudi Arabia. The Mehri speak the Mehri language as their native tongue. It belongs to the Modern South Arabian (MSA) subgroup of the Afroasiatic family's Semitic branch. Mehri is divided into two main dialects: Eastern Mehri (Mehriyot) and Western Mehri (Mehriyet).

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Related concepts (7)

Socotra

Socotra (səˈkoʊtrə,_soʊ-,_ˈsɒkətrə; سُقُطْرَىٰ Suquṭrā) or Saqatri (Soqotri: ساقطري Saqaṭri) is an island of the Republic of Yemen in the Indian Ocean. Lying between the Guardafui Channel and the Arabian Sea and near major shipping routes, Socotra is the largest of the four islands in the Socotra archipelago. Since 2013, the archipelago has constituted the Socotra Governorate. The island of Socotra represents around 95% of the landmass of the Socotra archipelago.

Mehri people

Semitic languages

The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew, and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant and expatriate communities in North America, Europe, and Australasia. The terminology was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history, who derived the name from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis.