An Overview of the Semitic Language Group

The Semitic languages form a group within the Afro-Asiatic language family, a family
which spreads across Saharan Africa and encompasses, as well, most of the Middle East with the
exception of Iran where Persian, a member of the Indo-European family, is spoken. While some
scholars in the twentieth century have proposed the Nostratic theory which tries to reconstruct
an ancestral language common to both the Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic families, this view
has not gained widespread acceptance among historical linguists and, apart from mostly
lexicographical exchanges between languages of the two families that has resulted from
geographical and cultural contact, the two families are considered to be completely separate
genetically. The Afro-Asiatic language family was traditionally divided into five groups (Semitic,
Berber, Egyptian, Chadic, and Cushitic). Recently, mostly through the efforts of the linguist
Joseph Greenberg, another group, Omotic, is also recognized. Non-semitic Afro-Asiatic
languages include Tamazight and Tamasheq (Berber), Ancient Egyptian and Coptic (Egyptian),
Hausa (Chadic), and Somali and Oromu (Cushitic).
The Semitic languages, which include Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Syriac, and Amharic, as
well as the ancient Ethiopic language, Geez, have been among the culturally most influential
languages in the world, mostly as a result of their association with three of the worlds major
religions, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Hebrew was the language of the sacred scripture of
Judaism and continues to be studied by Biblical scholars of the Jewish as well as Christian faiths.
Aramaic was the language spoken by the Jews from about 500 B.C. on and was the language in
which the Babylonian Talmud, a commentary on the Torah, was written. Arabic was the language
of the Koran, the holy text of Islam, and spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East as a
native, scholarly, and liturgical language and even into the Far East as a liturgical language as a

result of the Arab conquests of the 7th to 14th centuries. Geez and Amharic have served as
liturgical languages for the Ethiopic Christian Church, the same function served by Syriac, a later
dialect of Aramaic, for several Eastern Christian churches.
Today, Semitic languages continue to be spoken as a first language by nearly 200 million
people. One hundred and sixty million of these speakers speak Arabic. Most of the rest speak
Amharic (or another of the Ethiopic languages) or Hebrew.
Semitic languages are the oldest languages for which written records have been
discovered. The earliest written form in which any Semitic language ever appeared was the
cuneiform script of the Akkadians, dating from the third millennium B.C., borrowed from
Sumerian, a non-Semitic language. A modified, consonantal form of this cuneiform alphabet was
used to write Ugaritic in the second millennium B.C. The most commonly used scripts for
Semitic languages were, however, all based on the consonantal Phoenician alphabet which dates
from the late second millennium B.C. The Phoenician alphabet formed the basis of the
consonantal Aramaic script, from which was derived the square Hebrew and the Classical Arabic
script. Vowel notation did not arise in the Semitic scripts until later in the form of the Masoretic
system of vowel notation in Hebrew, Estrangelo and Nestorian in Syriac, and the Arabic shortvowel signs, which were all introduced in the late first millennium A.D. (although certain
consonants had been used in Hebrew to indicate vowels since the first millennium B.C.). The
Ethiopic syllabary, introduced in the fourth century A.D., uses the modulation of consonantal
base forms to indicate seven vocalic values (Campbell 1211-12).
The term Semitic derives from the name Shem, one of Noahs sons in Genesis, who,
according to traditional interpretation of the Bible, was purported to have fathered the various
peoples who have inhabited the region of the world in which Semitic languages are spoken.

