Editing Semitic languages (section)

===Word order===
The reconstructed default word order in Proto-Semitic 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 [[Varieties of Arabic|Arabic vernaculars]], however, as well as sometimes in [[Modern Standard Arabic]] (the modern literary language based on Classical Arabic) and [[Modern Hebrew]], 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, Geʽez, was VSO, possessed–possessor, and noun–adjective.{{sfn|Greenberg|1999|p=157}} Akkadian was also predominantly SOV.