Semitic
Geographic distribution:	Middle East, North Africa, Northeast Africa and Malta
Genetic classification:	Afro-Asiatic  Semitic
Subdivisions:	East Semitic (extinct) West Semitic
ISO 639-2:	sem

The Semitic languages are a family of languages spoken by more than 300 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. North Africa or Northern Africa is the Northernmost Region of the African Continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan The Horn of Africa (alternatively Northeast Africa, and sometimes Somali Peninsula; shortened to HOA) is a Peninsula in East Africa They constitute the only branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in Asia. The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa

The most widely spoken Semitic languages today are Arabic^[1] (325 million native speakers),^[2] followed by Amharic (27 million),^[3][4] Tigrinya (about 6. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Amharic (አማርኛ amarəñña) is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara. Tigrinya ( Ge'ez: ትግርኛ tigriññā) also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrina, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is 7 million) ^[5], and Hebrew (about 5 million)^[6].

Semitic languages were among the earliest to attain a written form, with Eblaite and Akkadian writing beginning in an adapted cuneiform script around the middle of the third millennium BC. Eblaite (also known as Eblan 639-3 is an extinct perhaps East Semitic language, which was spoken in the 3rd millennium BCE in the ancient city of Ebla Other scripts used for Semitic languages have included the Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, South Arabian, and Ge'ez alphabets. The Ugaritic alphabet is a Cuneiform Abjad (alphabet without vowels used from around 1500 BCE for the Ugaritic language, an extinct The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to originate around 1050 BC The Aramaic alphabet is an Abjad, a Consonantal Alphabet, used for writing Aramaic. The Syriac alphabet is a Writing system used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad المُسند branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. Ge'ez (gez ግዕዝ) also called Ethiopic, is an Abugida script that was originally developed to write Ge'ez, a Semitic language Maltese is the only Semitic language that uses the Latin alphabet. Maltese (Maltese Malti is the National language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,

The term "Semitic" for these languages, after Shem, the son of Noah in the Bible, is etymologically a misnomer in some ways (see Semitic), but is nonetheless standard. Shem (; Greek: Σημ, Sēm; Arabic: ar سام; Ge'ez: ሴም Sēm; "renown prosperity name" Noah (or Noe, Noach;; Nūḥ; Arabic: نوح; "Rest") was according to the Bible, the tenth and last of Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin Etymology is the study of the History of Words &mdash when they entered a language from what source and how their form and meaning have changed over time A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue In Linguistics and Ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical " Shem " Hebrew שם translated as "name" Arabic: ساميّ

Contents 1 History 1.1 Origins 1.2 2nd millennium BC(E) 1.3 1st millennium BC(E) 1.4 Common Era / A.D. 2 Present situation 3 Grammar 3.1 Word order 3.2 Cases in nouns and adjectives 3.3 Number in nouns 3.4 Verb aspect and tense 3.5 Morphology: triliteral roots 4 Common vocabulary 5 Classification 5.1 East Semitic languages 5.2 West Semitic languages 5.2.1 Central Semitic languages 5.2.1.1 Northwest Semitic languages 5.2.1.2 Arabic languages 5.2.2 South Semitic languages 5.2.2.1 Western South Semitic languages 5.2.2.2 Eastern South Semitic languages 6 Living Semitic languages by number of speakers 7 References 8 See also 9 Bibliography 10 External links

History

Origins

Main article: Proto-Semitic

The Semitic family is a member of the larger Afro-Asiatic family, all the other five or more branches of which are based in Africa. Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical Proto-language of the Semitic languages. The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written in Biblical Hebrew (and the related Biblical Aramaic A targum ( Hebrew: תרגום plural targumim, lit "translation interpretation" is an Aramaic Translation of the Hebrew Ge'ez (ግዕዝ, ɡɨʕɨz also transliterated Gi'iz, and referred to as Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic Language The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa Largely for this reason, the ancestors of Proto-Semitic speakers are now widely believed to have first arrived in the Middle East from Africa, possibly as part of the operation of the Saharan pump, around the late Neolithic. The Sahara Pump Theory explains how flora and fauna left Africa to penetrate the Middle East and beyond to Europe and Asia ^[7][8] However, an opposing theory is that Proto-Afro-Asiatic originated in the Middle East, and Semitic was the only branch to stay put. ^[9]

In any event, Proto-Semitic itself is assumed to have reached the Arabian Peninsula by approximately the 4th millennium BC, from which Semitic daughter languages continued to spread outwards. Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical Proto-language of the Semitic languages. The Arabian Peninsula (in Arabic: شبه الجزيرة العربية šibh al-jazīra al-ʻarabīya or جزيرة العرب jazīrat al-ʻarab) The 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture It marks the beginning of the Bronze Age and of Writing. When written records began in the mid 3rd millennium BC, the Semitic-speaking Akkadians and Amorites were entering Mesopotamia from the deserts to the west, and were probably already present in places such as Ebla in Syria. The 3rd millennium BC spans the Early to Middle Bronze Age. It represents a period of time in which Imperialism, or the desire to conquer grew to prominence Amorite ( Sumerian MARTU, Akkadian Tidnum or Amurrūm, Egyptian Amar, Hebrew ’emōrî Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding Ebla ( Arabic: عبيل، إيبلا modern Tell Mardikh, Syria) was an ancient city about 55 km southwest of Aleppo.

2nd millennium BC(E)

By the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC(E), East Semitic languages dominated in Mesopotamia, while West Semitic languages were probably spoken from Syria to Yemen, although Old South Arabian is considered by most to be South Semitic and data are sparse. The 2nd millennium BC marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. Yemen ( Arabic: اليَمَن al-Yaman officially the Republic of Yemen ( Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية al-Jumhuuriyya Akkadian had become the dominant literary language of the Fertile Crescent, using the cuneiform script they adapted from the Sumerians, while the sparsely attested Eblaite disappeared with the city, and Amorite is attested only from proper names. The Fertile Crescent is a Crescent -shaped region in the Middle East, originally incorporating the Levant and Ancient Mesopotamia, and often Sumer ( Sumerian: sux-Latn [[Ki (earth ki]]-[[EN (cuneiform en]]-'''ĝir15''', Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar Eblaite (also known as Eblan 639-3 is an extinct perhaps East Semitic language, which was spoken in the 3rd millennium BCE in the ancient city of Ebla Amorite is an early Northwest Semitic language, spoken by the Amorite tribes prominent in early Near Eastern history

