Semitic languages

The Semitic languages or Semitic are a subfamily of the Afroasiatic language family. They developed primarily in the Near East and North and East Africa. The term was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen School of History, who derived the name following Biblical tradition, according to these texts Shem was a son of Noah, whose descendants would be the Semitic peoples.

The most widely spoken Semitic languages today are Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew, and Tigrinya. The closely related proto-language or group of dialects that would have given rise to the Semitic languages is known as Proto-Semitic.

History

Uninterrupted written records of the Semitic family have been preserved since 2500 B.C. C. to the present, which makes it the best witnessed historically. Compare the 4,500 years of records of Semitic languages with the slightly more than 3,500 years of texts in Chinese languages, the 3,400 years of Greek texts, or the 4,000 years that mediate between the first inscriptions in ancient Egyptian and the last texts in Coptic) that date VIII century. The earliest known Semitic texts are written in Akkadian (ca. 2500 BCE-1600 BCE), Eblaite (ca. 2400 BCE), Ugaritic (ca. 1400 BCE-ca. 1185 BCE)...), Canaanite languages (ca. 1200 BC), Ancient Hebrew (ca. 1100 BC-AD 250), Phoenician-Punic (ca. 1000 BC-AD 200 C.) and Old Aramaic (900 BC-AD 250).

Chronology of Semitic Languages

Classification

Semitic languages.

Semitic languages are usually divided into three large groups: eastern (Mesopotamia), western or northwestern (Near East) and southern or southwestern (Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa).

Oriental

All Semitic languages of the Eastern group are now extinct. To this branch belongs the oldest known Semitic language, Akkadian, which was spoken in areas of present-day Iraq. The oldest Akkadian inscriptions date from the first half of the third millennium BC and use cuneiform writing, borrowed from the Sumerians. Around 2000 B.C. C., Akkadian fragmented into two different languages: Babylonian, spoken in southern Mesopotamia, and Assyrian, spoken in the north.

It is disputed whether Eblaite, a language spoken in the city of Ebla, in Syria, in the third millennium before our era, recently discovered, belongs to this group or to that of Western languages, since it seems to have similarities with both branches.

Westerns

Most of these languages are also extinct. Only two survive: Hebrew and Aramaic. The known West Semitic languages are:

• Ugaritic: was spoken in the area of the ancient city of Ugarit, in the eastern Mediterranean, in the middle of the second millennium before Christ. Several texts are known in the Ukrainian language, discovered in archaeological excavations from the twenties. Language currently extinct.
• Amorrita: it is known only through its own non-Akkadian names transmitted by Akkadian scribes during the time of love domain in Mesopotamia, in the second millennium before our era.
• Canaanite languages: mainly Phoenician, Punic, Moabite, Edomite, Hebrew and Ammonite. There is evidence that the Phoenician spoke and wrote in the middle of the second millennium before Christ, although there are only inscriptions in that language from 1000 B.C., spread throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. From the Púnico, the language of the Carthaginians, which was still spoken in the 5th century, according to the testimony of Saint Augustine. The Moabite, Edomite and Ammonite languages were spoken in the area around Jordan; of these languages there are only a few inscriptions of the first half of the first millennium before our age.

The case of the Hebrew is quite peculiar. The first known inscription in this language dates from 925 BC, and many of the books in the Bible are written in that language. However, from the 4th century BC suffers the harsh competence of the Aramaic. It was finally extinguished in the second century, surviving only as a liturgical language. It was recovered with effort from the centuryXIX for the Zionists, who needed a lingua franca for Jewish immigrants in Palestine, coming from all corners of the world, and today is the official language of the State of Israel, with about six million speakers.

• Aramaic: documented from 850 to C., in Syria, quickly spread throughout the Middle East, becoming the lingua franca from an extensive territory extending from Afghanistan to Egypt. It remained, in competition with the Greek, the most important language in the Middle East until, after the advent of Islam, it was moved by the Arab. It was divided into several dialects, classified into two large groups: Western Aramaic and Eastern Aramaic. One of the most outstanding dialects, belonging to the Eastern group, is the Syriac, liturgical language of several Eastern Christian churches.

The Aramaic remains today. It is estimated that there are some 400 000 speakers of this language, most of them in the Near East.

Southern

The South Semitic language group includes the Sudarabic languages, Arabic, and the Ethiopic languages.

Sudarabic languages

• Epigraphic sudarabic languages: four of these languages are known for inscriptions dating from the years 700 a. C. and 500 B.C., found in the south of the Arabian peninsula. They are the wise, the qatabánico, the fairy and the mine. All are currently extinct, and are known only by epigraphic remains.
• Modern sudarabic languages: without direct relation to these epigraphic languages, there are so-called modern sudarabic languages in some areas of current Yemen and Oman and on the island of Socotra. They are six languages: mehri, harsusi, bathari, hobyot, jibbali and socotrí. The latter, spoken in Socotra, is the one with a higher number of speakers (about 50 000).

Arabic languages

Arabic in its different varieties is by far the most widely spoken Semitic language. It can properly be argued that the vernacular Arabic varieties are different languages; only the Arabic used in written records is similar in various countries, not the colloquial Arabic used as a vernacular. For this reason, some authors consider that Arabic should be classified as a macrolanguage. In total, it is estimated that all varieties of Arabic add up to some 250 million speakers. The earliest known texts in Arabic date from the 4th century. The rapid expansion of Islam from the 7th century onwards led to the spread of the Arabic language over a very large area, ranging from the Atlantic coast of Africa to Mesopotamia. Over time, the language fragmented into local dialects, although Classical Arabic remained a written language and is used today in the mass media. The different vernacular dialects (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Maghreb) that make up Arabic differ quite a bit from classical Arabic - as much as Italian from Latin, it has been said - and, in many cases, are not mutually intelligible.

Maltese has its origins in a Neo-Arabic variety heavily influenced by Sicilian. From a legal point of view, it is recognized as an official language in Malta and is markedly divergent from the vernacular Arabic of other Arab countries.

Ethiopian languages

Ethiopian languages are divided into Northern Ethiopic and Southern Ethiopic.

• Northern Ethiopians: ge'ez, tigriña and tigré. The ge'ez, the language of the ancient Kingdom of Aksum, was extinguished as a spoken language several centuries ago, but still exists as a liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The tongue Tigré is currently spoken by 0.8 million people, mostly Muslims, in Eritrea along the Red Sea coast. The TigriaFinally, it is the fourth semitic language with the largest number of speakers (about 5 million), mainly distributed between northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. This last state is one of three official languages.

• Southern Ethiopians: to this group belong several languages, such as kistane (250 000 speakers), argobba (40 000), harari (20 000), silte languages (800 000), among many others. Above all, the Amharic, the second most spoken Semitic language after Arabic, with some 17 million speakers, and the official language of Ethiopia, stands out.

Common features

Phonology

Semitic languages evolved from one language, Protosemitic, which had three short vowels and three long vowels. Most of the Semitic languages have pharyngeal fricatives and a glottal stop. In addition, in the majority of the consonant system there is usually a tripartite opposition: deaf, sonorous and "emphatic" (where the performance of the latter varies between pharyngalization, velarization or glottal coarticulation).

Morphology

The lexemes of words are usually made up of consonant skeletons, with the vowel scheme between the consonants having grammatical information. Among the consonantal roots or lexemes, the vast majority have three consonants. They have a highly developed infix system (vowel patterns are actually a form of infixation).

Lexical comparison

The numerals in different Semitic languages are: