Arabic is by far the most widely spoken of the Semitic languages with 411 million native speakers of allvarieties,[1] and it is the most spoken native language in Africa and West Asia. Other Semitic languages include Amharic (35 million native speakers),[5] Tigrinya (9.9 million speakers),[6] Hebrew (5 million native speakers),[7][8][9]Tigre (1 million speakers),[10] and Maltese (570,000 speakers). Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew, Tigrinya, and Maltese are considered national languages with an official status.
Most scripts used to write Semitic languages areabjads – a type ofalphabetic script that omits some or all of the vowels, which is feasible for these languages because the consonants are the primary carriers of meaning in the Semitic languages. These include theUgaritic,Phoenician,Aramaic,Hebrew,Syriac,Arabic, andancient South Arabian alphabets. TheGeʽez script, used for writing the Semitic languages ofEthiopia andEritrea, is technically anabugida – a modified abjad in which vowels are notated usingdiacritic marks added to the consonants at all times, in contrast with other Semitic languages which indicate vowels based on need or for introductory purposes.Maltese is the only Semitic language written in theLatin script and the only Semitic language to be an official language of theEuropean Union.
The Semitic languages are notable for theirnonconcatenative morphology. That is, wordroots are not themselves syllables or words, but instead are isolated sets of consonants (usually three, making a so-calledtriliteral root). Words are composed from roots not so much by adding prefixes or suffixes, but rather by filling in the vowels between the root consonants, although prefixes and suffixes are often added as well. For example, in Arabic, the root meaning "write" has the formk-t-b. From this root, words are formed by filling in the vowels and sometimes adding consonants, e.g. كِتابkitāb "book", كُتُبkutub "books", كاتِبkātib "writer", كُتّابkuttāb "writers", كَتَبkataba "he wrote", يكتُبyaktubu "he writes", etc or the Hebrew equivalent root K-T-B כתב forming words like כַתָב katav he wrote, יִכתוב yichtov he will write, כותֵב kotev he writes or a writer, מִכתָב michtav a letter, הִכתִיב hichtiv he dictated. The Hebrew Kaf alternatively becomes Khaf (as in Scottish "loch") depending on the letter preceding it.
1538 comparison of Hebrew and Arabic, byGuillaume Postel – possibly the first such representation in Western European literature.
The similarity of the Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic languages has been accepted by all scholars since medieval times. The languages were familiar to Western European scholars due to historical contact with neighbouringNear Eastern countries and throughBiblical studies, and a comparative analysis of Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic was published in Latin in 1538 byGuillaume Postel.[11] Almost two centuries later,Hiob Ludolf described the similarities between these three languages and theEthio-Semitic languages.[12][page needed] However, neither scholar named this grouping as "Semitic".[12][page needed]
The term "Semitic" was created by members of theGöttingen school of history, initially byAugust Ludwig von Schlözer (1781), to designate the languages closely related to Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew.[13][14] The choice of name was derived fromShem, one of the three sons of Noah in the genealogical accounts of the biblicalBook of Genesis,[15] or more precisely from theKoine Greek rendering of the name,Σήμ (Sēm).Johann Gottfried Eichhorn is credited with popularising the term,[16][17][15] particularly via a 1795 article "Semitische Sprachen" (Semitic languages) in which he justified the terminology against criticism that Hebrew and Canaanite were the same language despite Canaan being "Hamitic" in theTable of Nations:[18]
In the MosaicTable of Nations, those names which are listed asSemites are purely names of tribes who speak the so-called Oriental languages and live in Southwest Asia. As far as we can trace the history of these very languages back in time, they have always been written withsyllabograms or withalphabetic script (never withhieroglyphs orpictograms); and the legends about the invention of the syllabograms and alphabetic script go back to the Semites. In contrast, all so calledHamitic peoples originally used hieroglyphs, until they here and there, either through contact with the Semites, or through their settlement among them, became familiar with their syllabograms or alphabetic script, and partly adopted them. Viewed from this aspect too, with respect to the alphabet used, the name "Semitic languages" is completely appropriate.[19]
Previously these languages had been commonly known as the "Oriental languages" in European literature.[20] In the 19th century, "Semitic" became the conventional name; however, an alternative name, "Syro-Arabian languages", was later introduced byJames Cowles Prichard and used by some writers.[17]
A hybridCanaano-Akkadian language also emerged in Canaan (Israel and the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon) during the 14th century BC, incorporating elements of the Mesopotamian East Semitic Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia with the West Semitic Canaanite languages.[27]
TheChaldean language (not to be confused withAramaic or itsBiblical variant, sometimes referred to asChaldean) was aNorthwest Semitic language, possibly closely related to Aramaic, but no examples of the language remain, as after settling in south eastern Mesopotamia from the Levant during the 9th century BC, theChaldeans appear to have rapidly adopted the Akkadian and Aramaic languages of the indigenous Mesopotamians.[citation needed]
