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67-690: Dahalik belongs to the Afro-Asiatic family's Semitic branch, a member of the Northern branch of the Ethiopic group, and is closely related to Tigre and Tigrinya . It is said to be not mutually intelligible with Tigre and, according to Simeone-Senelle, is sufficiently different to be considered a separate language. However, there are those who disagree. Dahalik is spoken on the Dahlak Archipelago , an island group belonging to Eritrea in

134-604: A branch of the Northwest Semitic languages included Edomite , Hebrew , Ammonite , Moabite , Phoenician ( Punic / Carthaginian ), Samaritan Hebrew , and Ekronite . They were spoken in what is today Israel and the Palestinian territories , Syria , Lebanon , Jordan , the northern Sinai Peninsula , some northern and eastern parts of the Arabian Peninsula , southwest fringes of Turkey , and in

201-854: A category of state, the indefinite state being expressed by nunation . Language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America , Tiwi in Australia and Burushaski in Pakistan are all examples of such languages. The exact number of language isolates

268-489: A common ancestral language. This is what makes up a language family , which is a set of languages for which sufficient evidence exists to demonstrate that they descend from a single ancestral language and are therefore genetically related. For example, English is related to other Indo-European languages and Mandarin Chinese is related to other Sino-Tibetan languages . By this criterion, each language isolate constitutes

335-629: A comparative analysis of Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic was published in Latin in 1538 by Guillaume Postel . Almost two centuries later, Hiob Ludolf described the similarities between these three languages and the Ethiopian Semitic languages . However, neither scholar named this grouping as "Semitic". The term "Semitic" was created by members of the Göttingen school of history , initially by August Ludwig von Schlözer (1781), to designate

402-882: A dozen sign languages of the hill tribes in Thailand including the Ban Khor Sign Language . These and more are all presumed isolates or small local families, because many deaf communities are made up of people whose hearing parents do not use sign language, and have manifestly, as shown by the language itself, not borrowed their sign language from other deaf communities during the recorded history of these languages. Some languages once seen as isolates may be reclassified as small families because their genetic relationship to other languages has been established. This happened with Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , Korean and Koreanic languages , Atakapa and Akokisa languages , Tol and Jicaque of El Palmar languages, and

469-446: A family of its own. In some situations, a language with no ancestor can arise. This frequently happens with sign languages —most famously in the case of Nicaraguan Sign Language , where deaf children with no language were placed together and developed a new language. Caution is required when speaking of extinct languages as language isolates. Despite their great age, Sumerian and Elamite can be safely classified as isolates, as

536-450: A few remaining native speakers, with no new acquisition, highly restricted use, and near-universal multilingualism. "Extinct" languages have no native speakers, but are sufficiently documented to be classified as isolates. With few exceptions, all of Africa's languages have been gathered into four major phyla: Afroasiatic , Niger–Congo , Nilo-Saharan and Khoisan . However, the genetic unity of some language families, like Nilo-Saharan ,

603-526: A language previously considered an isolate may no longer be considered one, as happened with the Yanyuwa language of northern Australia , which has been placed in the Pama–Nyungan family. Since linguists do not always agree on whether a genetic relationship has been demonstrated, it is often disputed whether a language is an isolate. A genetic relationship is when two different languages are descended from

670-589: A language to classify it as either a language isolate or as a part of another language family. Unclassified languages are different from language isolates in that they have no demonstrable genetic relationships to other languages due to a lack of sufficient data. In order to be considered a language isolate, a language needs to have sufficient data for comparisons with other languages through methods of historical-comparative linguistics to show that it does not have any genetic relationships. Many extinct languages and living languages today are very poorly attested, and

737-437: A literary language of early Christianity in the third to fifth centuries and continued into the early Islamic era. The Arabic language, although originating in the Arabian Peninsula , first emerged in written form in the 1st to 4th centuries CE in the southern regions of The Levant . With the advent of the early Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, Classical Arabic eventually replaced many (but not all) of

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804-466: 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 both Semitic (such as Gafat ) and non-Semitic (such as Weyto ) languages, and replacing Ge'ez as the principal literary language (though Ge'ez remains the liturgical language for Christians in

