Semitic Languages

SEMITIC LANGUAGES. - A group of languages
characterized by a large number of common phonetic,
morphological, syntactic and lexical elements which,
preserving themselves through time and areal shifts, conform to the idea of a single
genetic descent. The sum of these elements constitutes
so-called Proto-Semitic, a necessarily abstract, doubtful and incomplete
reconstruction.

I. CLASSIFICATION

The Semitic languages are classified into the following major groups:

a) Akkadian: it is the language of the Semites of Mesopotamia, which after an ancient period splits into the Babylonian and Assyrian dialects, each consisting of an ancient, middle and recent phase. Despite its historical archaism, Akkadian, finding itself under the influence of the non-Semitic substrate of the region, presents in large part evolved features compared with the other Semitic languages.

b) Canaanite: it is the most debated group, since it is difficult to give characteristics that apply to all the languages of it and that are lacking in the others. Maintaining provisionally the traditional division, the group includes ancient Canaanite (glosses of el-'Amārnah, probably proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, perhaps pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions of Byblos), Hebrew, Phoenician-Punic and Moabite. Ugaritic has characteristics only in part common to the group.

c) Aramaic: it includes a large number of languages and dialects. To the most ancient phase belong the pre-Christian inscriptions and papyri and biblical Aramaic. Subsequently there is a division into two branches. To the first, called western or recent (because it develops the characteristics of ancient Aramaic without differing much from it), belong Nabataean, Palmyrene, Jewish Aramaic, Samaritan and Christian Aramaic; to the second, called eastern, belong Syriac (the language of which we have the most extensive literature), Babylonian Talmudic and Mandaic. Remains of spoken Aramaic are found today in Syria, Armenia and Mesopotamia.

d) Arabic: it is divided into southern and northern. The first includes the dialects of the ancient inscriptions of Yemen, the second those of the pre-Islamic north-Arabian inscriptions and above all classical Arabic, the language of the Qur'an and of Islamic literature. This language has today branched out into various modern dialects, while others are found in the south. Classical Arabic, coming from the geographically least exposed area (the desert), is the Semitic language that presents the most conservative features and is therefore the principal foundation in the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic.

e) Ethiopic: it includes classical Ethiopic (ge'ez) and the modern dialects derived from it (Tigre, Tigrai, Amharic, etc.). It too, like Akkadian, found itself in a peripheral area and on a non-Semitic substrate, with consequent differentiations.

The groups of the Semitic languages are usually gathered into a further classification on a geographical basis: on the one hand eastern Semitic (Akkadian) is distinguished, on the other western Semitic, divided in turn into northern (Canaanite, Aramaic) and southern (Arabic, Ethiopic).

II. DESCRIPTION

1. Phonetics

The Semitic languages present a very rich consonantism; characteristic in particular are laryngeal, guttural, spirant and emphatic sounds. The Semitic consonantal inventory is as follows:

Laryngeals: ', ', h, h

Among the more characteristic phenomena of the system, note is made of the loss of the laryngeals ', h, h in Akkadian. The dentals register the following changes (reference is made to Hebrew and Syriac, rather than to Canaanite and Aramaic, because what holds for the principal languages of the groups does not always hold for all of them):

Of the gutturals, g̅ disappears in Akkadian, becomes ' in Hebrew, Syriac and Ethiopic; h̅ becomes h in Hebrew and Syriac. The sibilants register the following changes:

Of the semivowels, in Hebrew and Syriac w > j at the beginning of a word. In Akkadian the semivowels frequently disappear, especially at the beginning of a word.

The Proto-Semitic vowels are considered to be a, i, u, both short and long. They are preserved as such in Arabic, while in the other languages (particularly in Hebrew and Syriac) the system is extended by means of vowels of secondary origin, deriving from the influence of neighboring consonants or from the contraction of diphthongs. The fact that many Semitic languages do not write the vowels (except in texts of particular importance, such as the Qur'an) makes their vocalization partly uncertain. Among the more characteristic phenomena of vocalism, mention is made for the long vowels of the passage of d to è in Hebrew. The short vowels are notably unstable, especially in Hebrew and Syriac, where the alterations are connected with syllable structure and with accent.