TheArabic language, although originating in theArabian Peninsula, first emerged in written form in the 1st to 4th centuries CE in the southern regions of TheLevant. With the advent of theearly Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, Classical Arabic eventually replaced many (but not all) of the indigenous Semitic languages and cultures of theNear East. Both the Near East and North Africa saw an influx of Muslim Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, followed later by non-Semitic MuslimIranian andTurkic peoples. The previously dominant Aramaic dialects maintained by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians gradually began to be sidelined, however descendant dialects ofEastern Aramaic (includingSuret (Assyrian and Chaldean varieties),Turoyo, andMandaic) survive to this day among theAssyrians andMandaeans of northern and southernIraq, northwesternIran, northeasternSyria and southeasternTurkey, with up to a million fluent speakers. Syriac is a recognized language in Iraq, furthermore,Mesopotamian Arabic is one of the most Syriac influenced dialects of Arabic, due to Syriac, the dialect ofEdessa specifically, having originated in Mesopotamia.[32] MeanwhileWestern Aramaic is now only spoken by a few thousand Christian and MuslimArameans (Syriacs) in westernSyria. The Arabs spread their Central Semitic language toNorth Africa (Egypt,Libya,Tunisia,Algeria,Morocco, and northernSudan andMauritania), where it gradually replaced EgyptianCoptic and manyBerber languages (although Berber is still largely extant in many areas), and for a time to theIberian Peninsula (modernSpain,Portugal, andGibraltar) andMalta.[citation needed]
With the patronage of the caliphs and the prestige of itsliturgical status, Arabic rapidly became one of the world's main literary languages. Its spread among the masses took much longer, however, as many (although not all) of the native populations outside theArabian Peninsula only gradually abandoned their languages in favour of Arabic. AsBedouin tribes settled in conquered areas, it became the main language of not only central Arabia, but also Yemen,[33] theFertile Crescent, andEgypt. Most of theMaghreb followed, specifically in the wake of theBanu Hilal's incursion in the 11th century, and Arabic became the native language of many inhabitants ofal-Andalus. After the collapse of theNubian kingdom ofDongola in the 14th century, Arabic began to spread south of Egypt into modernSudan; soon after, theBeni Ḥassān broughtArabization toMauritania. A number ofModern South Arabian languages distinct from Arabic still survive, such asSoqotri,Mehri andShehri which are mainly spoken inSocotra, Yemen, and Oman.[citation needed]
Meanwhile, the Semitic languages that had arrived from southern Arabia in the 8th century BC were diversifying inEthiopia andEritrea, where, under heavyCushitic influence, they split into a number of languages, includingAmharic andTigrinya. With the expansion of Ethiopia under theSolomonic dynasty, Amharic, previously a minor local language, spread throughout much of the country, replacing both Semitic (such asGafat) and non-Semitic (such asWeyto) languages, and replacing Geʽez as the principal literary language (though Geʽez remains the liturgical language forChristians and Jews of Ethiopean descent in the region); this spread continues to this day, withQimant set to disappear in another generation.[citation needed]
Biblical Hebrew, long extinct as a colloquial language and in use only as a Jewish literary, intellectual, and liturgical language,was revived in spoken form at the end of the 19th century.Modern Hebrew is the main language ofIsrael, with easily understandable Biblical Hebrew remaining as thelanguage of the Bible, Jewish liturgy and religious scholarship of Jews worldwide. Modern Hebrew is the only example of an ancient tongue revived in modern times to become a vibrant, modern language used by Israel's 10 million citizens and many more in other countries.
In Arab-dominatedYemen and Oman, on the southern rim of the Arabian Peninsula, a few tribes continue to speakModern South Arabian languages such asMahri andSoqotri. These languages differ greatly from both the surrounding Arabic dialects and from the languages of theOld South Arabian inscriptions.
Historically linked to the peninsular homeland of Old South Arabian, of which only one language,Razihi, remains, Ethiopia and Eritrea contain a substantial number of Semitic languages; the most widely spoken areAmharic in Ethiopia,Tigre inEritrea, andTigrinya in both. Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia. Tigrinya is a working language in Eritrea. Tigre is spoken by over one million people in the northern and central Eritrean lowlands and parts of eastern Sudan. A number ofGurage languages are spoken by populations in the semi-mountainous region of central Ethiopia, whileHarari is restricted to the city ofHarar. Geʽez remains the liturgical language for certain groups ofChristians in Ethiopia andin Eritrea and Ethiopean Jews.[39]
The phonologies of the attested Semitic languages are presented here from acomparative point of view (seeProto-Semitic language#Phonology for details on the phonological reconstruction of Proto-Semitic used in this article). The reconstruction of Proto-Semitic (PS) was originally based primarily onArabic, whose phonology and morphology (particularly inClassical Arabic) is very conservative, and which preserves as contrastive 28 out of the evident 29 consonantal phonemes.[40] with*s[s] and*š[ʃ] merging into Arabic/s/⟨س⟩ and*ś[ɬ] becoming Arabic/ʃ/⟨ش⟩.
