Talk:Semitic languages/Archive 1

2004 discussion
Sources for new language listings:


 * Caplice, Richard: Introduction to Akkadian
 * Ungnad, Arthur: Akkadian Grammar

Ben Brumfield

Huehnergard's A Grammar of Akkadian also has an interesting chart that further subdivides the Semitic family:


 * 1) East Semitic
 * 2) Akkadian and Eblaite
 * 3) West Semitic
 * 4) Central Semitic
 * 5) Northwest Semitic
 * 6) Ugaritic
 * 7) Canaanite (including Hebrew)
 * 8) Aramaic
 * 9) North Arabian
 * 10) Arabic Dialects
 * 11) South Semitic
 * 12) South Arabian
 * 13) Old South Arabian Languages
 * 14) Ethiopian
 * 15) Ge'ez
 * 16) Amharic

I'd be willing to reorganize the article along these lines, but not until this is paraphrased (ideally by the addition of more language names).

Ben Brumfield

Thankyou for that Ben, including the above there are now four different classifications I know of. In one of them Punic comes under West Semetic somewhere between North & South Arabian and Ugaritic under Canaanite which is also called NorthCentral. A user called user:Wetman on the Phoenician page proposed "Phoenician was one of the northwestern Semitic languages, those languages that include Amorite and Ugaritic, in addition to the Canaanite languages that include Phoenician, Hebrew and Aramaic." As you can see he seperates Amorite from Canaanite and replaces it with Punic. These may be very minor differences in opinion but I wonter how the arguments go for the different classifications?

Also it was brought to my mind by that user that Arabic & Ethiopic speakers often object to being called Semetic speakers. Thus I am putting a comment about the PC-ness of the term in the article.

Zestauferov 03:40, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

As an Arab, I strongly disagree - Semitic is, in fact, the Arabic term (saamiyya سامية) for the Semitic languages, and is founded in myths shared as much by the Arab world as by the West. If nothing else, recall that Arabs do object - sometimes quite strongly - to the appropriation of the term "anti-Semitism" to refer exclusively to anti-Judaism.

Also, the Tamashek example was ill-chosen, being an Arabic loanword (خلق); I have replaced it with one taken from Kabyle.

- Mustafa, 17 March 2004

Added a comparing table of four words in four Semitic languages. Jeru 11:58, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't think "El Amarna" is in fact a language - rather, it is Akkadian as written by scribes who spoke early Canaanite better than Akkadian, and often slipped into Canaanisms. It would be like calling Indian English a separate language... I've deleted it; if someone has a good argument for restoring it, then by all means do so! Btw, what does "maliku" mean in Akkadian? I know it's not the normal word for king... - Mustafa, April 5 2004.

-Both _maliku_ (rarer) and _malku_ appear in Akkadian lexical lists and also in some texts. It is glossed with Sumerian _lugal, bára_ 'King, prince, chief'. Must not be confused with _mâliku_ 'counsellor'. I seem to remember that it's tagged 'western' in a LL but I'd have to verify. The "normal" word for 'king' in Akkadian is _sharru_. --Simha 08:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Please check The Curse of Ham. Whether one agrees or not with the theology, he quite strongly makes the point that Hebrew, Arab and Akkadian are actually Hamitic languages. This seems like a controversial point, but I guess it would warrant mention at least.