For the 2nd millennium, somewhat more data are available, thanks to the spread of an invention first used to capture the sounds of Semitic languages — the alphabet. An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either Proto-Canaanite texts from around 1500 BC(E) yield the first undisputed attestations of a West Semitic language (although earlier testimonies are possibly preserved in Middle Bronze Age alphabets), followed by the much more extensive Ugaritic tablets of northern Syria from around 1300 BC(E). The Proto-Canaanite alphabet is a consonantal alphabet of twenty-two acrophonic glyphs found in Levantine texts of the Late Bronze Age (from ca The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar Undeciphered scripts dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BCE and believed to be ancestral The Ugaritic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 is known only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit, near the modern Incursions of nomadic Aramaeans from the Syrian desert begin around this time. The Aramaeans (also Arameans) ( Aramaic / Syriac: ܐܪܡܝܐ, Ārāmāye' were a Semitic (West Semitic language group Akkadian continued to flourish, splitting into Babylonian and Assyrian dialects. Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) with Babylon as its capital Early history The most Neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna, the center of the Hassuna culture

1st millennium BC(E)

In the 1st millennium BC(E), the alphabet spread much further, giving us a picture not just of Canaanite but also of Aramaic, Old South Arabian, and early Ge'ez. See Syriac (disambiguation for other uses Syriac (syr ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ leššānā Suryāyā) is an Eastern Aramaic language The 1st millennium BC encompasses the Iron Age and sees the rise of successive empires The Canaanite languages or Hebraic languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region Aramaic is a Semitic language with The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad المُسند branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. Ge'ez (ግዕዝ, ɡɨʕɨz also transliterated Gi'iz, and referred to as Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic Language During this period, the case system, once vigorous in Ugaritic, seems to have started decaying in Northwest Semitic. The Ugaritic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 is known only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit, near the modern Phoenician colonies spread their Canaanite language throughout much of the Mediterranean, while its close relative Hebrew became the vehicle of a religious literature, the Torah and Tanakh, that would have global ramifications. Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Pūt in Ancient Egyptian Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew, and term " Torah " ( Hebrew: תּוֹרָה "teaching" or "instruction" sometimes translated as "Law" most commonly refers to See also Old testament, Septuagint, Targum, Peshitta The Tanakh (תַּנַ"ךְ (taˈnax or; also Tenakh or Tenak is However, as an ironic result of the Assyrian Empire's conquests, Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent, gradually pushing Akkadian, Hebrew, Phoenician, and several other languages to extinction (although Hebrew remained in use as a liturgical language), and developing a substantial literature. Early history The most Neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna, the center of the Hassuna culture Aramaic is a Semitic language with A lingua franca (from Italian, literally meaning Frankish language, see etymology under Sabir and Italian below is any Language widely A sacred language, or liturgical language, is a Language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life Meanwhile, Ge'ez texts beginning in this era give the first direct record of Ethiopian Semitic languages. Ge'ez (ግዕዝ, ɡɨʕɨz also transliterated Gi'iz, and referred to as Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic Language Ethiopian Semitic (also known as Ethiopian Ethiosemitic Ethiopic is a language group which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South

Common Era / A. D.

Syriac, a descendent of Aramaic used in the northern Levant and Mesopotamia, rose to importance as a literary language of early Christianity in the 3rd to 5th centuries and continued into the early Islamic era. The Qur’an ( القرآن, literally "the recitation" also sometimes transliterated as Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language See Syriac (disambiguation for other uses Syriac (syr ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ leššānā Suryāyā) is an Eastern Aramaic language Aramaic is a Semitic language with See also Names of the Levant The Levant (lə'vænt is a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia, roughly bounded on the north by the Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation.

With the emergence of Islam in the 7th century, the ascent of Aramaic was dealt a fatal blow by the Arab conquests, which made another Semitic language — Arabic — the official language of an empire stretching from Spain to Central Asia. For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. The 7th century is the period from 601 to 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. The araB gene Promoter is a bacterial promoter activated by e L-arabinose binding Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east and from southern Russia in the north to northern Pakistan in the south

With the patronage of the caliphs and the prestige of its liturgical status, it rapidly became one of the world's main literary languages. The Caliph is the Head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the leader of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah A sacred language, or liturgical language, is a Language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life Its spread among the masses took much longer; however, as native populations outside the Arabian Peninsula gradually abandoned their mother tongues for Arabic and as Bedouin tribes settled in conquered areas, it became the main language of not only central Arabia, but also Yemen,^[10] the Fertile Crescent, and Egypt. The Arabian Peninsula (in Arabic: شبه الجزيرة العربية šibh al-jazīra al-ʻarabīya or جزيرة العرب jazīrat al-ʻarab) The Bedouin, (from the Arabic (ar بدوي pl badū) are a desert-dwelling Arab Nomadic pastoralist, or previously Most of the Maghreb (Northwest Africa) followed, particularly in the wake of the Banu Hilal's incursion in the 11th century, and Arabic became the native language even of many inhabitants of Spain. The Maghreb (المغرب العربي al-Maġrib al-ʿArabī) also rendered Maghrib (or rarely Moghreb) meaning "place of Sunset The Banu Hilal ( بنو هلال) were a confederation of Arab tribes that migrated from Arabia into North Africa in the 11th century, having Al-Andalus (الأندلس was the Arabic name given to those parts of the Iberian Peninsula governed by Muslims or After the collapse of the Nubian kingdom of Dongola in the 14th century, Arabic began to spread south of Egypt; soon after, the Beni Hassan brought Arabization to Mauritania. This article is about the region in Africa for other uses see Nubia (disambiguation. You may be looking for the US town of Dongola Illinois. Dongola (also spelled Dunqulah or Dunqula Beni Ḥassān ( Arabic: بني حسان "sons of Ḥassān" was a Bedouin group one of several Yemeni Maqil Arab Arabization ( Arabic: تعريب) describes a growing cultural influence on a non-Arab area that gradually changes into one that speaks Arabic and/or Mauritania (موريتانيا Mūrītāniyā officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country

Meanwhile, Semitic languages were diversifying in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where, under heavy Cushitic influence, they split into a number of languages, including Amharic and Tigrinya. NOTE This intro is the result of careful NPOV work Please do not make potentially controversial edits to it without first discussing on the talk page Eritrea () ( Ge'ez: ኤርትራ ʾErtrā, Arabic: إرتريا Iritriya) officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa. Amharic (አማርኛ amarəñña) is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara. Tigrinya ( Ge'ez: ትግርኛ tigriññā) also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrina, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is With the expansion of Ethiopia under the Solomonic dynasty, Amharic, previously a minor local language, spread throughout much of the country, replacing languages both Semitic (such as Gafat) and non-Semitic (such as Weyto), and replacing Ge'ez as the principal literary language (though Ge'ez remains the liturgical language for Christians in the region); this spread continues to this day, with Qemant set to disappear in another generation. NOTE This intro is the result of careful NPOV work Please do not make potentially controversial edits to it without first discussing on the talk page The Solomonic dynasty is the traditional royal house of Ethiopia, claiming descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, who is said The Gafat language is an extinct Semitic language that was once spoken along the Abbay River in Ethiopia. The Weyto language is believed to be an Extinct language formerly spoken in the Lake Tana region of Ethiopia by a small group of Hippopotamus Ge'ez (ግዕዝ, ɡɨʕɨz also transliterated Gi'iz, and referred to as Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic Language