871-422: A question of transcription; the exact pronunciation is not recorded. Most of the attested languages have merged a number of the reconstructed original fricatives, though South Arabian retains all fourteen (and has added a fifteenth from *p > f). In Aramaic and Hebrew, all non-emphatic stops occurring singly after a vowel were softened to fricatives, leading to an alternation that was often later phonemicized as

938-652: A result of the loss of gemination. In languages exhibiting pharyngealization of emphatics, the original velar emphatic has rather developed to a uvular stop [q] . Note: the fricatives *s, *z, *ṣ, *ś, *ṣ́, and *ṱ may also be interpreted as affricates (/t͡s/, /d͡z/, /t͡sʼ/, /t͡ɬ/, /t͡ɬʼ/, and /t͡θʼ/). Notes: The following table shows the development of the various fricatives in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Maltese through cognate words: – żmien xahar sliem tnejn – */d/ d daħaq – ħolm għarb sebgħa Proto-Semitic vowels are, in general, harder to deduce due to

1005-569: A variety of Maghrebi Arabic formerly spoken in Sicily . The modern Maltese alphabet is based on the Latin script with the addition of some letters with diacritic marks and digraphs . Maltese is the only Semitic official language within the European Union . Successful as second languages far beyond their numbers of contemporary first-language speakers, a few Semitic languages today are

1072-583: Is verb–subject–object (VSO), possessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective (NA). This was still the case in Classical Arabic and Biblical Hebrew , e.g. Classical Arabic رأى محمد فريدا ra'ā muħammadun farīdan . (literally "saw Muhammad Farid", Muhammad saw Farid ). In the modern Arabic vernaculars , however, as well as sometimes in Modern Standard Arabic (the modern literary language based on Classical Arabic) and Modern Hebrew ,

1139-702: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family . They include Arabic , Amharic , Tigrinya , Aramaic , Hebrew , Maltese and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia , North Africa , the Horn of Africa , Malta , and in large immigrant and expatriate communities in North America , Europe , and Australasia . The terminology

1206-547: Is a working language in 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 central 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 . The phonologies of

1273-660: Is also used liturgically by the primarily Arabic-speaking followers of the Maronite Church , Syriac Catholic Church , and was originally the liturgical language of the Melkites in Antioch , and ancient Syria . Koine Greek and Classical Arabic are the main liturgical languages of Oriental Orthodox Christians in the Middle East, who compose the patriarchates of Antioch , Jerusalem , and Alexandria . Mandaic

1340-612: Is both spoken and used as a liturgical language by the Mandaeans . Although the majority of Neo-Aramaic dialects spoken today are descended from Eastern varieties, Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken in two villages in Syria. Despite the ascendancy of Arabic in the Middle East, other Semitic languages still exist. Biblical Hebrew, long extinct as a colloquial language and in use only in Jewish literary, intellectual, and liturgical activity,

1407-499: Is natural for the consonants , as sound correspondences among the consonants of the Semitic languages are very straightforward for a family of its time depth. Sound shifts affecting the vowels are more numerous and, at times, less regular. Each Proto-Semitic phoneme was reconstructed to explain a certain regular sound correspondence between various Semitic languages. Note that Latin letter values ( italicized ) for extinct languages are

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1474-405: Is now only spoken by a few thousand Christian and Muslim Arameans (Syriacs) in western Syria . The Arabs spread their Central Semitic language to North Africa ( Egypt , Libya , Tunisia , Algeria , Morocco , and northern Sudan and Mauritania ), where it gradually replaced Egyptian Coptic and many Berber languages (although Berber is still largely extant in many areas), and for a time to

1541-665: Is questionable, and so there may be many more language families and isolates than currently accepted. Data for several African languages, like Kwisi , are not sufficient for classification. In addition, Jalaa , Shabo , Laal , Kujargé , and a few other languages within Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic -speaking areas may turn out to be isolates upon further investigation. Defaka and Ega are highly divergent languages located within Niger–Congo -speaking areas, and may also possibly be language isolates. Current research considers that

1608-536: Is the Nicaraguan Sign Language , a well documented case of what has happened in schools for the deaf in many countries. In Tanzania, for example, there are seven schools for the deaf, each with its own sign language with no known connection to any other language. Sign languages have also developed outside schools, in communities with high incidences of deafness, such as Kata Kolok in Bali, and half