They are hamitic languages which is why the term Hamitic dropped out of use in favour of Afroasiatic. It has been suggested (e.g. Salvini, Speiser, etc.) that the original language of the Hebrews was Hurrian, and that they adopted an early form of Canaanite from the Amorite herders amongst whom they interacted which became the Hebrew language. Zestauferov 16:09, 12 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Zestauferov, I'm afraid that your linked article looks pretty silly from any number of angles, which I'm not sure this is the proper forum to discuss (your talk page, maybe?). First and least controversial of these, however, is that both it and your quoting of it fall for the etymological fallacy -- the notion that a word means what it used to mean.  "Semitic" is the name for this language family because that's the name early linguists gave it, that's the name still used for it, and that's the name we English speakers are all stuck with for the forseeable future. The name has no relation anymore to genetic or genealogical relationships between the various speakers of the languages, whatever those may be.  As G.K Chesterton once pointed out,   "chivalrous" is not the French for "horsy".  Ben 16:17, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Invitation for Hebrew linguistics project participation
WikiProject Judaism is trying to decide all Hebrew linguistics issues for Wikipedia by themselves. But Hebrew is not purely the realm of Judaism; it is also the realm of Samaritans, Christians and Abrahamic religion as a whole, and also secular Canaanite languages studies. I'm trying to challenge mono-cultural mono-sectarian dominance over a linguistic field that we all should be sharing together. I invite you to participate in trying to pluralize Hebrew language conventions for Wikipedia. In particular, not only is Tiberian Hebrew transliteration challenged, but also Standard Hebrew transliteration, as some people want to use only Israeli Hebrew colloquial transliteration or Ashkenazi Hebrew liturgical transliteration. I think these are perfectly valid and worthy of participation, but not at the total expense of every other Hebrew linguistics study concern. Please support a multi-religious multi-cultural scientific NPOV mandate for studying Hebrew linguistics on Wikipedia. - Gilgamesh 02:54, 18 July 2004 (UTC)

Milk (l-b-n), etc.
Note: I was an Arabic TA at Georgetown University and taught Arabic for a while with a para-govt. language center in Maryland. Here are a few suggestions from my instructional experience:

1) Quote: "The root l-b-n means "milk" in Arabic, but the color "white" in Hebrew."

COMMENT: In Modern Standard Arabic (i.e. "fus'ha"), the normal word for "milk" is *Haliib*; *laban* is a secondary synonym for it and in some parts of the Arab World (Levant) means "coagulated sour milk" (a spread); thus, the root isn't unambiguously (or ubiquitously) "milk". It would be safe, however, to say that the ROOT (L-B-N) refers to "milk products" (e.g. *?albaan* "dairy products").

Suggested change: "The root l-b-n is related to milk and milk products in Arabic, but means "white" in Hebrew."

2) Quote: "The most common Semitic languages spoken today are Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew, and Tigrinya."

COMMENT: I think it would be helpful to readers to list estimated number of speakers in parentheses after each of these (data from the Ethnologue):

e.g. "... Arabic (various dialects, 209 million speakers), Amharic (17.4 m), Hebrew (5.2 m), and Tigrinya/Tigrigna (5.1 m)

3) Transliteration of 'ayn " ...in Arabic by the roots ?-r-f and ?-l-m"

COMMENT: This problem could be just a result of the character font used on my computer (if so, apologies), but using a question mark [?] for 'ayn is very misleading because it is a common transliteration for a glottal stop (also phonemically distinctive in Arabic). 'ayn is also transliterated using a number 3 or 9 (similar in shape to the Arabic letter).

4) Quote: "These languages all exhibit a pattern of words consisting of triconsonantal roots"

COMMENT: How about putting "3-consonant" in parentheses after the word "triconsonantal"? (since I assume not all users of Wikipedia are linguists - or college grads)

e.g. "These languages all exhibit a pattern of words consisting of triconsonantal (3-consonant) roots"

5) S-p-r as an example of a root

COMMENT: Since one example of a "Semitic language" (Hebrew: g-d-l) has already been used, why not broaden the pool of examples by including one from Arabic rather than giving a second example (s-p-r) from the same Semitic language? Another from Amharic would be helpful, too.

Suggestion: replace s-p-r with k-t-b (since it is mentioned below) - and to make the 3 consonants more salient, why not capitalize them?

KaTaB-at "she wrote"

KutiB-at "it (fem.) was written"

ta-KTuBu  "she writes"

KaaTiB "writer"

ma-KTuuB "written, a letter"

KiTaaB "book"

KuTuB "books"

KuTayyiB "booklet"

ma-KTaB-ah "library"

etc.

6) overall OUTLINE of entry

There seems to be a visually intimidating amount of space dedicated to a classification of all the Semitic languages before the reader ever gets to "Common Characteristics" (if the reader even ventures that far). I would move the "Common Characteristics" section closer to the top before the "Eastern Semitic Languages", since it is more general information, then let the long list of categories come last. - anon

These are some great suggestions - why not put them in yourself and thus get the credit for them? - Mustafaa 02:00, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Classification of Semitic languages
I've been trying to compare different classification systems to see what they're all about. It seems that ever book I pick up has a different scheme. There seems to be some difficulty combining classification schemes for living languages with those used for extinct ones. As you may have guessed, I've worked out how to do tables, and I thought fellow wikipedians might want to edit this table so that we might reach a consensus on classification terminology.

The column marked 'source unknown' was scribbled down on a piece of paper, but it seems the simplest of classifications. It seems to fit in with some of the more verbose schemes too. Any thoughts?
 * Gareth Hughes 00:49, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It does get confusing! I think the Ethnologue's is suspiciously Biblical, and uncited. Hetzron as modified by Huehnergard seems to be the most fashionable nowadays, though personally I agree with Ratcliffe that the broken plural is strong evidence in favor of the older Semitic classification. Certainly East Semitic seems to be a primary branch. - Mustafaa 00:58, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

But one point I would emphasise is that it's not enough to establish divisions alone; to the extent that it's possible, we should use hierarchical trees. - Mustafaa 00:59, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I think I needed to tabulate it to see what was what. I've been using Ethnologue's scheme in infoboxes so far. I had noticed a few references to Ethnologue on other language pages and had assumed that it was semi-official around here. The more I looked at it, the more I disliked it. Would it be possible to reach consensus on Huehnergard, with the provision that South Semitic can either be thought of as a first or second division? It would make sense if all the Semitic articles agreed at headline level, and disagreements were noted in the body of the text.
 * Gareth Hughes 12:28, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd be happy to use Huehnergard as the standard; I think the main disagreements are already noted towards the beginning of this article, but I may well have missed a few, so feel free to improve it. - Mustafaa 10:55, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here's me playing with tables again! I've taken the current text of the article and put it in this table. I'm not sure whether we need to mention every Semitic language in this article, but just give an overview of the different branches. This table could be ajusted for Huehnergard, and could have more languages included, but I would suggest fewer individual languages and more emphasis on the branches and groupings of Semitic languages.


 * Gareth Hughes 11:10, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's a cool idea; and I do agree that linking to subgroups rather than individual languages makes it more readable in some cases. My one objection is a minor point: it seems a little too colorful to me, to the point that it distracts a bit from the text. - Mustafaa 11:35, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Is someone who studies Semitic languages a Semitist, as the article says, or a Semiticist, as I would usually say? I'm just not quite sure myself. --Gareth Hughes 10:54, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Neither am I... Google doesn't offer much help either! - Mustafaa 23:03, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I think it's Semiticist. Semitist sounds more like a religious affiliation than a linguistics practice. - Gilgamesh 00:45, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Semitist is the predominant term, I think. The OED seems to only have semitist. Also, it's the word used in other European languages: German _Semitist_, French _sémitiste_, Spanish/ Italian _semitista_ etc. The word is used like romanist, slavist et al. Working in the field of semitic languages, I hardly ever hear the term semiticist anymore. One tends to settle for the shorter form. Just as we speak of a philologist not **philologicist. --Simha 08:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Simha (talk • contribs) 08:25, 27 January 2007 (UTC).

Trees
The recent changes to the Semitic classification tree seem to be based on the Ethnologue. I would normally consider this alone a sufficient basis to revert them, given how terrible its data is on languages of the Middle East and North Africa; however, I'm not sure what the original trees came from, so I'll see if I can track down Huehnergard's stuff. - Mustafaa 15:49, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Geez
First of all, what it says right at the top is "this classification is based on Hetzron (1972) as amended by Huehnergard." Both of them, as I understand it, agree in placing Geez in North Ethiopic; changing the classification without changing that sentence renders the article false. Hetzron (who, by the way, is not a European) presents strong evidence that Geez cannot be the common ancestor of Amharic and Tigrinya, which most comparative linguists have accepted. Merely claiming that he must be wrong is not evidence; if you want the article to note that some people think otherwise, cite a source (preferably someone with at least a basic acquaintance with the principles of comparative linguistics.) - Mustafaa 19:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

