| Semitic | |
| Region: | West Asia, North Africa, Horn of Africa, Malta |
| Familycolor: | Afroasiatic |
| Protoname: | Proto-Semitic |
| Child1: | East Semitic † |
| Child2: | West Semitic |
| Iso2: | sem |
| Iso5: | sem |
| Glotto: | semi1276 |
| Glottorefname: | Semitic |
| Map: | Semitic map.svg |
| Mapcaption: | Modern distribution of the Semitic languages |
| Map2: | Semitic languages.svg |
| Mapcaption2: | Approximate historical distribution of Semitic languages |
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Aramaic, Hebrew, 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 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 and Eblaite texts (written in a script adapted from Sumerian cuneiform) appearing from in Mesopotamia and the northeastern Levant respectively. The only earlier attested languages are Sumerian and Elamite (2800 BCE to 550 BCE), both language isolates, and Egyptian, 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, followed by the mutually intelligible Canaanite languages (including Hebrew, Phoenician, Moabite, Edomite and Ammonite, and perhaps Ekronite, Amalekite and Sutean), the still spoken Aramaic, and Ugaritic during the 2nd millennium BC.
Most scripts used to write Semitic languages are abjadsa 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 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 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, 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 kitāb "book", كُتُب kutub "books", كاتِب kātib "writer", كُتّاب kuttāb "writers", كَتَب kataba "he wrote", يكتُب yaktubu "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 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 the languages closely related to Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew.[1] 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, . Johann Gottfried Eichhorn is credited with popularising the term, particularly via a 1795 article "Semitische Sprachen" (Semitic languages) in which he justified the terminology against criticism that Hebrew and Canaanite were the same language despite Canaan being "Hamitic" in the Table of Nations:
Previously these languages had been commonly known as the "" in European literature. In the 19th century, "Semitic" became the conventional name; however, an alternative name, "", was later introduced by James Cowles Prichard and used by some writers.
See main article: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples. Semitic languages were spoken and written across much of 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.[2]
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, the Levant, Ethiopia,[3] the Eastern Mediterranean region, the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa. According to a 2009 study, the Semitic languages originated in the Levant, 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.[4] Others assign the arrival of Semitic speakers in the Horn of Africa to a much earlier date.[5] 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.[6]
The various extremely closely related and mutually intelligible Canaanite languages, 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 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 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 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 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 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[7] Eastern Middle Aramaic dialect, used as a liturgical language in Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Kerala, India, rose to importance as 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 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 the Assyrians/Syriacs 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.[8] Meanwhile Western Aramaic 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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.[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] 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 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, 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 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 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 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 the evident 29 consonantal phonemes. with pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ merging into Arabic pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ becoming Arabic pronounced as /link/ .
| Type | Manner | Voicing | Labial | Interdental | Alveolar | Palatal | Lateral | Velar/Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Obstruent | Stop | voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| emphatic | (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /link/ | / pronounced as /link/ | , pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | [{{IPAlink|x}}~{{IPAlink|χ}}] | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| emphatic |
| pronounced as /link/ | / pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /ink/~pronounced as /ink/) | |||||||
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | / [{{IPAlink|ɣ}}~{{IPAlink|ʁ}}] | , pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| Resonant | Trill | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
This comparative approach 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 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 a result of the loss of gemination.
In languages exhibiting pharyngealization of emphatics, the original velar emphatic has rather developed to a uvular stop pronounced as /[q]/.
