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in Akkadian , found in Tell Amarna .]] 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 . They constitute the northeastern subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic Languages , and the only branch of this group spoken in Asia . The most widely spoken Semitic writing beginning in the middle of the third millennium BC. Maltese is the only Semitic Language written in Roman Script . 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. HISTORY Origins See Also: Proto-Semitic with Targum ]] ]] 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. 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.http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/citation/306/5702/1680chttp://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0011-3204%28199802%2939%3A1%3C139%3ATALPAI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J&size=LARGE However, an opposing theory is that Proto-Afro-Asiatic originated in the Middle East, and Semitic was the only branch to stay put.http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1680c 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. When written records began in the mid 3rd Millennium BC , the Semitic-speaking Akkad ians and Amorite s were entering Mesopotamia from the deserts to the west, and were probably already present in places such as Ebla in Syria. 2nd millennium BC By the beginning of the 2nd Millennium BC , 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. Akkadian had become the dominant literary language of the Fertile Crescent , using the Cuneiform Script they adapted from the Sumer ians, while the sparsely attested Eblaite disappeared with the city, and Amorite is attested only from proper names. 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 . Proto-Canaanite texts from around 1500 BC 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. Incursions of nomadic Aramaeans from the Syrian desert begin around this time. Akkadian continued to flourish, splitting into Babylonia n and Assyria n dialects. 1st millennium BC manuscript]] In the 1st Millennium BC , the alphabet spread much further, giving us a picture not just of Canaanite but also of Aramaic , Old South Arabian , and early Ge'ez . During this period, the case system, still vigorous in Ugaritic , seems to have started decaying in Northwest Semitic. 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. However, as an ironic result of the Assyria n 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. Meanwhile, Ge'ez texts beginning in this era, give the first direct record of Ethiopia n Semitic languages. Common Era Qur'an ]] Syriac rose to importance as a literary language of early Christianity in the 3rd to 5th centuries. With the emergence of (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 . After the collapse of the Nubia n kingdom of Dongola in the 14th century, Arabic began to spread south of Egypt; soon after, the Beni Hassan brought Arabization to Mauritania . The spread of Arabic continues even today in Sudan and Chad , both by peaceful Sociolinguistic processes, and by wars such as the Darfur Conflict . 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 . 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. PRESENT SITUATION Arabic is spoken natively by majorities from Mauritania to Oman , and from Iraq to the Sudan ; as the language of the Qur'an and as a ''lingua franca'', it is widely studied in much of the Muslim World as well. Its spoken form is divided into a number of Dialects , some not mutually comprehensible, united by a single written form. Maltese , genetically a descendant of Arabic, is the principal exception, having adopted a Latin orthography in accordance with its cultural situation. Despite the ascendancy of Arabic in the Middle East, other Semitic languages are still to be found there. Hebrew, long extinct outside of Jewish liturgical purposes, was revived at the end of the 19th Century by the Jew ish Linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of Zionism , and has become the main language of Israel , while remaining the liturgical language of Jews worldwide. Several small ethnic groups, especially the Assyrians , continue to speak Aramaic in the mountains of northern Iraq , eastern Turkey , northwestern Iran , and Syria , while a descendant of Old Aramaic, Syriac , is used liturgically by many Iraqi Christians. In Yemen and Oman , a few tribes continue to speak "Modern South Arabian" languages such as Soqotri , very different both from Arabic and from the languages of the Old South Arabian inscriptions. 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. 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. 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 . Ge'ez remains the Liturgical Language for Christians in Ethiopia and Eritrea. 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 ). 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 {Link without Title} . Cases in nouns and adjectives The proto-Semitic three-case system (. Number in nouns Semitic languages originally had three , and Plural . 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"). The curious phenomenon of Broken Plural s - e.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. 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 of "triliteral" or Consonantal Root s (normally consisting of three consonants), from which nouns, adjectives, and verbs are formed by inserting vowels with, potentially, prefixes, suffixes, or Infix es. For instance, the root k-t-b, "write", yields in Arabic: :''kataba'' كتب means "he wrote" :''kutiba'' كتب means "it was written" masculine :''kutibat'' كتبت means "it was written" feminine kitābun :''kutubun'' كتب means "books" kutayyibun kitābatun :''kātibun'' كاتب means "writer" masculine kātibatun kuttābun katabatun :''maktabun'' مكتب means "desk" maktabatun maktūbun and in Hebrew (where it appears as k-t-): katati katata katat kata kata katanu katatem ( kataten ( katu katteet kattaa mita mitaa ktoet kta katu hiti hitkatte nita nitea kti tati meutta ktubba 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 kti inti kti huwa ki hija ki aħna kti intkom kti huma ki huwa miktu :''ki'''t'''tie'''b''''' means "writer" :''ki'''t'''tie'''b'''a'' means "writers" :''ktie'''b''''' means "book" :''ko'''tb'''a'' means "books" This root survives in Tigrinya and Amharic only in the noun ''kitab'', meaning "amulet", and the verb "to vaccinate". Ethiopic-derived languages use a completely different root (--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"). Some such roots are found throughout most Semitic languages, while others are more restricted in their distribution. Verbs in other Afro-Asiatic languages show similar radical patterns, but more usually with biconsonantal roots; e.g. Kabyle ''afeg'' means "fly!", while ''affug'' means "flight", and ''yufeg'' means "he flew" (compare with Hebrew ''uf'', ''te'ufah'' and ''af''). COMMON VOCABULARY : ''Main article: List Of Proto-Semitic Stems .'' Due to the Semitic languages' common origin, they share many words and roots in common. For example: Sometimes certain roots differ in meaning from one Semitic language to another. For example, the root ' 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 ' means "milk" in Arabic, but the color "white" in Hebrew. The root '''' means "meat" in Arabic, but "bread" in Hebrew and "cow" in " in Arabic, and " Metropolis " in Amharic, but in Modern Hebrew it means " State ". Of course, there is sometimes no relation between the roots. For example, "knowledge" is represented in Hebrew by the root ' but in Arabic by the roots ' and '''' and in Ethiosemitic by the root '''' and ''''. 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. In particular, several Semiticists still argue for the traditional view of Arabic as part of South Semitic, and a few (e.g. Alexander Militarev ) 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. It is widely recognised in Ethiopia that Amharic inherited its basic vocabulary directly from Giiz, in which case it belongs in Ethiopic rather than North Ethiopic. 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 West Semitic Languages Central Semitic Languages = Northwest Semitic Languages
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 . South Semitic Languages Western South Semitic Languages
Eastern South Semitic Languages These languages are spoken mainly by tiny minority populations on the Arabian peninsula in Yemen and Oman .
LIVING SEMITIC LANGUAGES BY NUMBER OF SPEAKERS REFERENCES SEE ALSO BIBLIOGRAPHY
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