Semitic languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Semitic_languages

Semitic languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Semitic languages are a group of related Semitic

languages whose living representatives are spoken by
Geographic Middle East, North Africa,
more than 467 million people across much of the distribution: Northeast Africa and Malta
Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa.
They constitute a branch of the Afroasiatic language Genetic Afro-Asiatic
classification: Semitic
family. The most widely spoken Semitic language by
far today is Arabic[1] (206 million native speakers).[2] Subdivisions: East Semitic (extinct)
West Semitic
It is followed by Amharic (27 million),[3][4] Tigrinya South Semitic
(5.8 million),[5] and Hebrew (about 5 million).[6] sem
ISO 639-2 and
639-5:
Semitic languages are attested in written form from a
very early date, with texts in Eblaite and Akkadian
appearing from around the middle of the third millennium BC, written in
a script adapted from Sumerian cuneiform. The other scripts used to
write Semitic languages are alphabetic. Among them are the Ugaritic,
Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, South Arabian, and Ge'ez
alphabets. Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin
alphabet and the only official Semitic language of the European Union.

Contents
1 History
1.1 Origins
1.2 2nd millennium BC
1.3 1st millennium BC
1.4 Common Era / A.D.
2 Present situation 14th century BC diplomatic
3 Grammar letter in Akkadian, found in
3.1 Word order Amarna.
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 Northwest Semitic languages
5.2.2 Arabic languages
5.3 South Semitic languages
5.3.1 Western South Semitic languages
5.3.2 Eastern South Semitic languages
6 Living Semitic languages by number of speakers

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7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 External links

History
Origins

Main article: Proto-Semitic

The Semitic family is a member of

the larger Afroasiatic family, all of
whose other five or more branches
are based in Africa. Largely for this
reason, the ancestors of Proto-
Semitic speakers are believed by
many to have first arrived in the
Middle East from Africa, possibly as
part of the operation of the Saharan
pump, around the late Neolithic.
[7][8]
Diakonoff sees Semitic
originating between the Nile Delta
and Canaan as the northernmost
11th century manuscript of the
branch of Afroasiatic. Blench even Hebrew Bible with Targum
wonders whether the highly
divergent Gurage indicate an origin
Page from a 15th century Bible in Ethiopia (with the rest of Ethiopic Semitic a later back migration).
in Ge'ez (Ethiopia & Eritrea) However, an opposing theory is that Afroasiatic originated in the Middle
East, and that Semitic is the only branch to have stayed put; this view is
supported by apparent Sumerian and Caucasian loanwords in the African branches of Afroasiatic.[9] A
recent bayesian analysis of alternative Semitic histories supports the latter possibility and identifies an origin
of Semitic languages in the Levant around 5,750 BP with a single introduction from southern Arabia into
Africa around 2,800 BP.[10]

In one interpretation, 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 Akkadians and Amorites
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 which was adapted from the Sumerians, 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

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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 Babylonian and Assyrian dialects.

1st millennium BC

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, once 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 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. Meanwhile,
Ge'ez texts beginning in this era give the first direct record of Ethiopian
Semitic languages.

Common Era / A.D.

Syriac, a descendant of Aramaic

9th century Syriac manuscript 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.

With the emergence of Islam in the 7th century, the ascendancy 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.

Page from a 12th century Qur'an

in Arabic

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With the patronage of the caliphs and the prestige of its liturgical
status, it rapidly became one of the world's main literary languages.
Its spread among the masses took much longer; however, as the
native populations outside the Arabian Peninsula gradually
abandoned their languages in favor of Arabic. As Bedouin tribes
settled in conquered areas, it became the main language of not only
central Arabia, but also Yemen,[11] the Fertile Crescent, and Egypt.
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 of many inhabitants of Spain. After the
collapse of the Nubian kingdom of Dongola in the 14th century,
Arabic began to spread south of Egypt; soon after, the Beni ass n
brought Arabization to Mauritania.

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
Approximate distribution of country, replacing languages both Semitic (such as Gafat) and
Semitic language around 1 A.D. 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 Qimant set to disappear in another
generation.

Present situation
Arabic is the native language of 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 studied widely in the
non-Arabic-speaking Muslim world as well. Its spoken form is
divided into a number of varieties, some not mutually
comprehensible, united by a single written form. The principal
exception to this almost universal use of Arabic script is the
Maltese language, genetically a descendant of the extinct
Sicilian Arabic dialect. The Maltese alphabet is based on the
Roman alphabet with the addition of some letters with diacritic Map showing the distribution of Semitic
marks and digraphs. Maltese is the only Semitic official language (orange) and other Afro-Asiatic
within the European Union. language speakers today

Despite the ascendancy of Arabic in the Middle East, other

Semitic languages still exist. Hebrew, long extinct as a colloquial language and in use only in Jewish literary,
intellectual, and liturgical activity, was revived in spoken form at the end of the 19th century by the Jewish
linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. It has become the main language of Israel, while remaining the language of
liturgy and religious scholarship of Jews worldwide.

Several small ethnic groups, in particular 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 Lebanese (the
Maronites), Syrian and Iraqi Christians.

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. These languages differ greatly from

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both the surrounding Arabic dialects and from the (unrelated but previously thought to be related) languages
of the Old South Arabian inscriptions.

Historically linked to the peninsular homeland of the Old South Arabian languages, Ethiopia and Eritrea
contain a substantial number of Semitic languages; the most widely spoken are Amharic in Ethiopia, Tigre in
Eritrea, and Tigrinya in both. Respectively, Amharic and Tigrinya are official languages of Ethiopia and
Eritrea. Tigre is spoken by over one million people in the northern and central Eritrean lowlands and parts of
eastern Sudan. A number of Gurage languages are spoken by populations in the semi-mountainous region of
southwest Ethiopia, while Harari is restricted to the city of Harar. Ge'ez remains the liturgical language for
certain groups of Christians in Ethiopia and in 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 Verb Subject Object (VSO), possessed–possessor
(NG), and noun–adjective (NA). In Classical and Modern Standard Arabic, this is still the dominant order:
ra' mu ammadun far dan. (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); for example, the
classical order VSO has given way to SVO in most Arabic vernaculars, Maltese, and Hebrew (the latter due
to Europeanisation). 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 [2] (http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-
8&hl=en&id=n2F3KfTWX_AC&pg=PA157&lpg=PA157&dq=geez+%22word+order%22+verb&
prev=http://books.google.com/books%3Fq%3Dgeez
%2B%2522word%2Border%2522%2Bverb%26lr%3D&sig=7UeMpU-Fgts4OE_uQWgRsbmKlVs) .
Akkadian was also predominantly SOV.

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. An accusative ending -n is preserved in Ethiopian Semitic.[12]
Additionally, Semitic nouns and adjectives had a category of state, the indefinite state being expressed by
nunation.

Number in nouns

Semitic languages originally had three grammatical numbers: singular, dual, and plural. The dual continues to
be used in contemporary dialects of Arabic, as in the name for the nation of Bahrain (ba r "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 plurals – e.g. in Arabic, sadd "one dam" vs. sud d "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

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The aspect systems of West and East Semitic differ substantially; Akkadian preserves a number of features
generally attributed to Afroasiatic, 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.g. by inserting vowels, doubling consonants, lengthening vowels, and/or adding prefixes,
suffixes, or infixes.