Present situation

Arabic is spoken natively by majorities from Mauritania to Oman, and from Iraq to the Sudan. Mauritania (موريتانيا Mūrītāniyā officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman ( Arabic: سلطنة عُمان) is an Arab Country in Southwest Asia on the southeast For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iraq topics. Sudan (officially the Republic of Sudan) ( السودان al-Sūdān is a country in northeastern Africa. As the language of the Qur'an and as a lingua franca, it is widely studied in much of the non-Arabic-speaking Muslim world as well. The Qur’an ( القرآن, literally "the recitation" also sometimes transliterated as Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran A lingua franca (from Italian, literally meaning Frankish language, see etymology under Sabir and Italian below is any Language widely The term Muslim world (or Islamic world) has several meanings Its spoken form is divided into a number of dialects, some not mutually comprehensible, united by a single written form. See Arabic languages for the historical family of dialects The Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties Maltese, genetically a descendant of the North African dialect of Arabic, is the principal exception, having adopted a Latin orthography in accordance with its cultural situation. Maltese (Maltese Malti is the National language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,

Despite the ascendancy of Arabic in the Middle East, other Semitic languages are still to be found there. Hebrew, long extinct as a colloquial language and in use only in Jewish literary, intellectual, and liturgical activity, was revived at the end of the 19th century by the Jewish linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, and has become the main language of Israel, while remaining the language of liturgy and religious scholarship of Jews worldwide. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields For the street named for Eliezer Ben Yehuda in Jerusalem, Israel, see Ben Yehuda Street. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics.

Several small ethnic groups, especially the Assyrians, continue to speak Aramaic dialects (especially Neo-Aramaic, descended from Syriac) in the mountains of northern Iraq, eastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, and northeast Syria, while Syriac itself, a descendant of Old Aramaic, is used liturgically by Syrian and Iraqi Christians. The Assyrians are an Ethnic group whose origins lie in what is today Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Aramaic is a Semitic language with Neo-Aramaic, or Modern Aramaic, languages are varieties of Aramaic that are spoken as a Mother tongue in the modern era. See Syriac (disambiguation for other uses Syriac (syr ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ leššānā Suryāyā) is an Eastern Aramaic language For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iraq topics. Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. Syria ( سوريّة or) officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic ar الجمهورية العربية السورية See Syriac (disambiguation for other uses Syriac (syr ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ leššānā Suryāyā) is an Eastern Aramaic language

In Arabic-dominated Yemen and Oman, on the southern rim of the Arabian Peninsula, a few tribes continue to speak Modern South Arabian languages such as Mahri and Soqotri, very different both from the surrounding Arabic and from the (presumably related) languages of the Old South Arabian inscriptions. Yemen ( Arabic: اليَمَن al-Yaman officially the Republic of Yemen ( Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية al-Jumhuuriyya Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman ( Arabic: سلطنة عُمان) is an Arab Country in Southwest Asia on the southeast The Arabian Peninsula (in Arabic: شبه الجزيرة العربية šibh al-jazīra al-ʻarabīya or جزيرة العرب jazīrat al-ʻarab) The Modern South Arabian (or Eastern South Semitic languages are spoken mainly by tiny minority populations on the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and Oman. Mehri or Mahri is a Modern South Arabian language a branch of the greater Semitic language family and is spoken by minority populations in isolated Soqotri (soq - méthel d-saqátri arab - اللغة السقطرية is the language of the native population of the island of Socotra, and Abd-el-Kuri and Samhah Old South Arabian (or Epigraphic South Arabian) is the term used for four closely related languages spoken in the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula.

Historically linked to the peninsular homeland of the South Arabian languages, Ethiopia and Eritrea contain a substantial number of Semitic languages, of which Amharic and Tigrinya in Ethiopia, and Tigre and Tigrinya in Eritrea, are the most widely spoken. NOTE This intro is the result of careful NPOV work Please do not make potentially controversial edits to it without first discussing on the talk page Eritrea () ( Ge'ez: ኤርትራ ʾErtrā, Arabic: إرتريا Iritriya) officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in Amharic (አማርኛ amarəñña) is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara. Tigrinya ( Ge'ez: ትግርኛ tigriññā) also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrina, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is For other uses please see Tigre (disambiguation Tigre ( Ge'ez ትግረ tigre or ትግሬ tigrē; sometimes written as Tigrinya ( Ge'ez: ትግርኛ tigriññā) also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrina, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is Both Amharic and Tigrinya are official languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea, respectively, while Tigre, spoken in the northern Eritrean and central lowlands, as well as parts of eastern Sudan, has over one million speakers. Amharic (አማርኛ amarəñña) is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara. Tigrinya ( Ge'ez: ትግርኛ tigriññā) also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrina, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is For other uses please see Tigre (disambiguation Tigre ( Ge'ez ትግረ tigre or ትግሬ tigrē; sometimes written as A number of Gurage languages are to be found in the mountainous center-south of Ethiopia, while Harari is restricted to the city of Harar. Gurage is an ethnic group in Ethiopia. The Gurage people inhabit a semi-fertile semi-mountainous region in southwest Ethiopia, about 150 miles southwest Harari (sometimes (Haderi or (Hadere) is the language of the Harari people of Ethiopia. Harar (var Harrar, Hārer, Harer; Adari) is an eastern city in Ethiopia, and the capital of the modern Harari Ge'ez remains the liturgical language for Christians in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Ge'ez (ግዕዝ, ɡɨʕɨz also transliterated Gi'iz, and referred to as Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic Language A sacred language, or liturgical language, is a Language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life

Grammar

The Semitic languages share a number of grammatical features, although variation has naturally occurred - even within the same language as it evolved through time, such as Arabic from the 6th century AD to the present.