^Arabic is one of the world's largest languages, spoken natively in West Asia and Africa by about 411 million native speakers,[1] and as asecond language by perhaps another 60 million.[2].
^Amharic is spoken natively by about 35 million speakers, and as asecond language by perhaps another 25 million speakers, inAfrica probably fewer than only Arabic, Swahili, Hausa, and Oromo, and is the second most populous Semitic language, after just Arabic. It is the lingua franca and constitutionally recognized national language of Ethiopia, and the national language of instruction of Ethiopian public education in the primary grades.[3]
^Tigrinya, not to be confused with the related but distinct language Tigre, is, like Amharic, a northern Ethiopian Semitic language, is spoken as a native language by the overwhelming majority of the population in the Tigre province of Ethiopia and in the highland part of Eritrea (the provinces of Akkele Guzay, Serae and Hamasien, where the capital of the state, Asmara, is situated). Outside of this area Tigrinya is also spoken in the Tambien and Wolqayt historical districts (Ethiopia) and in the administrative districts of Massara and Keren (Eritrea), these being respectively the southern and northern limits of its expansion. The number of speakers of Tigrinya has been estimated at 4 million in 1995; 1.3 million of them live in Eritrea (around 50 percent of the population of the country), in 2008 by an estimated 5 million.[4]Hebrew speaking about ~5 million native/L1 speakers,[citation needed]Gurage has around 1.5 million speakers,[citation needed]Tigre has c. ~1.05 million speakers,[citation needed]Aramaic is spoken by around 575,000 to 1 million largelyAssyrian speakers).[citation needed]
^Woodard (2008, p. 219) suggests the presence of an emphatic p in some disparate Semitic languages may indicate that such an emphatic was present in Proto-Semitic.
^The emphatic interdental fricative is usually spelled *ṯ̣ but is replaced here by *ṱ for better readability.
^Huehnergard (2003, p.49) presents a minority opinion that an ejective velar fricative existed in Proto-Semitic.
Note: the fricatives *s, *z, *ṣ, *ś, *ṣ́, and *ṱ may also be interpreted as affricates (/t͡s/, /d͡z/, /t͡sʼ/, /t͡ɬ/, /t͡ɬʼ/, and /t͡θʼ/), as discussed inProto-Semitic language § Fricatives.
This comparative approach is natural for theconsonants, as sound correspondences among the consonants of the Semitic languages are very straightforward for a family of its time depth. Sound shifts affecting the vowels are more numerous and, at times, less regular.
Each Proto-Semitic phoneme was reconstructed to explain a certain regular sound correspondence between various Semitic languages. Note that Latin letter values (italicized) for extinct languages are a question of transcription; the exact pronunciation is not recorded.
Most of the attested languages have merged a number of the reconstructed original fricatives, though South Arabian retains all fourteen (and has added a fifteenth from *p > f).
In Aramaic and Hebrew, all non-emphatic stops occurring singly after a vowel were softened to fricatives, leading to an alternation that was often later phonemicized as a result of the loss of gemination.
In languages exhibiting pharyngealization of emphatics, the original velar emphatic has rather developed to auvular stop[q].
Regular correspondences of the Proto-Semitic consonants[42]
Note: the fricatives *s, *z, *ṣ, *ś, *ṣ́, and *ṱ may also be interpreted as affricates (/t͡s/, /d͡z/, /t͡sʼ/, /t͡ɬ/, /t͡ɬʼ/, and /t͡θʼ/).
Notes:
Proto-Semitic*ś was still pronounced as[ɬ] in Biblical Hebrew, but no letter was available in theEarly Linear Script, so the letter ש did double duty, representing both/ʃ/ and/ɬ/. Later on, however,/ɬ/ merged with/s/, but the old spelling was largely retained, and the two pronunciations of ש were distinguished graphically inTiberian Hebrew as שׁ/ʃ/ vs. שׂ/s/ </ɬ/.
Biblical Hebrew as of the 3rd century BCE apparently still distinguished the phonemesġ/ʁ/ andḫ/χ/ fromʻ/ʕ/ andḥ/ħ/, respectively, based on transcriptions in theSeptuagint. As in the case of/ɬ/, no letters were available to represent these sounds, and existing letters did double duty: ח/χ//ħ/ and ע/ʁ//ʕ/. In both of these cases, however, the two sounds represented by the same letter eventually merged, leaving no evidence (other than early transcriptions) of the former distinctions.
Although early Aramaic (pre-7th century BCE) had only 22 consonants in its alphabet, it apparently distinguished all of the original 29 Proto-Semitic phonemes, including*ḏ,*ṯ,*ṱ,*ś,*ṣ́,*ġ, and*ḫ – although byMiddle Aramaic times, these had all merged with other sounds. This conclusion is mainly based on the shifting representation of words etymologically containing these sounds; in early Aramaic writing, the first five are merged withz,š,ṣ,š, andq respectively, but later withd,t,ṭ,s, andʿ.[44][45] (Also note that due tobegadkefat spirantization, which occurred after this merger, OAm. t > ṯ and d > ḏ in some positions, so that PS *t,ṯ and *d, ḏ may be realized as either of t, ṯ and d, ḏ respectively.) The sounds*ġ and*ḫ were always represented using the pharyngeal lettersʿ andḥ, but they are distinguished from the pharyngeals in the Demotic-scriptpapyrus Amherst 63, written about 200 BCE.[46] This suggests that these sounds, too, were distinguished in Old Aramaic language, but written using the same letters as they later merged with.