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

kataba or "he wrote" (masculine)

katabat or "she wrote" (feminine)
katabtu or "I wrote" (f and m)
kutiba or "it was written" (masculine)
kutibat or "it was written" (feminine)
katab or "they wrote" (masculine)
katabna or "they wrote" (feminine)
katab or "we wrote" (f and m)
yaktub(u) or "he writes" (masculine)
taktub(u) or "she writes" (feminine)
naktub(u) or "we write" (f and m)
aktub(u) or "I write" (f and m)
yuktab(u) or "being written" (masculine)
tuktab(u) or "being written" (feminine)
yaktub n(a) or "they write" (masculine)
yaktubna or "they write" (feminine)
taktubna or "they write" (feminine)
yaktub n(i) or "they both write" (masculine) (for 2 males)
taktub n(i) or "they both write" (feminine) (for 2 females)
k taba or "he exchanged letters (with sth.)"
yuk tib(u) "he exchanges (with sth)"
yatak tab n(a) or "they write to each other" (masculine)
iktataba or "he is registered" (intransitive) or "he contributed (a money quantity to sth.)"
(ditransitive) (the first t is part of a particular verbal transfix, not part of the root)
istaktaba or "to dictate (sth.)"
kit b- or "book" (the hyphen shows end of stem before various case endings)
kutub- or "books" (plural)
kutayyib- or "booklet" (diminutive)
kit bat- or "writing"
k tib- or "writer" (masculine)
k tibat- or "writer" (feminine)
k tib n(a) or "writers" (masculine)
k tib t- or "writers" (feminine)
kutt b- or "writers" (broken plural)
katabat- or "writers" (broken plural)
maktab- or "desk" or "office"
mak tib- or "desks" or "offices"

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maktabat- or "library" or "bookshop"

makt b- or "written" (participle) or "postal letter" (noun)
kat bat- or "squadron" or "document"
kat ’ib- or "squadrons" or "documents"
iktit b- or "registration" or "contribution of funds"
muktatib- or "subscription"
istikt b- or "dictation"

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

kata ti "I wrote"

kata ta "you (m) wrote"
kata "he wrote"
katta "reporter" (m)
katte et "reporter" (f)
katta a "article" (plural kata ot )
mi ta "postal letter" (plural mi ta im )
mi ta a "writing desk" (plural mi ta ot )
kto et "address" (plural kto ot )
kta "handwriting"
katu "written" (f ktu a )
hi ti "he dictated" (f hi ti a )
hitkatte "he corresponded (f hitkat a )
ni ta "it was written" (m)
ni te a "it was written" (f)
kti "spelling" (m)
ta ti "prescript" (m)
me utta "addressee" (me utte et f)
ktubba "ketubah (a Jewish marriage contract)" (f) (note: b here, not )

also appearing in Maltese, where consonantal roots are referred to as the erq:

jiena ktibt "I wrote"

inti ktibt "you wrote" (m or f)
huwa kiteb "he wrote"
hija kitbet "she wrote"
na ktibna "we wrote"
intkom ktibtu "you (pl) wrote"
huma kitbu "they wrote"
huwa miktub "it is written"
kittieb "writer"
kittieba "writers"
kitba "writing"
ktib "writing"
ktieb "book"
kotba "books"
ktejjeb "booklet"

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 ( - -f) for the verb "to write" (this
root exists in Arabic and is used to form words with close meaning to "writing", such as a fa "journalism",

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and a fa "newspaper" or "parchment").

Verbs in other non-Semitic Afroasiatic 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, where hafleg means "set sail!", haflaga means "a sailing trip", and heflig means "he
sailed", while the unrelated uf, te'ufah and af pertain to flight).

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

English Proto-Semitic Akkadian Arabic Aramaic Hebrew Ge'ez Mehri

father ab- ab- ab- ab a-yb
heart *lib(a)b- libb- lubb- lebb- ) libb a-wb b
house *bayt- tu, b tu bayt- bayt- báyi , bê bet beyt, bêt
peace *šal m- šal m- sal m- šl m- lôm sal m s m
tongue *liš n-/*laš n- liš n- lis n- lešš n- šôn liss wš n
water *may-/*m y- mû (root *m -/*m y-) m -/m y mayy- máyim -m

Sometimes certain roots differ in meaning from one Semitic language to another. For example, the root b-y-
in Arabic has the meaning of "white" as well as "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- -m means "meat" in Arabic, but
"bread" in Hebrew and "cow" in Ethiopian Semitic languages; the original meaning was most probably
"food". The word medina (root: m-d-n) has the meaning of "metropolis" in Amharic and "city" in Arabic and
Hebrew, but in Modern Hebrew it is usually used as "state".