Word order

The reconstructed default word order in Proto-Semitic is Verb Subject Object (VSO), possessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective (NA). Verb Subject Object ( VSO) is a term in Linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages when classifying languages according to the sequence of these In Classical and Modern Standard Arabic, this is still the dominant order: ra'ā muħammadun farīdan. (lit. saw Muhammad Farid, Muhammad saw Farid). However, VSO has given way in most modern Semitic languages to typologically more common orders (e. g. SVO); in many modern Arabic dialects, for example, the classical order VSO has given way to SVO, and the same happened in Hebrew and Maltese (due to Europeanisation). Europeanisation (or Europeanization) refers to a number of related phenomena and patterns of change Modern Ethiopian Semitic languages are SOV, possessor–possessed, and adjective–noun, probably due to Cushitic influence; however, the oldest attested Ethiopian Semitic language, Ge'ez, was VSO, possessed–possessor, and noun–adjective[4]. Ge'ez (ግዕዝ, ɡɨʕɨz also transliterated Gi'iz, and referred to as Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic Language

Cases in nouns and adjectives

The proto-Semitic three-case system (nominative, accusative and genitive) with differing vowel endings (-u, -a -i), fully preserved in Qur'anic Arabic (see i`rab), Akkadian, and Ugaritic, has disappeared everywhere in the many colloquial forms of Semitic languages, although Modern Standard Arabic maintains such case endings in literary and broadcasting contexts. The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another An accusative ending -n is preserved in Ethiopian Semitic. ^[11] Additionally, Semitic nouns and adjectives had a category of state, the indefinite state being expressed by nunation. In some Semitic languages, notably Arabic, nunation (the Arabic term is tanwīn) is the addition of a final -n to a Noun

Number in nouns

Semitic languages originally had three grammatical numbers: singular, dual, and plural. In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" Dual is a Grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and Plural. Plural is a Grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the Referent in the real world The dual continues to be used in contemporary dialects of Arabic, as in the name for the nation of Bahrain (baħr "sea" + -ayn "two"), and sporadically in Hebrew (šana means "one year", šnatayim means "two years", and šanim means "years"), and in Maltese (sena means "one year", sentejn means "two years", and snin means "years"). Maltese (Maltese Malti is the National language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English, The curious phenomenon of broken plurals - e. In Linguistics, broken plurals are a grammatical phenomenon typical in many Semitic languages of the Middle East and Ethiopia in which a singular g. in Arabic, sadd "one dam" vs. sudūd "dams" - found most profusely in the languages of Arabia and Ethiopia, and still common in Maltese, may be partly of proto-Semitic origin, and partly elaborated from simpler origins. Maltese (Maltese Malti is the National language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,

Verb aspect and tense

The aspect systems of West and East Semitic differ substantially; Akkadian preserves a number of features generally attributed to Afro-Asiatic, such as gemination indicating the imperfect, while a stative form, still maintained in Akkadian, became a new perfect in West Semitic. Proto-West Semitic maintained two main verb aspects: perfect for completed action (with pronominal suffixes) and imperfect for uncompleted action (with pronominal prefixes and suffixes). In the extreme case of Neo-Aramaic, however, even the verb conjugations have been entirely reworked under Iranian influence.

Morphology: triliteral roots

All Semitic languages exhibit a unique pattern of stems consisting typically of "triliteral", or 3-consonant consonantal roots (2- and 4-consonant roots also exist), from which nouns, adjectives, and verbs are formed in various ways: e. In the terminology used to discuss the grammar of the Semitic languages and some other Afro-Asiatic languages, a triliteral ( Arabic: جذر ثلاثي g. by inserting vowels, doubling consonants, and/or adding prefixes, suffixes, or infixes. An infix is an Affix inserted inside a stem (an existing word

For instance, the root k-t-b, (dealing with "writing" generally) yields in Arabic:

kataba كتب "he wrote" (masculine)

kutiba كتب "it was written" (masculine)

kutibat كتبت "it was written" (feminine)

kitāb- كتاب "book" (dash - here shows end of stem before various case endings)

kutub- كتب "books" (plural)

kutayyib- كتيب "booklet" (diminutive)

kitābat- كتابة "writing"

kātib- كاتب "writer" (masculine)

kātibat- كاتبة "writer" (feminine)

kuttāb- كتاب "writers"

katabat- كتبة "writers"

maktab- مكتب "desk" or "office"

maktabat- مكتبة "library" or "bookshop"

maktūb- مكتوب "written" (participle) or "postal letter" (noun)

and the same root in Hebrew (where it appears as k-t-ḇ):

kataḇti כתבתי "I wrote"

kataḇta כתבת "you (m) wrote"

kataḇ כתב "he wrote" or "reporter" (m)

katteḇet כתבת "reporter" (f)

kattaḇa כתבה "article" (plural katavot כתבות)

miḵtaḇ מכתב "postal letter" (plural miḵtaḇim מכתבים)

miḵtaḇa מכתבה "writing desk" (plural miḵtaḇot מכתבות)

ktoḇet כתובת "address" (plural ktoḇot כתובות)

ktaḇ כתב "handwriting"

katuḇ כתוב "written" (f ktuḇa כתובה)

hiḵtiḇ הכתיב "he dictated" (f hiḵtiḇa הכתיבה)

hitkatteḇ התכתב "he corresponded (f hitkatḇa התכתבה)

niḵtaḇ נכתב "it was written" (m)

niḵteḇa נכתבה "it was written" (f)

ktiḇ כתיב "spelling" (m)

taḵtiḇ תכתיב "prescript" (m)

meḵuttaḇ מכותב "a person on one's mailing list" (meḵutteḇet מכותבת f)

ktubba כתובה "ketubah (a Jewish marriage contract)" (f) (note: b here, not ḇ)

In Maltese, the consonantal roots are referred as the mamma of each word, which can be determined by reference to the masculine past tense of the applicable verb. In the case of the verb "to write", the masculine past tense would be kiteb (k-t-b), so that the following nouns and verbs can be formed, using the same mamma always in the same order, but inserting different vowels and, occasionally additional consonants:

jiena ktibt "I wrote"

inti ktibt "you wrote" (m or f)

huwa kiteb "he wrote"

hija kitbet "she wrote"

aħna ktibna "we wrote"

intkom ktibtu "you (pl) wrote

huma kitbu "they wrote"

huwa miktub "it is written"

kittieb "writer"

kittieba "writers"

ktieb "book"

kotba "books"

In Tigrinya and Amharic, this root survives only in the noun kitab, meaning "amulet", and the verb "to vaccinate". Ethiopic-derived languages use a completely different root (ṣ-ḥ-f) for the verb "to write" (this root exists in Arabic and is used to form words with close meaning to "writing", such as ṣaḥāfa "journalism", and ṣaḥīfa "newspaper" or "parchment").