Before A. L. Schzer introduced the term in 1781, the languages were lumped together with
other languages in Asia under the term Oriental languages (Moscati et al. 3).
Since Schzers time, scholars have proposed competing schemes for dividing the
Semitic group into meaningful branches. The two poles between which the competing schemes
have wavered to varying degrees are the traditional classification according to geography and
more recent classification according to structural similarities. Moscati et al. accept the traditional
classification according to geography, pointing out that the geographical divisioncorresponds
tolerably well (though not without certain exceptions) to the distribution of gross linguistic
features (Moscati et al. 4).
This traditional scheme posits three branches, North-East Semitic (Akkadian and AssyroBabylonian), North-West Semitic (Ugaritic, Hebrew, Phoenician and varieties of Aramaic), and
South (sometimes South-West) Semitic (usually including Arabic, the South Arabian languages
and the Semitic languages of Ethiopia). Whereas Campbell recognizes three sub-branches of
South Semitic (Arabic, South Arabic, and Ethiopic), Moscati et al. go even further and lump
Arabic and South Arabian languages together under a single sub-branch of South-West Semitic.
More contemporary classification schemes, such as that of Huehnergard, usually
recognize only two branches within Semitic: East and West. East Semitic refers, in accordance
with the traditional North-East branch, to the extinct languages, Akkadian (and its Assyrian and
Babylonian dialects) as well as the recently discovered Eblaite. West Semitic is then broken
down into Central, Ethiopian, and Mahrian (South Arabian) Semitic. In Central Semitic,
Huehnergard includes the tradional Northwest Semitic languages (Ugaritic; Hebrew,
Phoenician, and other Canaanite dialects; and Aramaic). Also included in Central Semitic are the
Epigraphic or Old South Arabian languages (in contrast to their modern forms which are

classified in a different sub-branch from their ancestors). Huehnergard also places Arabic in the
Central Semitic sub-branch (Huehnergard Proto-Semitic Language and Culture).
Lyovin follows Hetzron in dividing Semitic into East and West. West, though, is divided
into only two sub-branches rather than three: Central and South. Central includes Aramaic, the
Canaanite languages, and Arabic (including Epigraphic South Arabian). South Semitic includes
Ethiopian and the South Arabian languages. Hetzrons classification, presented in his book The
Semitic Languages (1997), has won acceptance as the standard contemporary classification and,
without a clear justification on the part of Huehnergard for dividing Ethiopian into a sub-branch
separate from South Arabian, will be accepted here.
The East Semitic languages are all extinct and include only Akkadian and Eblaite.
Akkadian derives its name from the city of Akkade, the capital of the empire of Sargon the Great
(2350 2294 BC). It displaced the non-Semitic Sumerian language in the region of
Mesopotamia, the language from which it borrowed the cuneiform system of writing. According
to Moscati et al., the first stage of Akkadian was Old Akkadian, spoken from about 2500 to 2000
B.C. No dialects were distinguishable in Akkadian until the next recognizable stage, from about
2000 B.C. to 1 A.D., during which Akkadian split into two dialects, Babylonian, the dialect of
the southern part of the region, and Assyrian, the dialect of the northern part. Each of these
dialects can further be divided into three periods, Old, Middle, and New, corresponding
respectively to 2000 to 1500, 1500 to 1000, and 1000 to 500 B.C.
While the Semitic language for which the oldest written records exist is Akkadian,
Eblaite is probably the most ancient to survive in substantial form, dating from the third quarter
of the 3rd millennium B.C. (Eblaite Language). These substantial records, mostly in the form

of cuneiform tablets that formed the basis of the state archives for the ancient city of Ebla, were
discovered in the 1970s at Tell Mardikh in Syria (Eblaite Language).
The West Semitic language branch includes the Central and South Semitic languages.
The Central Semitic sub-branch is divided into Canaanite, Aramaic, and Arabic languages. The
Canaanite languages include Hebrew, Phoenician/Punic, and Moabite. Toy and Barton argue as
follows:
The chief distinguishing characteristic of the Canaanitish languages is the construction
known as waw consecutive, in which a peculiarly vocalized conjunction connecting two
verbs in a narrative enables a discourse begun in the imperfect state to be continued in the
perfect, and vice versa. This construction gives especial vividness to a narrative, enabling
the reader to stand as a spectator of the original events and watch their development (Toy
and Barton).
Hebrew was spoken in Palestine and Phoenicia as early as 1400 B.C. but died out as a spoken
language, being displaced by Aramaic, around 500 B.C. It continued to be used by Jews of the
diaspora as a liturgical language until the 19th century when it began to be revived as a spoken
language in the new Jewish settlements in Palestine. It has recently been revived as a spoken
language in Israel. Phoenician refers to the language spoken by the famous sea-faring people
who occupied what is now the Levant (with records dating to between the tenth and first
centuries B.C.). This language was carried to colonies in North Africa in the form referred to as
Punic (with records dating to between the ninth century B.C. and the second century A.D.).
Moabite is represented only by the inscription of King Mesa of Moab in the ninth century B.C.
(Moscati et al. 10).