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

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 or the German-Egyptian professor
Arafa Hussein Mustafa[citation needed]) see the South Arabian languages as a third branch of Semitic
alongside East and West Semitic, rather than as a subgroup of South Semitic. Roger Blench notes that the
Gurage languages are highly divergent and wonders whether they might not be a primary branch, reflecting
an origin of Afroasiatic in or near Ethiopia. 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 at that time.

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East Semitic languages

Akkadian — extinct
Eblaite — extinct

West Semitic languages

Northwest Semitic languages

Amorite — extinct
Ugaritic — extinct
Canaanite languages
Ammonite — extinct
Moabite — extinct
Edomite — extinct
Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew — Used in the study and public reading of the Torah.
Standard, Early or Judahite Biblical Hebrew
Late Biblical Hebrew or Israelian Hebrew (intermediate with Mishnaic Hebrew)
Mishnaic Hebrew — Used in the study of the Talmud and other Rabbinic writings. Lingua
franca (along with Aramaic) of Rabbis in the Middle Ages.
Medieval Hebrew — Developed into Modern Hebrew.
Samaritan Hebrew — Used by the Samaritans in Holon, Tel Aviv and Nablus.
Ashkenazi Hebrew — live descendants
Teimani Hebrew — Spoken mainly by Yemenite Jews.
Sephardi Hebrew — Major basis of modern pronunciation.
Modern Hebrew — Spoken mostly in Israel.
Mizrahi Hebrew — Modern Hebrew with accent influence of Sephardi and Teimani
Hebrew - Spoken in Israel, Yemen, Iraq, Puerto Rico, New York etc.
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 — live descendants
Eastern Aramaic languages
Biblical Aramaic — extinct
Hatran Aramaic — extinct
Syriac — live descendants
Jewish Middle Babylonian Aramaic — extinct
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic — live descendants
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic — live descendants
Senaya — live descendants
Koy Sanjaq Surat — live descendants
Hertevin — live descendants
Turoyo — live descendants
Mlahso — extinct
Mandaic — live descendants

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Judaeo-Aramaic — live descendants

Arabic languages

Ancient North Arabian — extinct

Arabic
Fus'ha — ( 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. 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.[citation needed]
Numerous Modern Arabic spoken dialects — roughly divided by the Ethnologue into:
Eastern Arabic dialects
Arabian Peninsular dialects
Dhofari Arabic — Oman/Yemen
Hadrami Arabic — Yemen
Hejazi 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 dialects — Egypt, Palestinian territories
Sa'idi Arabic — Upper Egypt
Gulf Arabic dialects — includes speakers in Iran
Bahrani Arabic — Bahrain
Gulf Arabic — Persian Gulf (all bordering countries)
Shihhi Arabic — United Arab Emirates
Levantine Arabic dialects
Cypriot Maronite Arabic
North Levantine Spoken — Lebanon, Syria
Lebanese Arabic
South Levantine Spoken — Jordan, Palestinian territories, Israel
Palestinian Arabic
Iraqi Arabic — Iraq
Judeo-Iraqi Arabic
Sudanese Arabic
Maghrebi Arabic dialects

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Algerian Arabic
Saharan Arabic
Shuwa Arabic — Chad
Hass ya Arabic — Mauritania and Saharan area
Libyan Arabic
Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic — Libyan dialect
Andalusian Arabic Old Iberian Arabic — extinct
Siculo-Arabic — Sicily, extinct
Maltese language — a genetic descendant of the extinct Siculo-Arabic variety.
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.