The earlier pharyngeals can be distinguished in Akkadian from the zero reflexes of *ḥ, *ʕ by e-coloring adjacent *a, e.g. pS*ˈbaʕal-um 'owner, lord' > Akk.bēlu(m).[47]
Hebrew and Aramaic underwentbegadkefat spirantization at a certain point, whereby the stop sounds/bɡdkpt/ weresoftened to the corresponding fricatives[vɣðxfθ] (writtenḇ ḡ ḏ ḵ p̄ ṯ) when occurring after a vowel and not geminated. This change probably happened after the original Old Aramaic phonemes/θ,ð/ disappeared in the 7th century BCE,[48] and most likely occurred after the loss of Hebrew/χ,ʁ/c. 200 BCE.[note 1] It is known to have occurred in Hebrew by the 2nd century CE.[50] After a certain point this alternation became contrastive in word-medial and final position (though bearing lowfunctional load), but in word-initial position they remained allophonic.[51] InModern Hebrew, the distinction has a higher functional load due to the loss of gemination, although only the three fricatives/vχf/ are still preserved (the fricative/x/ is pronounced/χ/ in modern Hebrew).Samaritan Hebrew hasn't undergone this process at all.
In theNorthwest Semitic languages,*/w/ became*/j/ at the beginning of a word, e.g. Hebrewyeled "boy" <*wald (cf. Arabicwalad).
There is evidence of a rule of assimilation of /j/ to the following coronal consonant in pre-tonic position,[clarification needed] shared by Hebrew, Phoenician, and Aramaic.[52]
InAssyrian Neo-Aramaic,[ħ] is nonexistent. In general cases, the language would lackpharyngeal fricative[ʕ] (as heard inAyin). However, /ʕ/ is retained in educational speech, especially among Assyrian priests.[53]
Thepalatalization of Proto-Semiticgīm/g/ to Arabic/d͡ʒ/ jīm, might be connected to the pronunciation ofqāf/q/ as a/g/ gāf in most of theArabian peninsula; since in most of the colloquial dialects of the Arabian Peninsulaج is pronounced jīm/d͡ʒ/ andق is pronounced gāf/g/, except in western and southernYemen and parts ofOman whereج is gīm/g/ andق is qāf/q/.
Ugaritic orthography indicated the vowel after theglottal stop.
The Arabic letterjīm (ج) has three main pronunciations in Modern Standard Arabic.[d͡ʒ] in north Algeria, Iraq, also in most of the Arabian peninsula and as the predominant pronunciation of Literary Arabic outside the Arab world,[ʒ] occurs in most of theLevant and most North Africa; and[ɡ] is used in northern Egypt and some regions in Yemen and Oman. In addition to other minor allophones.
ṱ can be writtenẓ, and always is in theUgaritic andArabic contexts. In Ugaritic, sometimes assimilates toġ, as inġmʔ 'thirsty' (Arabicẓmʔ, Hebrewṣmʔ, but Ugariticmẓmủ 'thirsty', rootẓmʔ, is also attested).
EarlyAmharic might have had a different phonology.
The pronunciations /ʕ/ and /ħ/ forʿAyin andḤet, respectively, still occur among some older Mizrahi speakers, but for most modern Israelis,ʿAyin andḤet are realized as /ʔ, -/ and /χ ~ x/, respectively.
the correspondence between Proto-Semitic phonemes and Modern South Arabian languages is not one-to-one, since some phonemes have merged, some phonemes have changed their pronunciation and some phonemes were split depending on the language, for example the phoneme/ʃʼ/ appears to be connected to different phonological developments.
Sibilants have been one of the aspects of Semitic phonology that historical linguists have taken the most interest in, and Semiticists are nearly unanimous in the opinion that Proto-Semitic contained three plain sibilants, referred to by the shorthand S1, S2, and S3, or as š, ś, and s. The realizations of these phonemes in earlier times is debated, with hypotheses ranging from a palatal[ɕ] for S1, and[s̠] or[ts] for S3, to plain[ʃ] for S1 and[s] for S3.