Aramaic was undoubtedly the most geographically widespread of the Semitic languages
in the ancient, pre-Islamic world. The oldest written Aramaic was found in Babylonian
inscriptions and tablets. It had become a lingua franca across the entire Near East by the 8th
century B.C. and was the official language of the western provinces in the Persian empire (Errico
and Bazzi). The term Aramaic is derived from Aram, the fifth son of Shem. According to the
Bible, the descendants of Aram dwelt in the fertile valley, Padan-aram, also known as Beth
Nahreen (Errico and Bazzi).
The Aramaic sub-branch can be divided both chronologically and geographically. Old
Aramaic refers to the form of the language between the tenth and eight centuries B.C. It is
followed by Classical or Imperial Aramaic, the language used under the Assyrian, Babylonian,
and Persian empires (seventh to fourth centuries B.C.). Later manifestations of Aramaic included
Egyptian Aramaic and Biblical Aramaic (Moscati et al. 10-11). Aramaic as a lingua franca was
displaced by the dominance of Arabic after the Arabic conquests from the 7th to 14th centuries.
The Christians of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Lebanon continued to use the Aramaic language
as a native tongue as well as academically and liturgically. Today, it is still spoken by the
Chaldeans and the Assyrians (Errico and Bazzi).
In geographic terms, Aramaic can be divided into West Aramaic and East Aramaic. West
Aramaic includes Nabataean, the language of an Arab population which established a state at
Petra from the first century B.C. to the third century A.D.; Palmyrene, the language of an Arab
population which established a state at Palmyra and flourished from the first century B.C. to the
third century A.D.; Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, the language of the Jerusalem Talmud, spoken
in Palestine at the time of Christ and for the next few centuries thereafter; Samaritan Aramaic,
the language of the Samaritan Targum to the Pentateuch (around the fourth century A.D.) and

some later writings; and Christian Palestinian Aramaic, used by the Melkites between the fifth
and eight centuries A.D., written in Syriac characters and attested in several religious writings
(Moscati et al. 11-12).
East Aramaic includes Syriac, the form of Aramaic centered around Edessa which
produced a significant body of Christian literature between the third and thirteenth centuries A.D.
but was eventually displaced by Arabic; Babylonian Aramaic, the language of the Babylonian
Jews used in the Babylonian Talmud (fourth to sixth centuries A.D.); and Mandaean, the
language of the Gnostic sect of the Mandaeans, who flourished in Mesopotamia (writings exist
from the third to the eighth century A.D.) (Moscati et al. 12).
Arabic, in most contemporary classification schemes, refers to that branch of West
Semitic that includes classical Arabic, including its modern, less inflected form (with all of its
regional varieties), as well as the Old South Arabian languages, which are structurally closely
related to Arabic (in contrast to modern South Arabian languages, which are more closely related
to the Ethiopian languages). Arabic is by far the most widespread of Semitic languages, with
over 160 million speakers spread all across North Africa and Southwest Asia. The main division
of geographical dialects in Arabic is between the Eastern dialects of Egypt, Sudan, and the
middle East, on the one hand, and the Western dialects of North Africa (the Maghreb), on the
other. The Eastern dialects include Gulf, Levantine, and Egyptian/Sudanese. Maltese is
structurally and historically a dialect of Arabic, but due to its separate development and
geographical isolation from other Arabic dialects and its use of a Roman script, it is usually
classified as a distinct language. Classical Arabic, the literary language of the Koran and other
classical works of Arabic literature, persists in the form of MSA (Modern Standard Arabic),
which, as Black et al. point out, is a mother tongue for no one (Tomokiyo, Black, and Lenzo).

