The Arabic Language

Chapter 2
Arabic as a Semitic Language
2.1 The classification of the Semitic languages
Arabic belongs to a group of languages collectively known as the Semitic languages. 
To this group belong a number of languages in the Middle East, some of them 
no longer extant. The earliest attested Semitic language is Akkadian, a language 
spoken in Mesopotamia between 2500 and 600 
bce
; from 2000 
bce
onwards it was 
differentiated into Babylonian and Assyrian. As a written language, neo-Babylo-
nian was probably used until the beginning of the common era.
From the Syro-Palestinian area, several Semitic languages are known. Eblaite 
is the language of the 15,000 inscriptions that were discovered in 1974 in the city 
of Ebla, the present-day Tell Mardīḫ, 60 km south of Aleppo; they date from the 
period between 2500 and 2300 
bce
. Ugaritic, discovered in 1929, was used during 
the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries 
bce in Ugarit, the present-day Rās Šamra, 
10 km north of Latakia.
Apart from Ugaritic and Eblaite, during the first half of the second millennium 
bce
, the only traces of Semitic languages in the area are in the form of proper 
names in the Akkadian archives, for instance, those of Mari. The type of language 
that these names represent is called Amoritic. At the end of the second millen
-
nium 
bce
, two groups of languages began to emerge: on the one hand, Canaanite, 
a collective term for Hebrew, Phoenician and a few other languages, of which 
little is known, and on the other, Aramaic. The oldest stage of Hebrew is Biblical 
Hebrew, the language of the Jewish Torah (1200–200 
bce
); later stages are repre
-
sented by the language of the Dead Sea Scrolls (second and first centuries bce
); 
the language of the Rabbinical literature known as Mishnaic Hebrew; and Modern 
Hebrew or Ivrit, one of the two national languages of the state of Israel. Phoeni
-
cian was the language of the Phoenician cities Sidon and Tyre and their colonies 
such as Carthage (tenth century 
bce
to second century 
ce
).
Old Aramaic (first millennium bce
) was spoken at least from the tenth century 
bce
onwards in Syria. Between the seventh and fourth centuries 
bce
, it was used 
as a 
lingua franca
in the Babylonian and Persian empires; it is also the language 
of some parts of the Jewish Torah. More recent forms of Aramaic are divided 
into Western and Eastern Aramaic. Western Aramaic was the spoken language of 

---

Arabic as a Semitic Language 
11
Palestine during the first centuries of the common era, which remained in use 
as a literary language until the fifth century ce. It was the official language of 
the Nabataean and Palmyrene kingdoms (cf. below, pp. 31–3). The most impor
-
tant representatives of Eastern Aramaic were Syriac, the language of Christian 
religious literature; Mandaean, the language of a large body of gnostic literature 
between the third and the eighth centuries 
ce
; and the main language of the 
Babylonian Talmud between 200 and 500 
ce
. Syriac was the spoken language of 
the Syrian Christians until the eighth century 
ce
. Modern varieties of Aramaic 
survive in a number of linguistic enclaves (cf. below, p. 127).
The last language to appear in the Syro-Palestinian area was Arabic, which 
during the conquests of the seventh century 
ce
spread across the entire area, 
and far beyond it.
In the south of the Arabian peninsula and in Ethiopia, a number of Semitic 
languages were spoken. Epigraphic South Arabian was the language of the 
Sabaean, Minaean and Qaṭabānian inscriptions (probably between the eighth 
century 
bce
and the sixth century 
ce
). The modern South Arabian dialects, such 
as Mehri, probably go back to spoken varieties of these languages (cf. below, pp. 
16, 44, 127). The oldest of the Ethiopian Semitic languages is Classical Ethiopic 
or Geʿez, the language of the empire of Aksum (first centuries ce
). To this group 
belong a large number of languages spoken in Ethiopia, such as Tigre, Tigriña and 
the official language of Ethiopia, Amharic.
Most attempts at a classification of the Semitic languages waver between an 
historical–genetic interpretation of the relationships between the languages 
involved and a purely typological–geographical approach in which the common 
features of the languages are recorded without any claim to a historical derivation. 
In the standard model of the classification of the Semitic languages, it is usually 
assumed that around 3000 
bce a split took place between the North-east (or East) 
Semitic languages (i.e., Akkadian, later separated into Babylonian and Assyrian) 
Proto-Semitic
West Semitic 
East Semitic
(Akkadian)
North-west Semitic 
South-west Semitic
Canaanite 
Aramaic 
Arabic 
South Arabian 
Ethiopian
(Hebrew,
Phoenician)
Figure 2.1 The traditional classification of the Semitic languages

---

12
The Arabic Language
and the rest, the West Semitic languages. Around 2000 bce
, a split took place in 
the West Semitic group between the North-west (or North) and the South-west 
(or South) Semitic languages. Finally, around 1000 
bce, North-west Semitic split 
into Canaanite and Aramaic, whereas the South-west Semitic languages divided 
into Arabic, South Arabian and Ethiopic. The discovery of Ugaritic and Eblaite 
have modified this picture considerably. Both are nowadays usually regarded as 
North-west Semitic languages, but the precise relations between the languages of 
this group are still disputed, and according to some scholars it belongs rather to 
the North-east Semitic languages (see Figure 2.1).
Kienast (2001) rejects this classification of the Semitic languages into North-
east Semitic, North-west Semitic and South-west Semitic as being based solely on 
geographical location, without taking into account the time frame of the devel
-
opment. In his view, the Semitic languages represent one language type that was 
brought in successive waves by nomads into the rich agricultural area, first by 
the Akkadians, then the Canaanites, then the Aramaeans and finally the Arabs. 
Accordingly, he classifies these languages in chronological terms as Old Semitic 
(