Interestingly, the point of least controversy is the realization of S2, widely accepted to be lateral[ɬ], In spite of the fact that this phoneme has completely merged with S1 or S3 in every other Semitic language outside of Modern South Arabian languages, such that the most widely-spoken Semitic languages (Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew and Tigrinya) have a two-way sibilant distinction rather than the original three-way distinction. This merger occurred at different times, and in different ways across Semitic which has led to the non-correspondence of, for example, Arabic, Hebrew and Shehri (Jibbali) words for ‘ten’ from Proto-Semitic (ʕ-s₂-r).[54]
Proto-Semitic vowels are, in general, harder to deduce due to thenonconcatenative morphology of Semitic languages. The history of vowel changes in the languages makes drawing up a complete table of correspondences impossible, so only the most common reflexes can be given:
Vowel correspondences in Semitic languages (in proto-Semitic stressed syllables)[55]
The Semitic languages share a number of grammatical features, although variation — both between separate languages, and within the languages themselves — has naturally occurred over time.
The reconstructed default word order in Proto-Semitic isverb–subject–object (VSO), possessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective (NA). This was still the case inClassical Arabic andBiblical Hebrew, e.g. Classical Arabic رأى محمد فريداra'ā muħammadun farīdan. (literally "saw Muhammad Farid",Muhammad saw Farid). In the modernArabic vernaculars, however, as well as sometimes inModern Standard Arabic (the modern literary language based on Classical Arabic) andModern Hebrew, the classical VSO order has given way to SVO. Modern Ethiopian Semitic languages follow a different word order: SOV, possessor–possessed, and adjective–noun; however, the oldest attested Ethiopian Semitic language, Geʽez, was VSO, possessed–possessor, and noun–adjective.[56] Akkadian was also predominantly SOV.
The proto-Semitic three-case system (nominative,accusative andgenitive) with differing vowel endings (-u, -a -i), fully preserved in Qur'anic Arabic (seeʾIʿrab), Akkadian andUgaritic, has disappeared everywhere in the many colloquial forms of Semitic languages. Modern Standard Arabic maintains such case distinctions, although they are typically lost in free speech due to colloquial influence. An accusative ending-n is preserved in Ethiopian Semitic.[note 3] In the northwest, the scarcely attestedSamalian reflects a case distinction in the plural between nominative-ū and oblique-ī (compare the same distinction in Classical Arabic).[58] Additionally, Semitic nouns and adjectives had a category of state, the indefinite state being expressed bynunation.[59]
Semitic languages originally had threegrammatical numbers: singular,dual, andplural. Classical Arabic still has a mandatory dual (i.e. it must be used in all circumstances when referring to two entities), marked on nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. Many contemporary dialects of Arabic still have a dual, as in the name for the nation of Bahrain (baħr "sea" +-ayn "two"), although it is marked only on nouns. It also occurs in Hebrew in a few nouns (šana means "one year",šnatayim means "two years", andšanim means "years"), but for those it is obligatory. The curious phenomenon ofbroken plurals – e.g. in Arabic,sadd "one dam" vs.sudūd "dams" – found most profusely in the languages of Arabia and Ethiopia, may be partly of proto-Semitic origin, and partly elaborated from simpler origins.
All Semitic languages show two quite distinct styles of morphology used for conjugating verbs.Suffix conjugations take suffixes indicating the person, number and gender of the subject, which bear some resemblance to the pronominal suffixes used to indicate direct objects on verbs ("I sawhim") and possession on nouns ("his dog"). So-calledprefix conjugations actually takes both prefixes and suffixes, with the prefixes primarily indicating person (and sometimes number or gender), while the suffixes (which are completely different from those used in the suffix conjugation) indicate number and gender whenever the prefix does not mark this. The prefix conjugation is noted for a particular pattern ofʔ-t-y-n- prefixes where (1) at- prefix is used in the singular to mark the second person and third-person feminine, while ay- prefix marks the third-person masculine; and (2) identical words are used for second-person masculine and third-person feminine singular. The prefix conjugation is extremely old, with clear analogues in nearly all the families ofAfroasiatic languages (i.e. at least 10,000 years old). The table on the right shows examples of the prefix and suffix conjugations in Classical Arabic, which has forms that are close to Proto-Semitic.
In Proto-Semitic, as still largely reflected in East Semitic, prefix conjugations are used both for the past and the non-past, with different vocalizations. Cf. Akkadianniprus "we decided" (preterite),niptaras "we have decided" (perfect),niparras "we decide" (non-past or imperfect), vs. suffix-conjugatedparsānu "we are/were/will be deciding" (stative). Some of these features, e.g.gemination indicating the non-past/imperfect, are generally attributed to Afroasiatic. Proto-Semitic had an additional form, thejussive, which was distinguished from the preterite only by the position of stress: the jussive had final stress while the preterite had non-final (retracted) stress.[60]
The West Semitic languages significantly reshaped the system. The most substantial changes occurred in theCentral Semitic languages (the ancestors of modern Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic). Essentially, the old prefix-conjugated jussive or preterite became a new non-past (or imperfect), while the stative became a new past (or perfect), and the old prefix-conjugated non-past (or imperfect) with gemination was discarded. New suffixes were used to mark different moods in the non-past, e.g. Classical Arabic-u (indicative),-a (subjunctive), vs no suffix (jussive). It is not generally agreed whether the systems of the various Semitic languages are better interpreted in terms of tense, i.e. past vs. non-past, or aspect, i.e. perfect vs. imperfect. A special feature in classical Hebrew is thewaw-consecutive, prefixing a verb form with the letterwaw in order to change itstense oraspect. TheSouth Semitic languages show a system somewhere between the East and Central Semitic languages.
