Editing Semitic languages (section)

===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}}