| IPA | Arabic | Maltese | Akkadian | Ugaritic | Phoenician | Hebrew | Aramaic | Ge'ez | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Written | Written | Written | Written | Written | Samaritan Hebrew | Imperial | Syriac | Written | Pronounced | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classical | Modern | Classical | Modern | Written | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ب | pronounced as //b// | b | pronounced as //b// | pronounced as //b// | ב | , 5 | pronounced as //b/, /β//5 | pronounced as //b/, /v// | ࠁ | pronounced as //b// | ܒ | , 5 | በ | pronounced as //b// | ||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ج | pronounced as //ɟ ~ d͡ʒ//9 | pronounced as //d͡ʒ//11 | ġ | pronounced as //d͡ʒ// | pronounced as //ɡ// | ג | , 5 | pronounced as //ɡ/, /ɣ//5 | pronounced as //ɡ// | ࠂ | pronounced as //ɡ// | ܓ | , 5 | ገ | pronounced as //ɡ// | |||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ف | pronounced as //f// | f | pronounced as //f// | pronounced as //p// | פ | , 5 | pronounced as //p/, /ɸ//5 | pronounced as //p/, /f// | ࠐ | pronounced as //f// | ܦ | , 5 | ፈ | pronounced as //f// | ||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ك | pronounced as //k// | k | pronounced as //k// | pronounced as //k// | כ | , 5 | pronounced as //k/, /x//5 | pronounced as //k/, /x// | ࠊ | pronounced as //k// | ܟ | , 5 | ከ | pronounced as //k// | ||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ق | pronounced as //ɡ ~ q//9 | pronounced as //q//12 | q | pronounced as //ʔ ~ q// | pronounced as //q// | ק | /q/ | pronounced as //k// | ࠒ | pronounced as //q// | ܩ | ቀ | pronounced as //kʼ// | |||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | د | pronounced as //d// | d | pronounced as //d// | pronounced as //d// | ד | , 5 | pronounced as //d/, /ð//5 | pronounced as //d// | ࠃ | pronounced as //d// | ܕ | , 5 | ደ | pronounced as //d// | ||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ذ | pronounced as //ð// | > | pronounced as //d͡z// | ז | pronounced as //z// | pronounced as //z// | ࠆ | pronounced as //z// | 3, | ዘ | pronounced as //z// | |||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ز | pronounced as //z// | ż | pronounced as //z// | ܖ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | س | pronounced as //s// | s | pronounced as //s// | pronounced as //t͡s// | ס | pronounced as //s// | pronounced as //s// | ࠎ | pronounced as //s// | ܤ | ሰ | pronounced as //s// | ||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as //ʃ// | שׁ | pronounced as //ʃ// | pronounced as //ʃ// | ࠔ | pronounced as //ʃ// | ܫ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ش | pronounced as //ʃ// | x | pronounced as //ʃ// | 1 | pronounced as //ɬ// | pronounced as //s// | 3, | ሠ | pronounced as //ɬ// | |||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ث | pronounced as //θ// | t | pronounced as //t// | שׁ | pronounced as //ʃ// | pronounced as //ʃ// | 3, | ሰ | pronounced as //s// | |||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ت | pronounced as //t// | ת | , 5 | pronounced as //t/, /θ//5 | pronounced as //t// | ࠕ | pronounced as //t// | ܬ | , 5 | ተ | pronounced as //t// | |||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ط | pronounced as //tˤ// | pronounced as //tʼ// | ט | pronounced as //tˤ// | pronounced as //t// | ࠈ | pronounced as //tˤ// | ܛ | ጠ | pronounced as //tʼ// | ||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ظ | pronounced as //ðˤ// | d | pronounced as //d// | 13 > | pronounced as //t͡sʼ// | צ | pronounced as //sˤ// | pronounced as //t͡s// | ࠑ | pronounced as //sˤ// | 3, | ጸ | pronounced as //tsʼ/, /sʼ// | |||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ص | pronounced as //sˤ// | s | pronounced as //s// | ܨ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ض | pronounced as //ɮˤ ~ dˤ// | pronounced as //dˤ// | d | pronounced as //d// | 3, | ፀ | pronounced as //ɬʼ// | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | غ | pronounced as //ɣ ~ ʁ// | għ | /ˤː/ | , | pronounced as //ʕ// | 2 | pronounced as //ʁ// | pronounced as //ʕ/ ~ /ʔ/ ~ ∅/15 | ࠏ | pronounced as //ʕ/, /ʔ/ ~ ∅/ | 3, | ዐ | pronounced as //ʕ// | |||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ع | pronounced as //ʕ// | –4 | pronounced as //ʕ// | ܥ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ء | pronounced as //ʔ// | – | – | –, ʾ | ,, | , , 10 | pronounced as //ʔ// | א | pronounced as //ʔ// | pronounced as //ʔ/ ~ ∅/ | ࠀ | pronounced as //ʔ/ ~ ∅/ | ܐ | አ | pronounced as //ʔ// | |||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | خ | pronounced as //x ~ χ// | ħ | pronounced as //ħ// | pronounced as //ħ// | 2 | pronounced as //χ// | pronounced as //χ/ ~ /ħ//15 | ࠇ | pronounced as //ʕ/, /ʔ/ ~ ∅/ | 3, | ኀ | pronounced as //χ// | ||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ح | pronounced as //ħ// | –4 | pronounced as //ħ// | ܟ | ሐ | pronounced as //ħ// | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ه | pronounced as //h// | h | /ː/ | – | pronounced as //h// | ה | pronounced as //h// | pronounced as //h/ ~ ∅/ | ࠄ | pronounced as //ʔ/ ~ ∅/ | ܗ | ሀ | pronounced as //h// | |||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | م | m | pronounced as //m// | m | pronounced as //m// | m | m | pronounced as //m// | m | מ | /m/ | /m/ | ࠌ | /m/ | ܡ | m | መ | pronounced as //m// | |||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ن | pronounced as //n// | n | pronounced as //n// | pronounced as //n// | נ | /n/ | /n/ | ࠍ | /n/ | ܢ | ነ | pronounced as //n// | ||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ر | pronounced as //r// | r | pronounced as //r// | pronounced as //r// | ר | /r/ | /ʁ/ | ࠓ | /ʁ/ | ܪ | ረ | pronounced as //r// | ||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ل | pronounced as //l// | l | pronounced as //l// | pronounced as //l// | ל | pronounced as //l// | pronounced as //l// | ࠋ | pronounced as //l// | ܠ | ለ | pronounced as //l// | ||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ي | pronounced as //j// | j | pronounced as //j// | pronounced as //j// | י | pronounced as //j// | pronounced as //j// | ࠉ | pronounced as //j// | ܝ | የ | pronounced as //j// | ||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | و | pronounced as //w// | w | pronounced as //w// | pronounced as //w// | ו | pronounced as //ʋ// | pronounced as //v/ ~ /w// | ࠅ | pronounced as //b// | ܘ | ወ | pronounced as //w// | ||||||||||||||||||
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:
| Proto-Semitic | Arabic | Maltese | Aramaic | Hebrew | Examples | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic | Maltese | Aramaic | Hebrew | meaning | |||||
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| ذهب ذَكَر | deheb– | דהב דכרא | זהב זָכָר | 'gold' 'male' |
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| موازين زمن | miżienżmien | מאזנין זמן | מאזנים זמן | 'scale' 'time' | |
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| سكين شهر | sikkinaxahar | סכין סהר | סכין סהר | 'knife' 'moon/month' |
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| عشر | għaxra | עשׂר | עשׂר | 'ten' |
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| سنة سلام | senasliem | שׁנה שלם | שׁנה שלום | 'year' 'peace' |
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| ثلاثة اثنان | tlietatnejn | תלת תרין | שלוש שתים | 'three' 'two' | |
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| ظل ظهر | dell– | טלה טהרא | צל צהרים | 'shadow' 'noon' |
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| أرض ضحك | artdaħaq | ארע עחק | ארץ צחק | 'land' 'laughed' | |
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| صرخ صبر | צרח צבר | צרח צבר | 'shout' 'watermelon-like plant' | |||
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| خمسة صرخ | ħamsa– | חַמְשָׁה צרח | חֲמִשָּׁה צרח | 'five' 'shout' |
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| ملح حلم | melħħolm | מלח חלם | מלח חלום | 'salt' 'dream' | ||
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| غراب غرب | għorabgħarb | ערב מערב | עורב מערב | 'raven' 'west' | |
pronounced as /
| pronounced as /
| عبد سبعة | għabidsebgħa | עבד שבע | עבד שבע | 'slave' 'seven' | |||
Proto-Semitic vowels are, in general, harder to deduce due to 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: