Semitic Languages

Semitic Languages, a conventional name given by Eichhorn to a linguistic family, which Renan calls the Syro-Arabic, from the extreme northern and southern members of the group. There are four well-defined branches: (1) ASSYRIAN of the cuneiform writings, extinct probably before the new era; (2) ARAMAIC, comprising the Syriac of Syria and parts of Palestine, extinct since the 9th or 10th century of the new era, and the Chaldean, still spoken by a few Nestorians (q.v.) and other communities in Mesopotamia and (3) CANAANITISH, comprising the Phoenician of the Palestine and south-west Mediterranean (Punic) coast-lands, everywhere extinct probably since the 5th century of the new era, and the Hebrew of the Israelites and Jews, which as a vernacular rapidly merged in the Aramaic after the Babylonian Captivity; (4) ARABIC, comprising the Arabic proper of the greater part of Arabia, the language of the Koran, now current throughout the whole of Arabia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and most of North Africa, and Hiimyaritic of South-West Arabia (Yemen) and Abyssinia, all but extinct in Arabia, but surviving in more or less corrupt forms (Tigrina, Amharic, Harari, etc.) in Abyssinia, [GEEZ.] Although recent research has gone far to prove the original unity of Semitic and Hamitic speech [HAMITIC LANGUAGES], the relations are so slight, and go back to such a remote epoch, that Semitic must practically be regarded as an independent form of speech, belonging to the inflecting order, but fundamentally distinct from all other inflecting langnages. It is distinguished, as might be expected from the mental temperament of the Semitic race (q.v.), by great stability and persistence; so much so that the various branches may almost be regarded as little more than dialects of a long extinct Semitic mother-tongue. Certainly these branches differ far less from each other - Hebrew, for instance, from Syriac, or Assyrian from Arabic - than do many members of the different Aryan branches from each other - English, for instance, from Old High German in the Teutonic, or Hindi from Sanskrit in the Indic branch. "On comparing the Chaldean of the fragments of Esdras, representing the Aramaic of the 5th century B.C., with the Syriac still written in our day, scarcely any essential differences can be discovered between texts composed at so long an interval. Between these two limits Aramaic may be said to have varied no more than the language of Cicero from that of Ennius" (Renan). The most striking features of Semitic speech are: (1) The strong phonetic system, with several deep gutturals (kh, q, gh, etc.) unpronounceable by Europeans, yet preserved for thousands of years in the hottest inhabited region of the globe; (2) the trisyllabic verbal roots, consisting mainly of three consonants (triliteral, with a few biliteral, quadriliteral, and pluriliteral), "moved" by vowels, but never changed in sonnd or sequence in any of the branches. Thus from root qtl = "kill," Arab. qatala, Heb. qatal, etc., "he killed;" (3) the remarkable verbal process, without analogy in any other language, by which from this triliteral root were developed, chiefly by internal vowel change and prefixed servile letters (k, t, n, s), as many as 15 thematic forms (intensives, reciprocals, causatives, reflexives, iteratives, etc.), in the Semitic mother-tongue, of which 12 or 13 are preserved in Himyaritic, 11 in Arabic, 5 in Hebrew, and more or less in the other branches. Thus Arabic, qatula, qutala, haqtala, taqatala, hinqata1a, histaqtala, etc., each with active and passive voice, personal endings, participles, gender, but two tenses only, the complete and incomplete; for acts are thought by the Semitic mind, not as taking place in past, present, or future time, as they are thought by the expansive Aryan mind, but as either done absolutely (past) or not complete at time of fact last mentioned, the incomplete or "imperfect" thus vaguely answering to our present and future. The verb also incorporates both the direct and indirect personal objects; but in other respects Semitic inflection is poor - declension restricted to three cases (subjective, possessive, and objective), feebly marked by nasalisation, little adjectival change, dual confined to noun, no neuter gender, no optative, no word-building by prefixes or other process. Peculiar to the Arabic branch are the so-called "broken plurals" on which, being really singular collectives, secondary plurals may be built. There are over thirty typical forms, such as auhar, "a gem," jawuhir, "jewellery;" amir, "prince," umaru, "the aristocracy;" qarib, "a relation," aqriba, "kindred;" khabar, "news," akhbar, "tidings;" kafir, "unbeliever," kuffar, "the infidel." Several of these or analogous forms snrvive in the cognate Himyaritic, but the principle on which they have been developed has disappeared from all the other members of the Semitic family. All the Semitic languages except Assyrian (see above) are written in various forms of an alphabet attributed to the Phoenicians, and ultimately traceable to a hieroglyphic (Egyptian or Babylonian) source, This graphic system runs from right to left, and makes originally little provision for the vowel sonnds, except in the Himyaritic of Abyssinia, which reverses the order and develops a full vocal series by a uniform modification of the consonants. Apart from the Assyrian now being revealed by the decipherment of the cuneiform writings, Semitic literature has been successively cultivated, first by the Jews (Hebrew period closing with the 6th century B.C.), then by the Aramaeans (from 6th century B.C. to 7th A.D.), and, lastly, by the Arabs (from 7th century A.D. down to the present day). The two first are mainly religious, the third religious and general. (Renan, Histoire, etc., des Langues Semitiques.)