Later languages show further developments. In the modernvarieties of Arabic, for example, the old mood suffixes were dropped, and new mood prefixes developed (e.g.bi- for indicative vs. no prefix for subjunctive in many varieties). In the extreme case of Neo-Aramaic, the verb conjugations have been entirely reworked under Iranian influence.
All Semitic languages exhibit a unique pattern of stems calledSemitic roots consisting typically of triliteral, or three-consonant consonantal roots (two- and four-consonant roots also exist), from which nouns, adjectives, and verbs are formed in various ways (e.g., by inserting vowels, doubling consonants, lengthening vowels or by adding prefixes, suffixes, orinfixes).
For instance, the rootk-t-b (dealing with "writing" generally) yields in Arabic:
katabtu كَتَبْتُ or كتبت "I wrote" (f and m)
yuktab(u) يُكْتَب or يكتب "being written" (masculine)
tuktab(u) تُكتَب or تكتب "being written" (feminine)
yatakātabūn(a) يَتَكَاتَبُونَ or يتكاتبون "they write to each other" (masculine)
istiktāb اِستِكتاب or استكتاب "causing to write"
kitāb كِتَاب or كتاب "book" (the hyphen shows end of stem before various case endings)
kutayyib كُتَيِّب or كتيب "booklet" (diminutive)
kitābat كِتَابَة or كتابة "writing"
kuttāb كُتاب or كتاب "writers" (broken plural)
katabat كَتَبَة or كتبة "clerks" (broken plural)
maktab مَكتَب or مكتب "desk" or "office"
maktabat مَكتَبة or مكتبة "library" or "bookshop"
maktūb مَكتوب or مكتوب "written" (participle) or "postal letter" (noun)
katībat كَتيبة or كتيبة "squadron" or "document"
iktitāb اِكتِتاب or اكتتاب "registration" or "contribution of funds"
muktatib مُكتَتِب or مكتتب "subscription"
and the same root in Hebrew:
kāṯaḇti כתבתי or כָּתַבְתִּי "I wrote"
kattāḇ כתב or כַּתָּב "reporter" (m)
katteḇeṯ כתבת or כַּתָּבֶת "reporter" (f)
kattāḇā כתבה or כַּתָּבָה "article" (pluralkattāḇōṯ כתבות)
miḵtāḇ מכתב or מִכְתָּב "postal letter" (pluralmiḵtāḇīm מכתבים)
In Tigrinya and Amharic, this root was used widely but is now seen as an archaic form. Ethiopic-derived languages use different roots for things that have to do with writing (and in some cases counting). The primitive rootṣ-f and the trilateral root stemsm-ṣ-f,ṣ-h-f, andṣ-f-r are used. This root also exists in other Semitic languages, such as Hebrew:sep̄er "book",sōp̄er "scribe",mispār "number", andsippūr "story". This root also exists in Arabic and is used to form words with a close meaning to "writing", such asṣaḥāfa "journalism", andṣaḥīfa "newspaper" or "parchment".Verbs in other non-Semitic Afroasiatic languages show similar radical patterns, but more usually with biconsonantal roots; e.g.Kabyleafeg means "fly!", whileaffug means "flight", andyufeg means "he flew" (compare with Hebrew, wherehap̄lēḡ means "set sail!",hap̄lāḡā means "a sailing trip", andhip̄līḡ means "he sailed", while the unrelatedʕūp̄,təʕūp̄ā, andʕāp̄ pertain to flight).
These are the basic numeral stems without feminine suffixes. In most older Semitic languages, the forms of the numerals from 3 to 10 exhibitpolarity of gender (also called "chiastic concord" or "reverse agreement"), i.e. if the counted noun is masculine, the numeral would be feminine and vice versa.
Terms given in brackets are not derived from the respective Proto-Semitic roots, though they may also derive from Proto-Semitic (as does e.g. Arabicdār, cf. Biblical Hebrewdōr "dwelling").
Sometimes, certain roots differ in meaning from one Semitic language to another. For example, the rootb-y-ḍ in Arabic has the meaning of "white" as well as "egg", whereas in Hebrew it only means "egg". The rootl-b-n means "milk" in Arabic, but the color "white" in Hebrew. The rootl-ḥ-m means "meat" in Arabic, but "bread" in Hebrew and "cow" in Ethiopian Semitic; the original meaning was most probably "food". The wordmedina (root:d-y-n/d-w-n) has the meaning of "metropolis" in Amharic, "city" in Arabic and Ancient Hebrew, and "State" in Modern Hebrew.
There is sometimes no relation between the roots. For example, "knowledge" is represented in Hebrew by the rooty-d-ʿ, but in Arabic by the rootsʿ-r-f andʿ-l-m and in Ethiosemitic by the rootsʿ-w-q andf-l-ṭ.