The Semitic syllable may be open (consonant + vowel) or closed (consonant - vowel - consonant). It follows that every syllable begins with a consonant, and never with more than one; two consonants can stand next to each other only in the interior of a word. Otherwise prothetic vowels or word links generally come into play. The closed syllable originally requires a short vowel: therefore long vowels in a closed syllable are shortened; nevertheless this principle has exceptions in all the Semitic languages, especially when the long vowels are of secondary origin.

The position of the Proto-Semitic accent is disputed. Of it one can say that it has no determining value with respect to the meaning of the word and that it is one of free intensity, that is, independent of syllable quality. There are certain general tendencies connected with the accent: a) lengthening of the accented vowel; b) loss or reduction to very brief duration of the short vowels before and after the accented syllable; c) shortening of long vowels and diphthongs under the same conditions. A particular type of accent is the sentence accent, constituted by the pause at the end of the clause: it brings about an alteration of the last word.

The Semitic languages present, like every other, numerous phenomena of phonetic evolution: assimilation, dissimilation, prothesis and anaptyxis, metathesis.

2. Morphology

Semitic morphology is based essentially on roots of three consonants, to which the basic meaning is tied; the addition of vowels, and possibly of prefixes, infixes and suffixes, determines the various grammatical forms. In turn, numerous groups of triconsonantal roots present two radicals in common and a related meaning, suggesting that the present triconsonantism is in part the development of a primitive biconsonantism.

The noun presents very varied themes: the bisyllabic ones with short vowels (e.g. qatal, qutul, qitil) can be reduced to monosyllabic ones by retraction of the accent (qatl, qutl, qitl) or extended by vowel lengthening (e.g., qatal, qutul, qitil); a further extension is determined by the addition of prefixes, such as m- and t- (e.g., maqtal, taqtal), or of suffixes, such as -an and -ij (e.g., qitlan, qitlij), the latter used for the formation of the adjective from the noun. The feminine has a principal ending in -(a)t, which also serves to express the collective. The Proto-Semitic feminine plural has -at, while for the masculine there are various endings: predominant, in the languages that preserve declension, are -a for the nominative and -i for the oblique case. Alongside the plural formed by means of endings, the Semitic languages of the south present a plural characterized by internal alteration of the noun, which is called internal or broken. Proto-Semitic also has a dual in -a in the nominative and -aj in the genitive-accusative. The declension of the noun is well identified in the singular in Arabic and Akkadian, by means of the endings -u in the nominative, -i in the genitive and -a in the accusative; sporadic traces are found in the other languages. In the plural, the same languages preserve the nominative in -a and the genitive in -i. Similarly, Arabic and Akkadian are the only Semitic languages that preserve the ending of the indeterminate noun (-m in Akkadian and South Arabian, -n in Arabic). As for the definite article, some languages lack it, others form it in various ways (al-prefixed in Arabic, ha-prefixed in Hebrew with doubling of the following consonant, -a suffixed in the "emphatic state" of Aramaic). If the noun governs a genitive, it cannot have an article, it may undergo a morphological alteration and is said to be in the construct state.

The Semitic verb is characterized by the multiplicity of themes, expressing the various modalities of the action. The fundamental theme is, e.g., qatala ("to kill"), with two variants qatula and qatila of intransitive meaning. The doubling of the second radical gives a theme of intensive, iterative or causative value (qattala, "to slaughter" or "to cause to kill"). A conative theme, present in the Semitic languages of the south and with traces in Hebrew, is obtained with the lengthening of the 1st vowel (qātala, "to try to kill"). All the Semitic languages have a causative theme with prefixes ('a- in Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic, hain Hebrew, lain Akkadian), e.g., 'aqtala, "to cause to kill."