Verbs in other non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic languages show similar radical patterns, but more usually with biconsonantal roots; e. The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa g. Kabyle afeg means "fly!", while affug means "flight", and yufeg means "he flew" (compare with Hebrew uf, te'ufah and af). Kabyle is a Berber language (Kabyle Ṯaqbayliṯ,, ˌθæqβæjˈlɪθ spoken by the Kabyle people

Common vocabulary

Main article: List of Proto-Semitic stems. This is a list of Proto-Semitic stems ( Triconsonantal roots and extensions with their reflexes in several Semitic languages (i

Due to the Semitic languages' common origin, they share many words and roots in common. For example:

English	Proto-Semitic	Akkadian	Mehri	Arabic	Hebrew	Syriac	Ge'ez	Phoenician
father	*ʼab-	ḥa-yb	ab-	ʼab-	ʼāḇ	ʼab-ā	ʼab	ab-
heart	*lib(a)b-	ḥa-wbēb	libb-	lubb-	lēḇ(āḇ)	lebb-o	libb	lib
house	bayt-	beyt, bêt	bītu, bētu	bayt-	báyiṯ, bêṯ	beyt-o	bet	bet
peace	*šalām-	səlōm	šalām-	salām-	šālôm	shlom-o	salām	salem
tongue	*lišān-/*lašān-	əwšēn	lišān-	lisān-	lāšôn	leššān-o	lissān	lshen
water	*may-/*māy-	ḥə-mō	mû (root *mā-/*māy-)	māʼ-	máyim	mayy-ā	māy	maym

Sometimes certain roots differ in meaning from one Semitic language to another. Mehri or Mahri is a Modern South Arabian language a branch of the greater Semitic language family and is spoken by minority populations in isolated Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language See Syriac (disambiguation for other uses Syriac (syr ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ leššānā Suryāyā) is an Eastern Aramaic language Ge'ez (ግዕዝ, ɡɨʕɨz also transliterated Gi'iz, and referred to as Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic Language Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Pūt in Ancient Egyptian Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew, and For example, the root b-y-ḍ in Arabic has the meaning of "white" as well as "egg", just as in Maltese bajda means "white" (f. sing. ) and also "egg", whereas in Hebrew it only means "egg". The root l-b-n means "milk" in Arabic, but the color "white" in Hebrew. The root l-ḥ-m means "meat" in Arabic, but "bread" in Hebrew and "cow" in Ethiosemitic languages; the original meaning was most probably "food". Ethiopian Semitic (also known as Ethiopian Ethiosemitic Ethiopic is a language group which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South The word medina (root: m-d-n) has the meaning of "city" in Arabic, and "metropolis" in Amharic, but in Modern Hebrew it means "state". A city is an Urban area with a large Population and a particular Administrative, Legal, or Historical status A metropolis (from the Greek μήτηρ mētēr meaning 'mother' and πόλις pólis meaning 'city/town' is a big City, in most cases with A state is a political association with effective Sovereignty over a geographic Area and representing a Population.

Of course, there is sometimes no relation between the roots. For example, "knowledge" is represented in Hebrew by the root y-d-ʿ but in Arabic by the roots ʿ-r-f and ʿ-l-m and in Ethiosemitic by the root ʿ-w-q and f-l-ṭ.

Classification

The classification given below, based on shared innovations - established by Robert Hetzron in 1976 with later emendations by John Huehnergard and Rodgers as summarized in Hetzron 1997 - is the most widely accepted today, but is still disputed. Robert Hetzron, born Herzog ( 31 December 1937 &ndash 1997 was a Hungarian linguist who focused primarily on Afro-Asiatic languages, especially In particular, several Semiticists still argue for the traditional view of Arabic as part of South Semitic, and a few (e. g. Alexander Militarev or the German-Egyptian professor Arafa Hussein Mustafa ^[12]) see the South Arabian languages as a third branch of Semitic alongside East and West Semitic, rather than as a subgroup of South Semitic. 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 below - and the strong mutual influences between Arabic dialects render a genetic subclassification of them particularly difficult.

The traditional grouping of the Semitic languages (prior to the 1970s), based partly on non-linguistic data, differs in several respects; in particular, Arabic was put in South Semitic, and Eblaite had not been discovered yet.

East Semitic languages

• Akkadian — extinct
• Eblaite — extinct

West Semitic languages

Central Semitic languages

Northwest Semitic languages

• Amorite — extinct
• Ugaritic — extinct
• Canaanite languages
  • Ammonite — extinct
  • Moabite — extinct
  • Edomite — extinct
  • Hebrew
    • Biblical Hebrew — used by scholars and Rabbis and in the public reading of the Torah. The East Semitic languages constitute one of the three major subdivisions of Semitic languages, the other being West Semitic and South Semitic. Eblaite (also known as Eblan 639-3 is an extinct perhaps East Semitic language, which was spoken in the 3rd millennium BCE in the ancient city of Ebla The West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of Semitic languages. The Central Semitic languages are an intermediate group of Semitic languages, comprising Arabic and Northwest Semitic (including Canaanite The Northwest Semitic languages form a medium-level division of the Semitic language family. Amorite is an early Northwest Semitic language, spoken by the Amorite tribes prominent in early Near Eastern history The Ugaritic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 is known only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit, near the modern The Canaanite languages or Hebraic languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region The Ammonite language is the extinct Hebrew Canaanite language of the Ammonite people mentioned in the Bible, who used to live in modern-day The Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language spoken in Moab (modern-day northwestern Jordan) in the early first millennium BC The Edomite language was a Canaanite language spoken by the Edomites in southwestern Jordan in the first millennium BC Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions Survived in Modern Hebrew
    • Mishnaic Hebrew — used in the reading of the Talmud and other Rabbinic writings. The term Mishnaic Hebrew refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible Probably spoken among Rabbis in the Middle Ages
    • Medieval Hebrew — Developed into Modern Hebrew
    • Mizrahi Hebrew — Spoken in Israel, Yemen, Iraq, Puerto Rico, and New York etc
    • Teimani Hebrew — Spoken mainly by Yemenite Jews
    • Sephardi Hebrew — Modern pronunciation of Hebrew follows it
    • Ashkenazi Hebrew — live descendants
    • Samaritan Hebrew — Spoken in Holon, Tel Aviv and Nablus (Palestinian Authority territory). Medieval Hebrew has many features that distinguish it from older forms of Hebrew. Mizrahi Hebrew or Oriental Hebrew refers to any one of the pronunciation systems for Biblical Hebrew used liturgically by Mizrahi Jews, that is Jews Yemenite Hebrew, also referred to as Temani Hebrew, is the pronunciation system for Biblical and liturgical Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Sephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice Ashkenazi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice The Samaritan Hebrew language is a descendant of Biblical Hebrew as pronounced and written by the Samaritans It is used in the reading tradition of the Samaritan
    • Modern Hebrew — also called Israelit
  • Phoenician — extinct
    • Punic — extinct
• Aramaic languages
  • Western Aramaic languages
    • Nabataean — extinct
    • Western Middle Aramaic languages
      • Jewish Middle Palestinian Aramaic — extinct
      • Samaritan Aramaic — live descendants
      • Christian Palestinian Aramaic — extinct
    • Western Neo-Aramaic (Ma'aloula) — live descendants
  • Eastern Aramaic languages
    • Biblical Aramaic — extinct
    • Hatran Aramaic — extinct
    • Syriac — live descendants
    • Jewish Middle Babylonian Aramaic — extinct
    • Chaldean Neo-Aramaic (Alqosh) — live descendants
    • Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (Urmia and Hakkari) — live descendants
    • Senaya — live descendants
    • Koy Sanjaq Surat — live descendants
    • Hertevin — live descendants
    • Turoyo — live descendants
    • Mlahso — extinct
    • Mandaic — live descendants
    • Judaeo-Aramaic — live descendants

Arabic languages

• Old North Arabian — extinct
• Arabic
  • Fusha — (اللغة العربية الفصحى literally "eloquent"), the written language, divided by specialists into:
    • Classical Arabic — the language of the Qur'an and early Islamic Arabic literature,
    • Middle Arabic — a generic term for premodern post-classical efforts to write Classical Arabic, characterized by frequent hypercorrections and occasional lapses into more colloquial usage. Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Pūt in Ancient Egyptian Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew, and The Punics, (from Latin pūnicus meaning Phoenician were a group of Western Semitic speaking peoples originating from Carthage Aramaic is a Semitic language with Western Aramaic languages consists of several Aramaic dialects spoken throughout the Levant in ancient times The Nabataean language was a Semitic language and was the written language of the Nabataeans. Samaritan Aramaic, or Samaritan, is the dialect of Aramaic used by the Samaritans in their sacred and scholarly literature Western Neo-Aramaic is a Modern Aramaic language. Today it is spoken in three villages in the Anti-Lebanon mountains of western Syria. Eastern Aramaic languages have developed from the varieties of Aramaic that developed in and around Mesopotamia, as opposed to western varieties of the Levant Biblical Aramaic is the form of the Aramaic language that is used in the books of Daniel, Ezra and a few other places in the Hebrew Bible. See Syriac (disambiguation for other uses Syriac (syr ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ leššānā Suryāyā) is an Eastern Aramaic language Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is a Northeastern Neo-Aramaic language Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is spoken on the Plain of Mosul in northern Iraq, as well as by the Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is a modern Eastern Aramaic or Syriac language. The Senaya language is a modern Eastern Aramaic or Syriac language. Koy Sanjaq Surat is a modern Eastern Aramaic or Syriac language The Hértevin language is a modern Eastern Aramaic or Syriac language Turoyo is a Modern West Syriac language, a dialect of Aramaic. Mlahsô is a Modern West Syriac language, a dialect of Aramaic. The Mandaic language is the Liturgical language of the Mandaean religion Judæo-Aramaic is a collective term used to describe several Hebrew -influenced Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic Languages History The Arabic language family consists of The Arabic macrolanguage ( ISO 639-3 ara including the living Varieties of Arabic Ancient North Arabian is known from fragmentary inscriptions in Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia, dating to between roughly the 6th century Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Literary Arabic (ar اللغة العربية الفصحى "the Eloquent Arabic language" or Standard Arabic is the literary and standard variety Classical Arabic (CA also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad Hypercorrection is a Linguistic phenomenon which may take any of the following forms an elaborate prescriptively based correction of common Not a spoken language.
    • Modern Standard Arabic — modern literary (non-native) language used in formal media and written communication throughout the Arab World, differing from Classical Arabic mainly in numerous neologisms for concepts not found in medieval times, as well as in occasional calques on idioms from Western languages. Literary Arabic (ar اللغة العربية الفصحى "the Eloquent Arabic language" or Standard Arabic is the literary and standard variety In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word
• Numerous Modern Arabic spoken dialects — roughly divided by the Ethnologue into:
  • Eastern Arabic dialects
    • Arabian Peninsular dialects
      • Dhofari Arabic — Oman/Yemen
      • Hadrami Arabic — Yemen
      • Hijazi Arabic — Saudi Arabia
      • Najdi Arabic — Saudi Arabia
      • Omani Arabic
      • Sana'ani Arabic — Yemen
      • Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic — Yemen
      • Judeo-Yemeni Arabic
    • Bedouin/Bedawi Arabic dialects
      • Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic
      • Peninsular Bedawi Arabic — Arabian Peninsula
    • Central Asian dialects
      • Central Asian Arabic
      • Khuzestani Arabic
      • Shirvani Arabic— extinct
    • Egyptian Arabic — Cairo and Delta region
      • Saidi Arabic — Upper Egypt
    • Gulf dialects — includes speakers in Iran
      • Baharna Arabic — Bahrain
      • Gulf Arabic — Persian Gulf (all bordering countries)
      • Shihhi Arabic — UAE
    • Levantine Arabic dialects
      • Cypriot Maronite Arabic
      • North Levantine Spoken — Lebanon, Syria
        • Lebanese Arabic
      • South Levantine Spoken — Jordan, Palestinian Authority, West Bank, Israel
        • Palestinian Arabic
    • Iraqi Arabic — Iraq
      • Judeo-Iraqi Arabic
    • Sudanese Arabic
  • Maghrebi Arabic dialects
    • Algerian Arabic
    • Saharan Arabic
    • Shuwa Arabic — Chad
    • Hassaniya Arabic — Mauritania and Saharan area
    • Libyan Arabic
      • Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic — Libyan dialect
    • Andalusi Arabic Old Iberian Arabic — extinct
    • Siculo-Arabic — Sicily, extinct
      • Maltese language — separate language from, but ultimately derived from Arabic and member of the Arabic family of languages/dialects
    • Moroccan Arabic
      • Judeo-Moroccan Arabic
    • Tunisian Arabic
      • Judeo-Tunisian Arabic