South Semitic languages

Western South Semitic languages

Old South Arabian — 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 the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo and
Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo 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)

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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 in the Arabian peninsula, in Yemen and Oman.

Bathari
Harsusi
Hobyot
Jibbali (also called Shehri)
Mehri
Soqotri — on the islands of Socotra, Abd el Kuri and Samhah (Yemen) and in the UAE.

Living Semitic languages by number of speakers

lang speakers
Arabic 206,000,000[13]
Amharic 27,000,000
Tigrinya 6,700,000
Hebrew 5,000,000[6]
Syriac Aramaic 2,105,000
Silt'e 830,000
Tigre 800,000
Sebat Bet Gurage 440,000
Maltese 371,900[14]
Modern South Arabian languages 360,000
Inor 280,000
Soddo 250,000
Harari 21,283

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See also
Proto-Semitic language
Proto-Canaanite alphabet
Middle Bronze Age alphabets

Notes
1. ^ Including all varieties.
2. ^ Ethnologue report for language code:arb (http://www.ethnologue.com
/show_language.asp?code=arb)
3. ^ 1994 Ethiopian census
4. ^ Amharic alphabet, pronunciation and language (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/amharic.htm)
5. ^ Ethnologue report for language code:tir (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=tir)
6. ^ a b Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition.
Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/. (Hebrew->Population
total all countries, [1] (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=heb) )
7. ^ The Origins of Afroasiatic – Ehret et al. 306 (5702): 1680c – Science (http://www.sciencemag.org
/cgi/content/citation/306/5702/1680c)
8. ^ McCall, Daniel F. (1998). "The Afroasiatic Language Phylum: African in Origin, or Asian?"
(http://links.jstor.org
/sici?sici=0011-3204%28199802%2939%3A1%3C139%3ATALPAI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-
J&size=LARGE) . Current Anthropology 39 (1): 139–44. doi:10.1086/204702 (http://dx.doi.org
/10.1086%2F204702) . http://links.jstor.org
/sici?sici=0011-3204%28199802%2939%3A1%3C139%3ATALPAI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-
J&size=LARGE..
9. ^ Hayward 2000; http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1680c
10. ^ Kitchen A, Ehret C, Assefa S, Mulligan CJ. (2009). Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic
languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East. Proc Biol Sci.
276(1668):2703-10. doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0408 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1098%2Frspb.2009.0408)
PMID 19403539 supplementary material (http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2009.0408) .
11. ^ Nebes, Norbert, "Epigraphic South Arabian," in von Uhlig, Siegbert, Encyclopaedia Aethiopica
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), pps.335.
12. ^ Moscati, Sabatino (1958). "On Semitic Case-Endings". Journal of Near Eastern Studies 17 (2):
142–43. doi:10.1086/371454 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1086%2F371454) . "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.
13. ^ Ethnologue (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=arb) : "206,000,000 L1 speakers
of all Arabic varieties"
14. ^ Ethnologue report for Maltese (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mlt) ,
retrieved 2008-10-28

References
Patrick R. 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. Translated by Peter T. Daniels. 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.) The Semitic Languages. Routledge: London 1997. ISBN 0-415-05767-1. (For

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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. 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 (http://www.bartleby.com/61/tree.html) American Heritage
Dictionary (4th ed.)
Semitic genealogical tree (http://community.livejournal.com/terra_linguarum/95880.html) (as well as
the Afroasiatic 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
Vladislav Illich-Svitych, Moscow, 2004; short annotations of the talks given there
(http://community.livejournal.com/terra_linguarum/95627.html) (Russian))
"Semitic" in SIL's Ethnologue (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=53-16)
Ancient snake spell in Egyptian pyramid may be oldest Semitic inscription (http://www.usatoday.com
/tech/science/discoveries/2007-01-23-snake-spell_x.htm)

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