1675-461: Is yet unknown due to insufficient data on several languages. One explanation for the existence of language isolates is that they might be the last remaining member of a larger language family, said language possibly could have had relatives in the past that have since disappeared without being documented leaving it an orphaned language much like the Ket language spoken in central Siberia who belongs to

1742-586: The Assyrians and Mandaeans of northern and southern Iraq , northwestern Iran , northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey , with up to a million fluent speakers. Syriac is a recognized language in Iraq, furthermore, Mesopotamian Arabic is one of the most Syriac influenced dialects of Arabic, due to Syriac, the dialect of Edessa specifically, having originated in Mesopotamia. Meanwhile Western Aramaic

1809-591: The Beni Ḥassān brought Arabization to Mauritania . A number of Modern South Arabian languages distinct from Arabic still survive, such as Soqotri , Mehri and Shehri which are mainly spoken in Socotra , Yemen, and Oman. Meanwhile, the Semitic languages that had arrived from southern Arabia in the 8th century BC were diversifying in Ethiopia and Eritrea , where, under heavy Cushitic influence, they split into

1876-532: The European Union . The Semitic languages are notable for their nonconcatenative morphology . That is, word roots are not themselves syllables or words, but instead are isolated sets of consonants (usually three, making a so-called triliteral root ). Words are composed from roots not so much by adding prefixes or suffixes, but rather by filling in the vowels between the root consonants, although prefixes and suffixes are often added as well. For example, in Arabic,

1943-471: The Horn of Africa to a much earlier date. According to another hypothesis, Semitic originated from an offshoot of a still earlier language in North Africa and desertification made its inhabitants to migrate in the fourth millennium BC into what is now Ethiopia , others northwest out of Africa into West Asia. The various extremely closely related and mutually intelligible Canaanite languages ,

2010-557: The Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain , Portugal , and Gibraltar ) and Malta . With the patronage of the caliphs and the prestige of its liturgical status, Arabic rapidly became one of the world's main literary languages. Its spread among the masses took much longer, however, as many (although not all) of the native populations outside the Arabian Peninsula only gradually abandoned their languages in favour of Arabic. As Bedouin tribes settled in conquered areas, it became

2077-554: The Levant , Ethiopia , the Eastern Mediterranean region, the Arabian Peninsula , and North Africa . According to a 2009 study, the Semitic languages originated in the Levant c.  3750 BC , and were introduced to the Horn of Africa c. 800 BC from the southern Arabian Peninsula, and to North Africa via Phoenician colonists at approximately the same time. Others assign the arrival of Semitic speakers in

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2144-616: The Middle East and Asia Minor during the Bronze Age and Iron Age , the earliest attested being the East Semitic Akkadian of Mesopotamia ( Akkad , Assyria , Isin , Larsa , and Babylonia ) from the third millennium BC . The origin of Semitic-speaking peoples is still under discussion. Several locations were proposed as possible sites of a prehistoric origin of Semitic-speaking peoples : Mesopotamia ,

2211-730: The Qur'an and Jews speak and study Biblical Hebrew , the language of the Torah , Midrash , and other Jewish scriptures. The followers of the Assyrian Church of the East , Chaldean Catholic Church , Ancient Church of the East , Assyrian Pentecostal Church , Assyrian Evangelical Church , and the Syriac Orthodox Church speak Eastern Aramaic languages and use Classical Syriac as their liturgical language . Classical Syriac

2278-620: The Red Sea . On the archipelago, most people are speakers of Dahalik with smaller populations of Arabic and Afar native speakers. The situation is different for every village: Durrubishet and Dasquo have almost universal use of Dahalik, while other villages have a greater mix of languages. Most islanders are multilingual in Dahalik, Arabic, and Afar, while the language of education is Arabic. Most Dahalik men have regular contact with Arabic, Tigre, and Afar, and any mixed marriages usually result in

2345-537: The Xincan Guatemala language family in which linguists have grouped the Chiquimulilla , Guazacapán , Jumaytepeque , and Yupiltepeque languages. Below is a list of known language isolates, arranged by continent, along with notes on possible relations to other languages or language families. The status column indicates the degree of endangerment of the language, according to the definitions of

