Naturally the bazaar-talk of all the river-country is Arabic; all Sabeans speak it and a goodly proportion read and write it; but beside this they have a household language of their own, the language of their sacred books, which is called Mandâitic. It is so closely related to Syriac that it might almost be called a dialect, yet it has an alphabet and grammar of its own, and their writing and speech is not fully intelligible to the Syriac-speaking Christians from Mosul. Wright says that their alphabet characters most resemble the Nabathean and their language that of the Babylonian Talmud.[107] One peculiarity is the naming of the letters with the ā vowel and not as in other Semitic languages by special names. The oldest manuscripts of the Mandâitic date from the sixteenth century, and are in European Libraries (Paris and Oxford). But according to Nöldeke the golden period of their literature, when their religious books received their final and present form, was 650-900 A. D. At present few can read or write their language, although all can speak it, and from religious motives they refuse to teach those outside of their faith even the first lesson, except secretly.
Although meeting Sabeans for years and being their guest on frequent journeys up and down the rivers, I could find no satisfactory answer to the question what their real faith and cult were. The popular story that they turn to the North Star when they pray and “baptise” every Sunday was all that Moslems or Christians could tell. Books of travel gave fragmentary, conflicting and often grossly erroneous statements. According to some accounts they were idolaters, others classed them with Christians. An anonymous article in the London _Standard_, Oct. 19, 1894, entitled, “A prayer meeting of the Star-worshippers,” curiously gave me the key to open the lock of their silence. Whoever wrote it must have been perfectly acquainted with their religious ceremonies, for when I translated it to a company of Sabeans at Amara they were dumbfounded. Knowing that I knew _something_ made it easy for them to tell me more. The article referred to was in part as follows:
“It happens to be the festival of the Star-worshippers celebrated on the last day of the year and known as the _Kanshio Zahlo_, or day of renunciation. This is the eve of the new year, the great watch-night of the sect, when the annual prayer-meeting is held and a solemn sacrifice made to Avather Ramo, the Judge of the under world, and Ptahiel, his colleague; and the white-robed figures we observe down by the riverside are those of members of the sect making the needful preparations for the prayer-meeting and its attendant ceremonies.