Editing Semitic languages (section)

==History==
===Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples===
{{Main|Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples}}
[[File:Semitic languages - Chronology.png|thumb|Chronology mapping of Semitic languages]]
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 language|Akkadian]] of [[Mesopotamia]] ([[Akkad (region)|Akkad]], [[Assyria]], [[Isin]], [[Larsa]], and [[Babylonia]]) from the [[3rd millennium BC|third millennium BC]].<ref>[http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/3139/1/PAGE_31%2D71.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731204154/https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/3139/1/PAGE_31-71.pdf|date=2020-07-31}} Andrew George, "Babylonian and Assyrian: A History of Akkadian", In: Postgate, J. N., (ed.), ''Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern''. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, pp. 37.</ref>

The [[Proto-Semitic language#Linguistic homeland|origin of Semitic-speaking peoples]] is still under discussion. Several locations were proposed as possible sites of a prehistoric [[Proto-Semitic language|origin of Semitic-speaking peoples]]: [[Mesopotamia]], the [[Levant]], [[Ethiopia]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cJc3AAAAIAAJ&q=ethiopia |title=Early Semitic. A diachronical inquiry into the relationship of Ethiopic to the other so-called South-East Semitic languages |access-date=28 March 2023 |archive-date=13 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230513053900/https://books.google.com/books?id=cJc3AAAAIAAJ&q=ethiopia |url-status=live |last1=Murtonen |first1=A. |date=1967 }}</ref> the [[Eastern Mediterranean]] region, the [[Arabian Peninsula]], and [[North Africa]]. According to a 2009 study, the Semitic languages originated in the [[Levant]] {{circa|3750 BC}}, and were introduced to the [[Horn of Africa]] c. 800 BC from the southern Arabian Peninsula.{{sfn|Kitchen|Ehret|Assefa|2009|pp=2703–10}} Others assign the arrival of Semitic speakers in the [[Horn of Africa]] to a much earlier date.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Phillipson |first1=David |title=Foundations of an African Civilization, Aksum and the Northern Horn 1000 BC-AD 1300 |date=2012 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=9781846158735 |page=11 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/foundations-of-an-african-civilisation/085D477B9A156FEE4C8D1A3128B9B52A |access-date=6 May 2021 |quote=The former belief that this arrival of South-Semitic-speakers took place in about the second quarter of the first millennium BC can no longer be accepted in view of linguistic indications that these languages were spoken in the northern Horn at a much earlier date. |archive-date=6 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506095009/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/foundations-of-an-african-civilisation/085D477B9A156FEE4C8D1A3128B9B52A |url-status=live }}</ref> According to another hypothesis, [[Proto-Semitic language|Semitic]] originated from an offshoot of a still earlier language in North Africa; [[desertification]] led to emigration in the fourth millennium BC to both what is now [[Ethiopia]] and northeast out of Africa into West Asia.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c3SYDwAAQBAJ |title=The Origin of the Jews: The Quest for Roots in a Rootless Age By Steven Weitzman page 69 |isbn=978-0-691-19165-2 |access-date=14 March 2023 |archive-date=16 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230716002838/https://books.google.com/books?id=c3SYDwAAQBAJ |url-status=live |last1=Weitzman |first1=Steven |date=2 April 2019 |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref>

The various extremely closely related and [[mutually intelligible]] [[Canaanite languages]], a branch of the [[Northwest Semitic languages]] included [[Edomite]], [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], [[Ammonite language|Ammonite]], [[Moabite language|Moabite]], [[Phoenician languages|Phoenician]] ([[Punic]]/[[Ancient Carthage|Carthaginian]]), [[Samaritan Hebrew language|Samaritan Hebrew]], and [[Ekron]]ite. 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.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