Distribution of the Semitic languages among related Afro-Asiatic languages
There are six fairly uncontroversial nodes within the Semitic languages:East Semitic,Northwest Semitic,North Arabian,Old South Arabian (also known as Sayhadic),Modern South Arabian, andEthiopian Semitic. These are generally grouped further, but there is ongoing debate as to which belong together. The classification based on shared innovations given below, established byRobert Hetzron in 1976 and with later emendations by John Huehnergard and Rodgers as summarized in Hetzron 1997, is the most widely accepted today. In particular, several Semiticists still argue for the traditional (partially nonlinguistic) view of Arabic as part of South Semitic, and a few (e.g.Alexander Militarev or the German-Egyptian professor Arafa Hussein Mustafa[citation needed]) see Modern South Arabian as a third branch of Semitic alongside East and West Semitic, rather than as a subgroup of South Semitic. However, a new classification groups Old South Arabian as Central Semitic instead.[66]
Roger Blench notes that theGurage languages are highly divergent and wonders whether they might not be a primary branch, reflecting an origin of Afroasiatic in or near Ethiopia.[67] At a lower level, there is still no general agreement on where to draw the line between "languages" and "dialects" – an issue particularly relevant in Arabic, Aramaic and Gurage – and the strong mutual influences between Arabic dialects render a genetic subclassification of them particularly difficult.
^According to the generally accepted view, it is unlikely that begadkefat spirantization occurred before the merger of/χ,ʁ/ and/ħ,ʕ/, or else[x,χ] and[ɣ,ʁ] would have to be contrastive, which is cross-linguistically rare. However, Blau argues that it is possible that lenited/k/ and/χ/ could coexist even if pronounced identically, since one would be recognized as an alternating allophone (as apparently is the case in Nestorian Syriac).[49]
^"In the historically attested Semitic languages, the endings of the singular noun-flexions survive, as is well known, only partially: in Akkadian and Arabic and Ugaritic and, limited to the accusative, in Ethiopic."[57]
^While some believe that *ʔanāku was an innovation in some branches of Semitic utilizing an "intensifying" *-ku, comparison to other Afro-Asiatic 1ps pronouns (e.g.3nk, Copticanak,anok,proto-Berber *ənakkʷ) suggests that this goes further back.[61]
^The Akkadian form is from Sargonic Akkadian. Among the Semitic languages, there are languages with /i/ as the final vowel (this is the form in Mehri). For a recent discussion concerning the reconstruction of the forms of the dual pronouns, see Bar-Asher, Elitzur. 2009. "Dual Pronouns in Semitics and an Evaluation of the Evidence for their Existence in Biblical Hebrew," Ancient Near Eastern Studies 46: 32–49
^This root underwent regressive assimilation.[63][page needed] This parallels the non-adjacent assimilation of *ś... > *š...š in proto-Canaanite or proto-North-West-Semitic in the roots *śam?š > *šamš 'sun' and *śur?š > *šurš 'root'.[64] The form*ṯalāṯ- appears in most languages (e.g. Aramaic, Arabic, Ugaritic), but the original formślṯ appears in theOld South Arabian languages, and a form withs <*ś (rather thanš <*ṯ) appears inAkkadian.
^This root was also assimilated in various ways. For example, Hebrew reflects*šišš-, with total assimilation; Arabic reflects*šitt- in cardinal numerals, but less assimilated*šādiš- in ordinal numerals.Epigraphic South Arabian reflects original*šdṯ; Ugaritic has a formṯṯ, in which theṯ has been assimilated throughout the root.[63][page needed]
^Vermeulen, H.F. (2015).Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment. Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology Series. University of Nebraska Press.ISBN978-0-8032-7738-0.Archived from the original on 7 October 2022. Retrieved7 October 2022.Schlözer 1781: p.161 "From the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, from Mesopotamia to Arabia ruled one language, as is well known. Thus Syrians, Babylonians, Hebrews, and Arabs were one people (ein Volk). Phoenicians (Hamites) also spoke this language, which I would like to call the Semitic (die Semitische). To the north and east of this Semitic language and national district (Semitische Sprach- und VölkerBezirke) begins a second one: With Moses and Leibniz I would like to call it the Japhetic."
^[1]Archived 2020-07-31 at theWayback Machine Andrew George, "Babylonian and Assyrian: A History of Akkadian", In: Postgate, J. N., (ed.),Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, pp. 37.
^Phillipson, David (2012).Foundations of an African Civilization, Aksum and the Northern Horn 1000 BC-AD 1300. Boydell & Brewer. p. 11.ISBN9781846158735.Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved6 May 2021.The former belief that this arrival of South-Semitic-speakers took place in about the second quarter of the first millennium BC can no longer be accepted in view of linguistic indications that these languages were spoken in the northern Horn at a much earlier date.