PS: if you know Amharic, it would be great to have more Amharic examples. Perhaps in the comparative table? - 212.219.238.30 19:36, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Totally disputed
The article as it stands now includes a pack of anti-Ethiopian lies that anti-Ethiopians who claim to be "linguists" have always told. I dispute this article. They say that Amharic couldn't have possibly developed out of Geez. Like they even have the slightest clue what they are talking about. That is exactly like someone from Somalia claiming himself an expert and saying that Romanian didn't come from Latin. It shouldn't even be necessary to find sources that say Amharic came from Geez, they are everywhere. All Ethiopian Semitic languages came from Geez, and they didn't come from anywhere else. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Just out of morbid curiosity, do you have any reason to believe that either Robert Hetzron or John Huehnergard were "anti-Ethiopian", or are you just saying this because they happen to disagree with you? - Mustafaa 19:43, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If they set Ethiopian scholarship and records, that unanimously trace the development of Geez into Amharic, at nought, then they're anti-Ethiopian. As well as utterly ridiculous.  Half of Amharic is pure Geez. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:46, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * That doesn't mean a thing. Half of Spanish is pure Medieval Italian; that's not because Spanish descends from Medieval Italian, but because they both descend from a common ancestor. Anyway, I've now put full source details. You're welcome to try and find a linguist who agrees with your position, but good luck. - Mustafaa 20:57, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

If only 40% of Amharic has Geez cognates (I would have expected it to be a lot higher), then that would be way way more different than any Romance language is from Latin, and would still be completely irrelevant to the question. Only shared innovations - not shared retentions - constitute evidence for subgrouping. In any event, you can't attribute a view to "Ethiopian linguists" without so much as naming a single book, and - unless you happen to be a world-renowned expert on Semitic languages with extensive data on every Gurage language as well as Geez, Amharic, Tigre, and Tigrinya - you certainly can't claim a "major gap in his knowledge" (although you could attribute that claim to someone, if you could find someone rash enough to make that claim in print.) See also No original research. - Mustafaa 15:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm sure it's a lot more than 40%, but the point is, we're not talking "cognates", we're talking about the same, identical unchanged word from Geez directly into Amharic. You won't find that situation in any Romance language.  There are no words in any modern Romance language that haven't gone through some spelling change.  But all the AMharic words are spelled exactly the same as the Geez words, with few exceptions.  Its funny how none of your linguists seem to know Amharic.  I challenge you to find a linguist who speaks Amharic (Yes, there actually are some) and see what he says on the matter.   ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:39, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't know for sure whether he spoke Amharic or not, but he did write quite a lot about it - 'La rection du theme factitif en amharique' (La Museon 76, 1963), followed soon by 'La voyelle du sixieme ordre in Amharic' (Journal of African Language 3, 1964), 'Pronominalization in Amharic' (Journal of Semitic Studies 11, 1966), 'Toward a case grammar of Amharic' (Studies in African Linguistics 1, 1970) - and spent some time in Ethiopia, so I would hope he had learned some. I know of plenty of linguists who certainly speak Amharic: Zelealem Leyew, for instance, or Aklilu Yilma, or Anbessa Teferra, or David Appleyard - but I am not aware that any of them have specialized in the subgrouping of Semitic. Mustafaa 15:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Well check with them, please... If they know Amharic, then they know how identical Amharic (voacbulary, not syntax or grammar) is with Geez (in fact, even more so than Tigrinya) ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Of these four, the only potentially relevant book I can see is David Appleyard's "Ethiopian Semitic and South Arabian : towards a re-examination of a relationship". Israel Oriental Studies, 16. Studies in Modern Semitic Languages (volume dedicated to Gideon Goldenberg), pp. 203-228. [Dec 1996] ISSN 0334-4401. ISBN 90 04 10646 4, which I'll keep an eye out for. However, until someone does come up with a cite, recall no original research. - Mustafaa 16:07, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Original research? You are going to be embarrassed when you see how many cites from linguists there are stating the correct view that AMharic developed into Geez.  Please don't tell me an American writing in 1997 knows better than all of them. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:16, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * My unsolicited advice (as a 3rd party who saw this pop up on his watchlist) is to refer to Verifiability, which instructs users to cite verifiable sources, even if the facts therein are in doubt. Myself, I always thought Amharic descended from Ge'ez. This is the first time I've heard otherwise; however, my own sources were either a conversation with someone, or some text that was not about languages or linguistcs (and note that some texts still refer to the Ethiopian church as "Coptic"). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:30, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