[[File:Tablet_XI_or_the_Flood_Tablet_of_the_Epic_of_Gilgamesh,_currently_housed_in_the_British_Museum_in_London.jpg|thumb|[[Epic of Gilgamesh]], an [[Epic poetry|epic poem]] from ancient [[Mesopotamia]], regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature, written in [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]].<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://seer.ufu.br/index.php/artcultura/article/view/50156/26715 |title=A "Epopeia Gilgamesh" é uma epopeia? |journal=ArtCultura |volume=21 |number=38 |pages=9–24 |year=2019 |first=Jacyntho Lins |last= Brandão |doi=10.14393/artc-v21-n38-2019-50156 |s2cid=202426524 |language=pt-br |place=[[Uberlândia]] |doi-access=free}}</ref>{{rp|23}}]]

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.{{sfn|Izre'el|1987c|p=4}}

[[Aramaic language|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 Empire|Neo-Babylonian]] and [[Achaemenid Empire]]s.{{sfn|Waltke|O'Connor|1990|p=8}}

The ''Chaldean language'' (not to be confused with [[Aramaic]] or its [[Biblical Aramaic|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 [[Chaldea]]ns appear to have rapidly adopted the Akkadian and Aramaic languages of the indigenous Mesopotamians.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

[[Old South Arabian languages]] (classified as South Semitic and therefore distinct from the Central-Semitic Arabic) were spoken in the kingdoms of [[Dilmun]], [[Sheba]], [[Atlantis of the Sands|Ubar]], [[Socotra]], and [[Magan (civilization)|Magan]], which in modern terms encompassed part of the eastern coast of [[Saudi Arabia]], and [[Bahrain]], [[Qatar]], [[Oman]], and [[Yemen]].{{Citation needed|date=February 2019}} South Semitic languages are thought to have spread to the [[Horn of Africa]] circa 8th century BC where the [[Geʽez]] language emerged (though the direction of influence remains uncertain).{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

=== First century to twentieth century CE ===
[[File:Basmalah-1wm.svg|thumb|upright=0.9|Example of [[Arabic calligraphy]]]]
[[Syriac language|Classical Syriac]], a 200 CE<ref>"…Syriac, the Classical dialect of Aramaic first attested in Edessa, about 200 CE, but which spread through the Christian communities of Mesopotamia and the Levant in the following centuries.", Revival and Awakening
American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism, p.49</ref> [[Eastern Aramaic languages|Eastern Middle Aramaic]] dialect,{{sfn|Brock|1998|p=708}} used as a [[liturgical language]] in [[Mesopotamia]], the [[Levant]], and [[Kerala]], India,{{sfn|Harrak|1992|pp=209–14}} rose to importance as a literary language of early [[Christianity]] in the third to fifth centuries and continued into the early [[Islam]]ic 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 Muslim conquests|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 peoples|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 languages|Eastern Aramaic]] (including [[Suret language|Suret]] (Assyrian and Chaldean varieties), [[Turoyo language|Turoyo]], and [[Mandaic language|Mandaic]]) survive to this day among the [[Assyrian people|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.<ref>{{harvnb|Afsaruddin|Zahniser|1997|p=464}}; {{harvnb|Smart|2013|p=253}}; {{harvnb|Sánchez|2013|p=129}}</ref> Meanwhile [[Western Aramaic]] is now only spoken by a few thousand Christian and Muslim [[Terms for Syriac Christians#Aramean identity|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 language|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]].{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

[[File:AndalusQuran.JPG|thumb|right|upright=0.9|Page from a 12th-century [[Quran]] in [[Arabic]] ]]
With the patronage of the caliphs and the prestige of its [[sacred language|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,{{sfn|Nebes|2005|p=335}} 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 [[Nubia]]n 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 language|Soqotri]], [[Mehri language|Mehri]] and [[Shehri language|Shehri]] which are mainly spoken in [[Socotra]], Yemen, and Oman.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

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 languages|Cushitic]] influence, they split into a number of languages, including [[Amharic]] and [[Tigrinya language|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 language|Gafat]]) and non-Semitic (such as [[Weyto language|Weyto]]) languages, and replacing Geʽez as the principal literary language (though Geʽez remains the liturgical language for [[Christians]] in the region); this spread continues to this day, with [[Qimant language|Qimant]] set to disappear in another generation.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}