Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Semitic languages
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
===Vowels=== {{see also|Proto-Afroasiatic language#Consonant correspondences}} 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: {| class="wikitable Unicode" |+ Vowel correspondences in Semitic languages (in proto-Semitic stressed syllables){{sfn|Dolgopolsky|1999|pp=85–86}} ! rowspan="2" | pS ! colspan="2" | Arabic ! colspan="2" | Aramaic ! colspan="3" | Hebrew ! rowspan="2" | Geʽez ! rowspan="2" | Akkadian |- ! Classical ! Modern ! usually<sup>4</sup> ! <nowiki>/_C.ˈV</nowiki> ! <nowiki>/ˈ_.</nowiki><sup>1</sup> ! <nowiki>/ˈ_Cː</nowiki><sup>2</sup> ! <nowiki>/ˈ_C.C</nowiki><sup>3</sup> |- ! *a | a | a | a | ə | ā | a | ɛ | a, later ä | a, e, ē<sup>5</sup> |- ! *i | i | i | e, i,<br />[[West Syriac dialects|WSyr.]] ɛ | ə | ē | e | ɛ, e | ə | i |- ! *u | u | u | u, o | ə | ō | o | o | ə, ʷə<sup>6</sup> | u |- ! *ā | ā | ā | ā | | ō{{NoteTag|see [[Canaanite shift]]}} | | | ā, later a | ā, ē |- ! *ī | ī | ī | ī | | ī | | | i | ī |- ! *ū | ū | ū | ū | | ū | ū | |u | ū |- ! *ay | ay | ē, ay | [[Biblical Aramaic|BA]], [[Jewish Babylonian Aramaic|JA]] ay(i), ē,<br />[[West Syriac dialects|WSyr.]] ay/ī & ay/ē | | ayi, ay | | | e | ī |- ! *aw | aw | ō, aw | ō,<br />[[West Syriac dialects|WSyr.]] aw/ū | | ō,<br />[[pausa]]l ˈāwɛ | | | o | ū |} # in a stressed open syllable # in a stressed closed syllable before a geminate # in a stressed closed syllable before a consonant cluster # when the proto-Semitic stressed vowel remained stressed # pS *a,*ā > Akk. e,ē in the neighborhood of pS *ʕ,*ħ and before r # i.e. pS *g,*k,*ḳ,*χ > Geʽez gʷ, kʷ,ḳʷ,χʷ / _u
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)