could you restrict the warning boilerplate to the relevant section please? This is not the Amharic article, you know, and most of its content is undisputed. thanks, dab (&#5839;) 16:13, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, now you mention it, verifiability is the relevant criterion. I still haven't seen even a citation that would suggest that there is any dispute to discuss - though if anyone can come up with a counterclaim by a linguist, that would no doubt make the article more interesting. Strictly speaking, even the claim that it is widely believed in Ethiopia that Amharic descends from Geez should really be sourced; however, since CS is no doubt in a position to readily verify that claim, I propose it as a compromise wording. - Mustafaa 16:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I added a citation from Dr. Amsalu Aklilu to the Amharic language article, that Amharic inherited much of its vocabulary directly from Gi'iz. I can expand that with a fuller quote from him if you like. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Funny you should mention that - the broken plurals happen to be something I've looked into. The quick answer is that everyone agrees that those plurals are from Geez; however, all sources I've examined also agree that these are learned loanwords (like the Latin words in English), not inherited vocabulary (see historical linguistics.) I'd love to see his exact wording, but I suspect he's saying the same. - Mustafaa 17:52, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * That is his exact wording - that they ARE "inherited vocabulary". ("Bamarinnya qwanqwa wisT keGi'iz yeteworresu bizu simotch 'allu." - p.42, "T'iru 'Amarinnya Dirset 'Indiet Yale New!") I can't imagine what is the true motive behind this scholarly attempt to paint Amharic as somehow Cushitic. Gi'iz was the ONLY Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia for ove 1000 years, and all the modern Semitic languages there most definitely came directly from it. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm confused, I thought the claim was that Amharic did not descend from Ge'ez (i.e., it descended from some other Semitic language). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 18:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Cushitic?! Nobody claims that Amharic is anything but Semitic. Rather, the theory is that Geez was never the only Semitic language in Ethiopia: that, when Geez first emerged northern Ethiopia, a different Semitic language - the ancestor of Amharic and much of Gurage - was already being spoken somewhere in the Highlands. - Mustafaa 18:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know of anything anywhere whatsoever to support such a "theory" - unles its maybe it could possibly be the musings of your American "expert"... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 20:53, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Codex, your "Cushitic" and ""expert"" jabs seem to show that this is an ideological question for you. I don't know the consensus on this, but why is it a priori unlikely that Amharic is not a descendent of Ge'ez but rather a sister language of Ge'ez, both classifiable as South Semitic? This is really a questions for historical linguists, and there is nothing polemic about it. I am reminded of the question whether Hindi is directly descended from Sanskrit (it isn't; it's descended from Indo-Aryan dialects contemporary to Sanskrit). This would really be a very specialist and obscure question if Amharic/Hindi speakers were not emotionally tied to Ge'ez/Sanskrit as liturgical language; the question is best left to experts. Ge'ez may have been the only Semitic language written in Ethiopia for 1000 years, but that tells you nothing about dialects that were spoken at the same time. dab (&#5839;) 16:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * No, it's not quite that, it's that the development of Geez into Amharic and Tigrinya took place in historic times, and is a matter of record, every bit as certain as the transformation of Latin into French, or Anglo-Saxon into English. Only problem is, the records are written in this funny alphabet that most Europeans can't read, and they tend to disregard anything written in it as worthless and inaccurate anyway, so they come up with their own patronizing theories and classifications like this one.  Yes, it is patronizing.  It's exactly like, say, Chinese scholars  proposing that French didn't come directly from Latin, but from an unattested "sister" language that was spoken, but never recorded.  The French only think their language came from Latin because they are Catholic and have an emotional, superstitious attachment to the language because they hear it in Church, but now it's time to disillusion them.  What about all the documents that show the intermediary stages between Latin and French?  Oh, well, those are of little concern, since we can't read the alphabet anyway, and are liable to be erroneous, since French are notorious liars.  Get what I'm saying? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Codex SInaiticus, I don't think disparaging Europeans is ging to help you. There is a substantial body of scholarly opinion that Amharic is not a direct descendant of Ge'ez, more of a niece. Note that this isn't to say that there is no relationship, but that Amharic is not a direct descendant. Lets acknowledge that that's there. You are propounding an argument that Ge'ez is a direct descendant. Now, to make this a valid and useful argument you have to provide sources that we can look up. I am not against Amharic, nor is anyone else. This is not a lie or ignorance, but the mainstream scholarly opinion. Now it may be wrong, but you have to prove it. --Gareth Hughes 19:32, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Anyone who cares to do any bit of research into the matter will find abundant sources, even in English, stating that Amharic IS a direct descendant of Geez. The way this is becoming the "mainstream opinion" is so similar to so many other cases: Because a tiny cabal declares it the "mainstream opinion", and proceeds to scoff and ridicule at anyone who points out their blatant error. I don't think it is a mainstream opinion, when the first people started saying that within the last decade, and anything you find before that has it right. The proof is there. Do some real research, and don't believe anything just because some self described expert without a shred of basis proclaimed it in the last few years. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * No one denies that Amharic is closely related to Ge'ez, and that Ge'ez is the only Semitic language known from Ethiopia in antiquity -- but that means neither that Amharic is a direct descendent of Ge'ez nor that there wasn't any influence of neighbouring languages on Amharic.
 * To cite an earlier source, Wolf Leslau wrote in 1945 ("The Influence of Cushitic on the Semitic Languages of Ethiopia, a problem of substratum", in: Word 1): "The student of the Ethiopic languages, even though he knows that these languages belong to the Semitic group, cannot help being struck by their non-Semitic character. [...] The reason which accounts for the non-Semitic character of the Ethiopic languages is the result of the influence of the neighboring languages. The Semites of South Arabia who conquered Ethiopia imposed their Semitic languages on a country in which Cushitic languages were and still are spoken. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Cushitic substratum has very strongly influenced the Ethiopic languages in phonology, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary."
 * No one doubts the strong affiliation of the Semitic languages in Ethiopia to one another. The point is that Amharic, besides being influenced by Cushitic languages (as it is demonstrated by Leslau in the mentioned article) is sometimes incongruent with Ge'ez. For example, in Geez the past tense of the verb 'to speak' is expressed by an interesting form that is conjugated like the imperfect: ይቤ yəbe, whereas in amharic the form (although quite irregular) is conjugated like other past tense forms: አለ alä; Another example: in Ge'ez a past tense verb in the 3rd person with an object pronoun is contracted as follows: wălădă + (h)u = wălădo, whereas in Amharic it is: wällädä + (ä)w = wällädäw. It is improbable that the vowel o would transform to äw. One last example: negative verbs in Ge'ez are formed with the prefix ኢ ʔi as in: ኢይትከሃለኒ ʔi-yətkăhal-ănni, ኢኀደገ ʔi-ḫădăgă, etc. whereas in Amharic the negative prefix is አል- al-, and the l is assimilated to the prefixes of the imperfect. These features point to a different origin, an origin not very far from Ge'ez, but not identical.
 * One last thing, I find ፈቃደ's allegations that "Americans" or "Europeans" scholars can't read the Ethiopic script insulting. No discussion can be made this way. I can say on my account (and also of some of the linguists that were mentioned earlier) that I live in Israel, and thus belong to neither of the two designations. yhever 05:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