^"…Syriac, the Classical dialect of Aramaic first attested in Edessa, about 200 CE, but which spread through the Christian communities of Mesopotamia and the Levant in the following centuries.", Revival and AwakeningAmerican Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism, p.49
^CLASSICAL SYRIAC. Gorgias Handbooks. p. 14.In contrast to "Nestorians" and "Jacobites", a small group of Syriacs accepted the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. Non-Chalcedonian Syriacs called them "Melkites" (from Aramaic malka "king"), thereby connecting them to the Byzantine Emperor's denomination. Melkite Syriacs were mostly concentrated around Antioch and adjacent regions of northern Syria and used Syriac as their literary and liturgical language. The Melkite community also included the Aramaic-speaking Jewish converts to Christianity in Palestine and the Orthodox Christians of Transjordan. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary work (mainly translation) in Palestinian Christian Aramaic, a Western Aramaic dialect, using a script closely resembling the Estrangela cursive of Osrhoene.
^"JACOB BARcLAY, Melkite Orthodox Syro-Byzantine Manuscripts in Syriac and Palestinian Aramaic" quote from the German book Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft und Grenzgebiete, p. 291
^"However, in contrast to what went on in northern Syria and Mesopotamia, where Syriac competed well with Greek to remain a great cultural language, Syropalestinian was in a weak position with regard to Greek and, later, to Arabic." quote from the book The Fourth International Conference on the History of Bilād Al-Shām During the Umayyad Period: English section, p.31
^"Some Chalcedonians of Palestine and the Transjordan chose to write in Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) rather than Syriac." quote from the book A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography, p.68
^Arman Akopian (11 December 2017). "Other branches of Syriac Christianity: Melkites and Maronites".Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies. Gorgias Press. p. 573.ISBN9781463238933.The main center of Aramaic-speaking Melkites was Palestine. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary, mainly translation work in the local Western Aramaic dialect, known as "Palestinian Christian Aramaic", using a script closely resembling the cursive Estrangela of Osrhoene. Palestinian Melkites were mostly Jewish converts to Christianity, who had a long tradition of using Palestinian Aramaic dialects as literary languages. Closely associated with the Palestinian Melkites were the Melkites of Transjordan, who also used Palestinian Christian Aramaic. Another community of Aramaic-speaking Melkites existed in the vicinity of Antioch and parts of Syria. These Melkites used Classical Syriac as a written language, the common literary language of the overwhelming majority of Christian Arameans.
^Weninger, Stefan (2011). "Reconstructive Morphology". In Weninger, Stefan (ed.).Semitic languages: an international handbook. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 166.doi:10.1515/9783110251586.151.ISBN978-3-11-018613-0.
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Kitto, John (1845).A Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature. London:W. Clowes and Sons.That important family of languages, of which the Arabic is the most cultivated and most widely-extended branch, has long wanted an appropriate common name. The termOriental languages, which was exclusively applied to it from the time ofJerome down to the end of the last century, and which is even now not entirely abandoned, must always have been an unscientific one, inasmuch as the countries in which these languages prevailed are only theeast in respect to Europe; and whenSanskrit,Chinese, and other idioms of theremoter East were brought within the reach of our research, it became palpably incorrect. Under a sense of this impropriety,Eichhorn was the first, as he says himself (Allg. Bibl. Biblioth. vi. 772), to introduce the nameSemitic languages, which was soon generally adopted, and which is the most usual one at the present day. [...] In modern times, however, the very appropriate designationSyro-Arabian languages has been proposed by Dr.Prichard, in hisPhysical History of Man. This term, [...] has the advantage of forming an exact counterpart to the name by which the only other great family of languages with which we are likely to bring the Syro-Arabian into relations of contrast or accordance, is now universally known—theIndo-Germanic. Like it, by taking up only the two extreme members of a whole sisterhood according to their geographical position when in their native seats, it embraces all the intermediate branches under a common band; and, like it, it constitutes a name which is not only at once intelligible, but one which in itself conveys a notion of that affinity between the sister dialects, which it is one of the objects ofcomparative philology to demonstrate and to apply.
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Ruhlen, Merritt (1991).A Guide to the World's Languages: Classification. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.ISBN0-8047-1894-6.Archived from the original on 26 May 2024. Retrieved26 August 2020.The other linguistic group to be recognized in the eighteenth century was the Semitic family. The German scholar Ludwig von Schlozer is often credited with having recognized, and named, the Semitic family in 1781. But the affinity of Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic had been recognized for centuries by Jewish, Christian and Islamic scholars, and this knowledge was published in Western Europe as early as 1538 (see Postel 1538). Around 1700 Hiob Ludolf, who had written grammars of Geez and Amharic (both Ethiopic Semitic languages) in the seventeenth century, recognized the extension of the Semitic family into East Africa. Thus when von Schlozer named the family in 1781 he was merely recognizing genetic relationships that had been known for centuries. Three Semitic languages (Aramaic, Arabic, and Hebrew) were long familiar to Europeans both because of their geographic proximity and because the Bible was written in Hebrew and Aramaic.
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