The languages that composed Old South Arabian were Sabaean (the purported language
of the Queen of Sheba in the Bible), Minaean, Qatabanian, and Hadrami, and Awsanian. These
languages have been attested in numerous inscriptions, some dating from as far back as the 8th
century B.C.
The other major sub-branch of West Semitic, South, includes the Modern South Arabian
languages and the Ethiopic languages. The Modern South Arabian languages include Mehri,
Hobyot, Jibbali, Bathari, Harsusi, and Soqotri. Five of these six are spoken in Southern Saudi
Arabia, eastern Yemen, and southern and western Oman. The other, Soqotri, is spoken on the
island of Soqotra in the Arabian Sea. The two South Arabian languages with the most speakers
are Mehri and Soqotri. Mehri covers the widest area and still has about 100 thousand speakers.
Soqotri has about 50 thousand. Jibbali still has several thousand speakers, but the other
languages are slowly dying out, speakers of each numbering in the hundreds (Linguistics 325
5).
The Ethiopic group within the South sub-branch of West Semitic includes all of the
Semitic languages spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea, about twenty in number. The Ethiopic
language with the greatest number of speakers is Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia with
about 15 million speakers. Tigrinya is spoken in the southwest of Eritrea and the northwest of
Ethiopia and has bout 4 million speakers. Tigre is spoken in the north of Eritrea and has about 1
million speakers. Gurage, spoken in central Ethiopia, has significantly fewer speakers, about 650
thousand, and is endangered (Linguistics 325 4-5). The Ethiopic branch also includes Geez, or
Ancient Ethiopic, still a liturgical language of the Ethiopian Christians and first attested in
inscriptions from the first few centuries A.D. Geez provided the distinct Ethiopic script still used
to write Amharic today.

Linguists agree that the most important morphological feature that ties the Semitic
languages together is the triliteral (and sometimes biliteral) consonantal root. The consonantal
root designates a basic semantic field. The root is subjected to various patterns which narrow the
field in order to provide grammatical information and generate actual words. Huehnergard offers
an example:
For example, if we represent the three root consonants abstractly as Xs, in Arabic the
pattern XaXaXa produces a verb form, called the perfect, in the third person masculine
singular. Applying this pattern to the root -r-m, indicating the notion of banning,
prohibiting (see rm), Arabic forms the perfect third person masculine singular arama,
he prohibited. Another pattern, XaX X, yields a derived noun, in this case the word ar
m, forbidden place, the source of English HAREM, while the pattern iXX X yields a
verbal noun, i r m, prohibition, the source of English IHRAM. The pattern muXaXXaX
(with doubling of the middle root consonant) yields a passive participle, mu arram,
English MUHARRAM. This last pattern is also found, for example, in the personal name
MUHAMMAD, Arabic mu

ammad, from the root -m-d, to praise (see md)

(Huehnergard Afro-Asiatic).
Of course, Huehnergard points out that most Semitic languages, like languages in any
language family, have undergone systematic sound changes, and these have sometimes covered
up the original pattern. Also, the distribution and semantic function of the various possible
patterns are specific to individual languages (Huehnergard Afro-Asiatic). Furthermore,

sometimes even the entire pattern itself may have shifted due to the unique history of the
particular language (Huehnergard Afro Asiatic).
Other features of the Semitic language family include a gender distinction between
masculine and feminine, and a secondary plural (used when refer to two and only two objects) in
addition to regular plural (for more than two objects). As for word order in Semitic, nominal
sentences usually are SVO, and verbal sentences are VSO. However, SOV is found in Akkadian
(Campbell 1213-1215). Finally, Semitic languages express only two tenses, which do not
indicate time so much as whether the action is complete or incomplete. This feature is in line
with the tendency in Semitic for verbs to indicate the manner of the occurrence
(simply/intensively, reflexively/caused by others) more than the time (Toy and Barton).
The Semitic languages have achieved and continue to enjoy a global importance far
beyond their number of speakers. As Judaism, and even more so Islam, persist as two of the
worlds major religions, Semitic languages seem certain to at least persist, if not grow, in
relevance. The layout of the current geopolitical situation and the major conflict between Islamic
fundamentalism on the one side and American and Israeli interests on the other, only bolster,
albeit for unfortunate reasons, the relevance of Semitic languages, especially Hebrew and Arabic.

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Huehnergard, John. Afro-Asiatic. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Worlds Ancient
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Huehnergard, John. Proto-Semitic Language and Culture. The American Heritage
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