From the aforesaid themes, reflexives can be formed with the prefix ta- (e.g., tagâta, t.l.f. of gâtala), and with the prefix n-. From the 4 principal themes, passives can moreover be formed by changing the vowel series: Arabic preserves them integrally, with the series u-i-a in place of a-a-a (e.g., qutila, passive of qatala).

The themes are conjugated according to tenses and moods. Except for Akkadian, there are two fundamental tenses: the imperfect, a conjugation with prefixes and suffixes on the theme of the imperative, and the perfect, a conjugation with suffixes only. The former expresses the action not completed, the latter the action completed.

Here is the most probable schema of the Proto-Semitic imperfect in the fundamental transitive theme:

And here is the probable schema of the perfect in the same theme:

The phonetic and analogical laws intervene to modify these forms in the various languages, in addition to the peculiarities arising in each one in the course of its development. Akkadian is furthermore differentiated from the temporal scheme of the other Semitic languages, distinguishing 3 conjugations: two with prefixes and suffixes, of which the first (preterite, corresponding in form to the imperfect) expresses the completed action, and the second (present) the incomplete and durative action; one with suffixes (permansive, similar but not identical to the perfect), indicating the state.

Noteworthy is the series of moods: besides infinitive, participle (on the fundamental theme qâtil), imperative (qâtal, qâtil, qâtal), indicative and subjunctive, there are also an apocopated form without final vowel and an energetic one with the ending -an (-anna): such moods are, better than in any other Semitic language, preserved in Arabic.

Numerous verbs present differences from the usual schemes, chiefly because of the presence of a laryngeal or a semivowel among the radicals.

3. Syntax

The Semitic construction of the sentence generally places the verb at the beginning of the narration (verbal sentence), while the precedence of the noun indicates rather description and state (nominal sentence). In the period, coordination prevails over subordination. Conjunctions are consequently often avoided, giving rise, for example, to relative clauses of the type "A man, we have seen him" (= "A man whom we have seen"), or to the typical circumstantial clauses (e.g., "I went out, a book in my hand" = "I went out with a book in my hand"). It is especially in syntax that Akkadian and Ethiopic, because of their peripheral position, depart notably from the common characteristics of the other Semitic languages.

III. RELATIONS WITH OTHER LANGUAGE FAMILIES

The complex problem can only be touched upon here. The relationships between the Semitic languages on the one hand and the Hamitic languages on the other are undoubted, provided that Hamitic is not understood as a unitary group to be set against Semitic, but rather as the set of several groups standing in a roughly analogous relationship to Semitic and to one another. Accordingly, Semitic, Egyptian, Berber and Cushitic are considered to stand in a relationship of probable genetic descent from an original Semito-Hamitic.

Some relationship has long been observed between the Semito-Hamitic languages on the one hand and the Indo-European languages on the other. Nevertheless, the studies intended to demonstrate an original unity (Möller, Cuny) have been received with skepticism. For the present one can speak of certain isoglosses, more lexical than morphological, which indicate a relation of affinity rather than of kinship.

BIBL.: sources

C. Brockelmann, Grundriss der vergleich. Grammatik der semit. Sprachen, 2 vols., Berlin 1908-11 (fundamental; of

vol. I there is an abridged and revised edition in French by W. Marçais and M. Cohen, Précis de linguistique sémitique, Paris 1910; H. Fleisch, Introd. à l'étude des langues sémitiques, ibid. 1947 (with bibliography of previous analogous works); J. H. Kramers, De semitische talen, Leiden 1949. On the relationships with other language families: M. Cohen, Essai comparatif sur le socahut, et la phonétique du chamito-sémitique, Paris 1947; L. Heilmann, Camito-semitico e indoeuropeo, Bologna 1949. Sabatino Moscati

@incollection{ec11_semitiche_lingue,
  author    = {Moscati, Sabatino},
  title     = {Semitiche, lingue},
  booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
  volume    = {XI},
  pages     = {287--292},
  note      = {Cited by column},
  publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
  address   = {Città del Vaticano},
  year      = {1953},
  url       = {https://azioneromana.com/article/semitiche-lingue}
}