2412-522: The nonconcatenative morphology of Semitic languages. The history of vowel changes in the languages makes drawing up a complete table of correspondences impossible, so only the most common reflexes can be given: The Semitic languages share a number of grammatical features, although variation — both between separate languages, and within the languages themselves — has naturally occurred over time. The reconstructed default word order in Proto-Semitic

2479-524: The Near East, particularly after being adopted as the lingua franca of the vast Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) by Tiglath-Pileser III during the 8th century BC, and being retained by the succeeding Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Empires . The Chaldean language (not to be confused with Aramaic or its Biblical variant , sometimes referred to as Chaldean ) was a Northwest Semitic language, possibly closely related to Aramaic, but no examples of

2546-708: The Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon) during the 14th century BC, incorporating elements of the Mesopotamian East Semitic Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia with the West Semitic Canaanite languages. Aramaic , a still living ancient Northwest Semitic language, first attested in the 12th century BC in the northern Levant , gradually replaced the East Semitic and Canaanite languages across much of

2613-439: The Semitic languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea , is technically an abugida  – a modified abjad in which vowels are notated using diacritic marks added to the consonants at all times, in contrast with other Semitic languages which indicate vowels based on need or for introductory purposes. Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script and the only Semitic language to be an official language of

2680-604: The UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger . "Vibrant" languages are those in full use by speakers of every generation, with consistent native acquisition by children. "Vulnerable" languages have a similarly wide base of native speakers, but a restricted use and the long-term risk of language shift . "Endangered" languages are either acquired irregularly or spoken only by older generations. "Moribund" languages have only

2747-493: The alphabet used, the name "Semitic languages" is completely appropriate. Previously these languages had been commonly known as the " Oriental languages " in European literature. In the 19th century, "Semitic" became the conventional name; however, an alternative name, " Syro-Arabian languages ", was later introduced by James Cowles Prichard and used by some writers. Semitic languages were spoken and written across much of

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2814-431: The attested Semitic languages are presented here from a comparative point of view (see Proto-Semitic language#Phonology for details on the phonological reconstruction of Proto-Semitic used in this article). The reconstruction of Proto-Semitic (PS) was originally based primarily on Arabic , whose phonology and morphology (particularly in Classical Arabic ) is very conservative, and which preserves as contrastive 28 out of

2881-403: The base of the sacred literature of some of the world's major religions, including Islam (Arabic), Judaism (Hebrew and Aramaic ( Biblical and Talmudic )), churches of Syriac Christianity (Classical Syriac) and Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Christianity (Ge'ez). Millions learn these as a second language (or an archaic version of their modern tongues): many Muslims learn to read and recite

2948-574: The case of Phoenician, coastal regions of Tunisia ( Carthage ), Libya , Algeria , and parts of Morocco , Spain , and possibly in Malta and other Mediterranean islands. Ugaritic , a Northwest Semitic language closely related to but distinct from the Canaanite group was spoken in the kingdom of Ugarit in north western Syria. A hybrid Canaano-Akkadian language also emerged in Canaan (Israel and

3015-632: The children learning two mother tongues. Dahalik speakers also consider their language to be a mix of Arabic, Tigre, and a small amount of Tigrinya. Overall, there are only a few elderly monolingual speakers of Dahalik. However, Dahalik speakers do have positive attitudes towards the language and see it as an essential part of their cultural identity. /ɛ/ might be another vowel. The vowel /ə/ only occurs in unstressed syllables. Dahalik has 21 consonants. Dahalik has two different forms for second and third person pronouns, one masculine and one feminine. Dahalik also has dependent (object) pronouns, suffixed to

3082-588: The classical VSO order has given way to SVO. Modern Ethiopian Semitic languages follow a different word order: SOV, possessor–possessed, and adjective–noun; however, the oldest attested Ethiopian Semitic language, Ge'ez, was VSO, possessed–possessor, and noun–adjective. Akkadian was also predominantly SOV. The proto-Semitic three-case system ( nominative , accusative and genitive ) with differing vowel endings (-u, -a -i), fully preserved in Qur'anic Arabic (see ʾIʿrab ), Akkadian and Ugaritic , has disappeared everywhere in

3149-550: The eastern coast of Saudi Arabia , and Bahrain , Qatar , Oman , and Yemen . South Semitic languages are thought to have spread to the Horn of Africa circa 8th century BC where the Ge'ez language emerged (though the direction of influence remains uncertain). Classical Syriac , a 200 CE Eastern Middle Aramaic dialect, used as a liturgical language in Mesopotamia , the Levant , and Kerala , India, rose to importance as

3216-405: The end of the word. The word order of a simple sentence in Dahalik is subject–object–verb . For conditional subordinate clauses, the subordinating marker ('if' or something similar) is at the end of the clause or just before the verb in the subordinating clause. This Eritrea -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Semitic languages -related article

3283-508: The evident 29 consonantal phonemes. with *s [ s ] and *š [ ʃ ] merging into Arabic / s / ⟨ س ⟩ and *ś [ ɬ ] becoming Arabic / ʃ / ⟨ ش ⟩ . Note: the fricatives *s, *z, *ṣ, *ś, *ṣ́, and *ṱ may also be interpreted as affricates (/t͡s/, /d͡z/, /t͡sʼ/, /t͡ɬ/, /t͡ɬʼ/, and /t͡θʼ/), as discussed in Proto-Semitic language § Fricatives . This comparative approach

3350-678: The fact that they cannot be linked to other languages may be a reflection of our poor knowledge of them. Hattic , Gutian , and Kassite are all considered unclassified languages, but their status is disputed by a minority of linguists. Many extinct languages of the Americas such as Cayuse and Majena may likewise have been isolates. Several unclassified languages could also be language isolates, but linguists cannot be sure of this without sufficient evidence. A number of sign languages have arisen independently, without any ancestral language, and thus are language isolates. The most famous of these

3417-691: The indigenous Semitic languages and cultures of the Near East . Both the Near East and North Africa saw an influx of Muslim Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, followed later by non-Semitic Muslim Iranian and Turkic peoples . The previously dominant Aramaic dialects maintained by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians gradually began to be sidelined, however descendant dialects of Eastern Aramaic (including Suret (Assyrian and Chaldean varieties), Turoyo , and Mandaic ) survive to this day among

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3484-707: The language remain, as after settling in south eastern Mesopotamia from the Levant during the 9th century BC, the Chaldeans appear to have rapidly adopted the Akkadian and Aramaic languages of the indigenous Mesopotamians. Old South Arabian languages (classified as South Semitic and therefore distinct from the Central-Semitic Arabic) were spoken in the kingdoms of Dilmun , Sheba , Ubar , Socotra , and Magan , which in modern terms encompassed part of

3551-527: The languages are well enough documented that, if modern relatives existed, they would be recognizably related. A language thought to be an isolate may turn out to be related to other languages once enough material is recovered, but this is unlikely for extinct languages whose written records have not been preserved. Many extinct languages are very poorly attested, which may lead to them being considered unclassified languages instead of language isolates. This occurs when linguists do not have enough information on

3618-507: The languages closely related to Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew. The choice of name was derived from Shem , one of the three sons of Noah in the genealogical accounts of the biblical Book of Genesis , or more precisely from the Koine Greek rendering of the name, Σήμ (Sēm) . Johann Gottfried Eichhorn is credited with popularising the term, particularly via a 1795 article "Semitische Sprachen" ( Semitic languages ) in which he justified

3685-466: The legends about the invention of the syllabograms and alphabetic script go back to the Semites. In contrast, all so called Hamitic peoples originally used hieroglyphs, until they here and there, either through contact with the Semites, or through their settlement among them, became familiar with their syllabograms or alphabetic script, and partly adopted them. Viewed from this aspect too, with respect to

3752-662: The main language of not only central Arabia, but also Yemen, the Fertile Crescent , and Egypt . Most of the Maghreb followed, specifically in the wake of the Banu Hilal 's incursion in the 11th century, and Arabic became the native language of many inhabitants of al-Andalus . After the collapse of the Nubian kingdom of Dongola in the 14th century, Arabic began to spread south of Egypt into modern Sudan ; soon after,

3819-477: The many colloquial forms of Semitic languages. Modern Standard Arabic maintains such case distinctions, although they are typically lost in free speech due to colloquial influence. An accusative ending -n is preserved in Ethiopian Semitic. In the northwest, the scarcely attested Samalian reflects a case distinction in the plural between nominative -ū and oblique -ī (compare the same distinction in Classical Arabic). Additionally, Semitic nouns and adjectives had

3886-547: The northeastern Levant respectively. The only earlier attested languages are Sumerian and Elamite (2800 BCE to 550 BCE), both language isolates , and Egyptian ( c.  3000 BCE ), a sister branch within the Afroasiatic family, related to the Semitic languages but not part of them. Amorite appeared in Mesopotamia and the northern Levant c.  2100 BC , followed by the mutually intelligible Canaanite languages (including Hebrew, Phoenician, Moabite, Edomite, and Ammonite, and perhaps Ekronite, Amalekite and Sutean),

3953-408: The region); this spread continues to this day, with Qimant set to disappear in another generation. Arabic is currently the native language of majorities from Mauritania to Oman , and from Iraq to Sudan . Classical Arabic is the language of the Quran . It is also studied widely in the non-Arabic-speaking Muslim world . The Maltese language is a descendant of the extinct Siculo-Arabic ,

4020-615: The root meaning "write" has the form k-t-b . From this root, words are formed by filling in the vowels and sometimes adding consonants, e.g. كِتاب k i t ā b "book", كُتُب k u t u b "books", كاتِب k ā t i b "writer", كُتّاب k u tt ā b "writers", كَتَب k a t a b a "he wrote", يكتُب ya kt u b u "he writes", etc.. The similarity of the Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic languages has been accepted by all scholars since medieval times. The languages were familiar to Western European scholars due to historical contact with neighbouring Near Eastern countries and through Biblical studies , and

4087-469: The standard to be seen as different languages. Examples include Japanese and Georgian : Japanese is now part of the Japonic language family with the Ryukyuan languages , and Georgian is the main language in the Kartvelian language family. There is a difference between language isolates and unclassified languages , but they can be difficult to differentiate when it comes to classifying extinct languages . If such efforts eventually do prove fruitful,

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4154-501: The still spoken Aramaic , and Ugaritic during the 2nd millennium BC. Most scripts used to write Semitic languages are abjads  – a type of alphabetic script that omits some or all of the vowels, which is feasible for these languages because the consonants are the primary carriers of meaning in the Semitic languages. These include the Ugaritic , Phoenician , Aramaic , Hebrew , Syriac , Arabic , and ancient South Arabian alphabets. The Geʽez script , used for writing

4221-436: The surrounding Arabic dialects and from the languages of the Old South Arabian inscriptions. Historically linked to the peninsular homeland of Old South Arabian, of which only one language, Razihi , remains, 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. Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia. Tigrinya

4288-518: The terminology against criticism that Hebrew and Canaanite were the same language despite Canaan being " Hamitic " in the Table of Nations : In the Mosaic Table of Nations , those names which are listed as Semites are purely names of tribes who speak the so-called Oriental languages and live in Southwest Asia. As far as we can trace the history of these very languages back in time, they have always been written with syllabograms or with alphabetic script (never with hieroglyphs or pictograms ); and

4355-644: The wider Yeniseian language family, had it been discovered in recent times independently from its now extinct relatives such as Yugh and Kott it would have been classified as an isolate. Another explanation for language isolates is that they arose independently in isolation and thus do not share a common linguistic genesis with any other language but themselves. This explanation mostly applies to sign languages that have developed independently of other spoken or signed languages. Some languages once seen as isolates may be reclassified as small families if some of their dialects are judged to be sufficiently different from

4422-471: Was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history , who derived the name from Shem , one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis . Semitic languages occur in written form from a very early historical date in West Asia , with East Semitic Akkadian (also known as Assyrian and Babylonian ) and Eblaite texts (written in a script adapted from Sumerian cuneiform ) appearing from c.  2600 BCE in Mesopotamia and

4489-434: Was revived in spoken form at the end of the 19th century. Modern Hebrew is the main language of Israel , with Biblical Hebrew remaining as the language of liturgy and religious scholarship of Jews worldwide. In Arab-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 both

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