Several Jewish dialects, typically with a number of Hebrew loanwords, are grouped together with classical Arabic written in Hebrew script under the imprecise term Judeo-Arabic. See Arabic languages for the historical family of dialects The Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties Ethnologue Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics a Christian Dhofari Arabic (also known as Dhofari Zofari is a variety of Arabic spoken in Salalah, Oman and the surrounding coastal regions ( Yemeni Arabic is the name of a cluster of Arabic varieties spoken in Yemen and northern Somalia. Hejazi Arabic (also known as Hijazi Arabic 639-3 West Arabian Arabic is a variety of the Arabic language spoken in the western region of Saudi Arabia Najdi Arabic ( اللهجة النجدية) is a variety of the Arabic language spoken in the desert regions of central and eastern Saudi Arabia Omani Arabic (also known as Omani Hadari Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Hajar Mountains of Oman and in a few neighboring coastal regions Yemeni Arabic is the name of a cluster of Arabic varieties spoken in Yemen and northern Somalia. Yemeni Arabic is the name of a cluster of Arabic varieties spoken in Yemen and northern Somalia. Judeo-Yemeni Arabic (also known as Judeo-Yemeni Yemenite Judeo-Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken by Jews living or formerly living in Yemen Central Asian Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and currently facing extinction Khuzestani Arabic is a Dialect of Arabic spoken in the Iranian province of Khuzestan. Shirvani Arabic was a dialect of Arabic that was once spoken in what is now central and northwestern Azerbaijan (historically known as Shirvan) and Sa`idi Arabic (also known as Saidi Arabic is the variety of Egyptian Arabic spoken by Sa'idis south of Cairo to the border of Sudan. Gulf Arabic (also known as Khaliji al-lahjat al-khalijiya اللهجة الخليجية is a variety of the Arabic language spoken around both shores of the Levantine Arabic (Arabic شامي (Shami and sometimes called Eastern Arabic) is a group of Arabic varieties spoken in the 100 km-wide eastern-Mediterranean Cypriot Maronite Arabic (also known as Cypriot Arabic Maronite Sanna is one of the most divergent of Arabic varieties, spoken by Maronites in Cyprus Lebanese or Lebanese Arabic is the colloquial form of Arabic spoken in Lebanon. Palestinian Arabic is a Levantine Arabic dialect subgroup spoken by Palestinians and Arab Israelis. Iraqi Arabic (also known as Mesopotamian Arabic 639-3 Mesopotamian Qeltu Arabic Mesopotamian Gelet Arabic Baghdadi Arabic Furati 'Arabi Arabi North Syrian Arabic is a Judeo-Iraqi Arabic (also known as Iraqi Judeo-Arabic Arabi Yahudic is a variety of Arabic spoken by Jews living or formerly living in Iraq Sudanese Arabic is the variety of Arabic spoken throughout northern Sudan. Maghrebi Arabic is a cover term for the varieties of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Algerian Arabic is the variety or varieties of Arabic spoken in Algeria. Algerian Saharan Arabic (also known as Saharan Arabic Tamanrasset Arabic Tamanghasset Arabic is a structurally distinct variety of Arabic spoken by an estimated Chadian Arabic or Shuwa Arabic (also known as Arabe Choa Shua Arabic Shua Chowa Chad Arabic Suwa L'arabe du Tchad Chadic Arabic Baggara is the Variety of Arabic Libyan Arabic (Lībi ليبي also known as Sulaimitian Arabic) is a collective term for the closely related Varieties of Arabic spoken in Libya. Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic (also known as Tripolitanian Judeo-Arabic Jewish Tripolitanian-Libyan Arabic Tripolita'it Yudi is a variety of Arabic spoken by Andalusian Arabic (also known as Andalusi Arabic, Spanish Arabic, or Moorish Arabic) was a variety of the Arabic language spoken in Siculo Arabic (or Sicilian Arabic) was a variety of Arabic spoken in Sicily and Malta between the ninth and the fourteenth centuries Maltese (Maltese Malti is the National language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English, Moroccan Arabic (also known as Darija, الدارجة) is the variety of Arabic spoken in the Arabic -speaking areas of Morocco Judeo-Moroccan Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken by Jews living or formerly living in Morocco. Tunisian Arabic is a Maghrebi Dialect of the Arabic language, spoken by some 11 million people Judeo-Tunisian Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken by Jews living or formerly living in Tunisia. The Judæo-Arabic languages are a collection of Arabic dialects spoken by Jews living or formerly living in the Arab world; the term also refers to

South Semitic languages

Western South Semitic languages

• Old South Arabian languages — extinct, formerly believed to be the linguistic ancestors of modern South Arabian and Ethiopian Semitic languages (for which see below)
  • Sabaean — extinct
  • Minaean — extinct
  • Qatabanian — extinct
  • Hadhramautic — extinct

• Ethiopic languages (Ethio-Semitic, Ethiopian Semitic):
  • North
    • Ge'ez (Ethiopic) — extinct, liturgical use in Ethiopian Orthodox and Eritrean Orthodox Churches
    • Tigrinya — national language of Eritrea
    • Tigré
    • Dahlik language — "newly discovered"
  • South
    • Transversal
      • Amharic-Argobba
        • Amharic — national language of Ethiopia
        • Argobba
      • Harari-East Gurage
        • Harari
        • East Gurage
          • Selti (also spelled Silt'e)
          • Zway (also called Zay)
          • Ulbare
          • Wolane
          • Inneqor
      • Outer
        • n-group:
          • Gafat — extinct
          • Soddo (also called Kistane)
          • Goggot
        • tt-group:
          • Mesmes — extinct
          • Muher
          • West Gurage
            • Masqan (also spelled Mesqan)
              • CPWG
                • Central Western Gurage:
                  • Ezha
                  • Chaha
                  • Gura
                  • Gumer
                • Peripheral Western Gurage:
                  • Gyeto
                  • Ennemor (also called Inor)
                  • Endegen

Eastern South Semitic languages

These languages are spoken mainly by tiny minority populations on the Arabian peninsula in Yemen and Oman. South Semitic is one of the three macro-classifications in Semitic linguistics the other two being East Semitic (e Old South Arabian (or Epigraphic South Arabian) is the term used for four closely related languages spoken in the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. The Sabaean (or to be more exact rather Sabaic) language was an Old South Arabian Language spoken in Yemen from c The Minaean (or to be exact Madhabic) language was an Old South Arabian Language spoken in Yemen between 1200 BC and A One of the four known dialects of Old South Arabian, Qatabian was spoken in Yemen between 100 BC and 600 AD Ethiopian Semitic (also known as Ethiopian Ethiosemitic Ethiopic is a language group which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Ge'ez (ግዕዝ, ɡɨʕɨz also transliterated Gi'iz, and referred to as Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic Language The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (in transliterated Amharic: Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan) is an Oriental The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church is an Oriental Orthodox church. Tigrinya ( Ge'ez: ትግርኛ tigriññā) also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrina, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is For other uses please see Tigre (disambiguation Tigre ( Ge'ez ትግረ tigre or ትግሬ tigrē; sometimes written as Dahlik (Dahaalik Dahalik Dahlak is a newly discovered language spoken exclusively in Eritrea off the coast of Massawa, on three islands in the Dahlak Amharic (አማርኛ amarəñña) is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara. Argobba is an Ethiopian Semitic spoken in an area north-east of Addis Ababa by the Argobba people. Harari (sometimes (Haderi or (Hadere) is the language of the Harari people of Ethiopia. Silt'e (ስልጥኘ or የስልጤ አፍ af is a Semitic language spoken in central Ethiopia, mainly within the Silt'e Zone in the Southern Nations The Zay language is one of the Ethiopic languages. It is spoken by about 4880 members of the Zay people on the islands and shores of Lake Zway in Silt'e (ስልጥኘ or የስልጤ አፍ af is a Semitic language spoken in central Ethiopia, mainly within the Silt'e Zone in the Southern Nations The Gafat language is an extinct Semitic language that was once spoken along the Abbay River in Ethiopia. Soddo (autonym kəstane "Christian" formerly called Aymälläl in Western sources after a particular dialect of it is a Gurage language spoken by about Mesmes language The Mesmes language is an extinct language one of the West Gurage languages, a cluster of Semitic languages in Ethiopia. Muher is an Ethiopian Semitic language belonging to the Gurage group Chaha (in Chaha and Amharic: ቸሃ čehā or čexā) is a Semitic language spoken in central Ethiopia, mainly within the The Modern South Arabian (or Eastern South Semitic languages are spoken mainly by tiny minority populations on the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and Oman. Yemen ( Arabic: اليَمَن al-Yaman officially the Republic of Yemen ( Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية al-Jumhuuriyya Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman ( Arabic: سلطنة عُمان) is an Arab Country in Southwest Asia on the southeast

• Bathari
• Harsusi
• Hobyot
• Jibbali (also called Shehri)
• Mehri
• Soqotri — on the islands of Soqotra, Abd el Kuri and Samha (Yemen) and in the UAE. Bathari (also known as Bautahari Botahari Bathara is an endangered Semitic language spoken in a small area of Yemen and Oman. Harsusi (also known as Hersyet Harsi `Aforit is a Semitic language closely related to Mehri. Hobyót (also known as Hewbyót Hobi is an endangered Semitic language spoken in a small area of Oman and neighboring Yemen. Jibbali (The multiple alternate names include Ehkili Geblet Jibali Qarawi Shahari Shehri and Sheret is a language of Oman, interesting to philologists as one Mehri or Mahri is a Modern South Arabian language a branch of the greater Semitic language family and is spoken by minority populations in isolated Soqotri (soq - méthel d-saqátri arab - اللغة السقطرية is the language of the native population of the island of Socotra, and Abd-el-Kuri and Samhah Socotra or Soqotra ( Arabic سقطرى; Suquṭra) is a small Archipelago of four islands and islets in the Indian Ocean

Living Semitic languages by number of speakers

lang	speakers
Arabic	325,000,000
Amharic	27,000,000
Tigrinya	6,700,000
Hebrew	5,000,000[6]
Syriac	1,500,000
Silt'e	830,000
Tigre	800,000
Neo-Aramaic	605,000
Sebat Bet Gurage	440,000
Maltese	410,000
South Arabian languages	360,000
Inor	280,000
Soddo	250,000
Harari	21,283

References

See also

• List of Proto-Semitic stems
• Proto-Semitic
• Proto-Canaanite alphabet
• Middle Bronze Age alphabets

Bibliography

• Patrick R. This is a list of Proto-Semitic stems ( Triconsonantal roots and extensions with their reflexes in several Semitic languages (i Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical Proto-language of the Semitic languages. The Proto-Canaanite alphabet is a consonantal alphabet of twenty-two acrophonic glyphs found in Levantine texts of the Late Bronze Age (from ca The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar Undeciphered scripts dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BCE and believed to be ancestral Bennett. Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual. Eisenbrauns 1998. ISBN 1-57506-021-3.
• Gotthelf Bergsträsser, Introduction to the Semitic Languages: Text Specimens and Grammatical Sketches. Gotthelf Bergsträsser ( April 5, 1886 - August 16, 1933, Berchtesgaden) was a German linguist specializing in Translated by Peter T. Daniels. Peter T Daniels (born December 11, 1951, currently living in New Jersey is a scholar of Writing systems specializing in typology. Winona Lake, Ind.  : Eisenbrauns 1995. ISBN 0-931464-10-2.
• Giovanni Garbini. Le lingue semitiche: studi di storia linguistica. Istituto Orientale: Napoli 1984.
• Giovanni Garbini & Olivier Durand. Introduzione alle lingue semitiche. Paideia: Brescia 1995.
• Robert Hetzron (ed. Robert Hetzron, born Herzog ( 31 December 1937 &ndash 1997 was a Hungarian linguist who focused primarily on Afro-Asiatic languages, especially ) The Semitic Languages. Routledge: London 1997. ISBN 0-415-05767-1. (For family tree, see p. 7).
• Edward Lipinski. Semitic Languages: Outlines of a Comparative Grammar. 2nd ed. , Orientalia Lovanensia Analecta: Leuven 2001. ISBN 90-429-0815-7
• Sabatino Moscati. An introduction to the comparative grammar of the Semitic languages: phonology and morphology. Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden 1969.
• Edward Ullendorff, The Semitic languages of Ethiopia: a comparative phonology. Edward Ullendorff (born 1920 is a British academic and an authority on Semitic languages and Ethiopia. London, Taylor's (Foreign) Press 1955.
• William Wright & William Robertson Smith. Lectures on the comparative grammar of the Semitic languages. Cambridge University Press 1890. [2002 edition: ISBN 1-931956-12-X]
• Arafa Hussein Mustafa. "Analytical study of phrases and sentences in epic texts of Ugarit. " (German title: Untersuchungen zu Satztypen in den epischen Texten von Ugarit). PhD-Thesis. Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany: 1974.

External links

• Chart of the Semitic Family Tree American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed. )
• Semitic genealogical tree (as well as the Afro-Asiatic one), presented by Alexander Militarev at his talk “Genealogical classification of Afro-Asiatic languages according to the latest data” (at the conference on the 70th anniversary of V.M. Illich-Svitych, Moscow, 2004; short annotations of the talks given there(Russian))
• "Semitic" in SIL's Ethnologue
• Ancient snake spell in Egyptian pyramid may be oldest Semitic inscription

Vladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych ( Russian: Владислав Маркович Иллич-Свитыч 1934-1966 was a founding father of comparative Nostratic

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