The French/Latin comparison is actually a good one. Now, French is indeed not descended from Liturgical/Church Latin, much less from the literary Latin of Cicero or Vergilius. It is descended from "Vulgar Latin". Now, if you like, I suppose you could argue Amharic is descended from "Vulgar Ge`ez", if you define that to include all South Semitic dialects spoken in Ethiopia in the 4th century (as is pretty much the case with the definition of "Vulgar Latin"). The problem is, afaik, that Ge`ez, like Sanskrit, but unlike Latin, is a term restricted to one particular, literary dialect, and it appears (I wouldn't know), that scholars argue against a direct descent of Amharic from literary Ge`ez. You would be surprised, I imagine, how sparsely documented the evolution of Latin into Romance really is. There are virtually no records of vernaculars before the High Middle Ages. Judging from the records, everybody was speaking more or less correct Latin until 1100 or so, and suddenly, they switch to fully developed Old French. There is no detailed record of that evolution, there is rather a gap of 800 years or so, and I imagine it will be similar with Ge`ez/Amharic. dab (&#5839;) 08:16, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that Dab's comments are insightful. We could understand the Ethiopic family as being codescendent of a language that can be called Ge'ez, which developed into different dialects (with northern and southern dialect groups), and that Classical Ge'ez is a prestige northern dialect that influenced the development of other dialects north and south, and Amharic is such a southern dialect, with more classical influence than others. Now, that picture makes Amharic descendent from a 'Proto-Ge'ez' that is usually not so called, with reinforcement by influence of Classical Ge'ez. Now, linguistic scholarship does not call the early stages of the language Ge'ez, reserving that name for the classical language. However, if Codex Sinaiticus interprets Ge'ez to be also the early stages of Ethiopic development, we have found that our differences lie in the definition of that word rather than in the classification of Amharic. --Gareth Hughes 11:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * you may find that most of the "disputes" of linguistic classification boil down to similar issues of terminology. However, Wikipedia is not free to coin terminology. See also the suggested "Hellenic" group at Ancient Macedonian language. dab (&#5839;) 11:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes but the reason why Scholars, both Ethiopian and non, were so unanimous (until the late 1990's) that Amharic comes directly from Geez (yes, literary Geez) is because they share so much of the same vocabulary, even down to the same spellings. Ironically, Tigrinya, which is so often held up as being closer to Geez, generally has divergent spellings.  We're not talking about strictly "literary" words either, these are everyday basic words, indeed it is hard to forma sentence in Amharic that does not use some straight up Geez vocabulary.  One example, the word for "Life", in Amharic and Geez it is spelled ሕይወት, in Tigrinya it is spelled ሂወት.  Now let's look at the wikipedia article on Amharic, the following vocab words found there are spelled identical with Geez that I know of, probably more: ፊደል ፍቅር ንጉሥ ቅዱስ ሠራዊት ተባት ቤት ጸሐፊ መምኅር ጠቢብ ካህን ድንግል አህጉር ኮከብ ዕውቀት ክቡር ኃይል እውነት አለም ልብ ምድር ሃይማኖት - that's a good percentage of the words on that page that are pure Geez, and some of the most common ones.  Now let's look at the article on Geez, we find there the following words that are also perfectly good Amharic: ክብር ሰማዕታት ሐዋርያት መጽሐፍ ብርሃን ሃይማኖት ነፍስ መለኰት አበው (again, most of the words) and from the first line of Henok in Geez at the bottom, we find the following words that are identical in both languages: ቃል በረከት ባረከ ጻድቃን ዕለት.  You wouldn't be able to say much in Amharic without these words, and you won't find that many Latin words in any Romance language, and I don't know about Hindi / Sanskrit, but I doubt they are as close.  So this "Semitic expert" coming out of the blue in the 1990's and saying Amharic is not from Geez, I suppose everyone who doesn't speak a word of either language can get together and vote by consensus that he is right and everyone before him is wrong.  As for "Cushitic stratum", nobody has ever shown me a single word yet in Amharic that is allegedly derived from any Cushitic tongue.  Every last one of the few coincidences between Amharic and Oroomifaa, are words that Oroomifaa recently borrowed from Amharic, that can easily shown to be Semitic.  ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Convergent spellings is probably the worst indicator there is in comparative linguistics. I once read a nice book that proved that Welsh was descended from Hebrew by this very method. I think it's about time you present sources to back up your claims: that is books, journals, papers and websites. --Gareth Hughes 15:22, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * You think I'm making all this up? You think it's original research?  You think I'm the first or the only person in the world to hold the view that Amharic comes from Geez?  Man, you really make me laugh!  You evidently haven't done an ounce of research yourself, all you have to do is crack open any book on the subject that was published before 1999 or whenever it was this American rewrote history.  Like I said, there are numerous sources, I could fill a whole page.  It really makes me laugh that you don't believe me.  This has absolutely nothing to do with Welsh and Hebrew, these are IDENTICAL SPELLINGS FOR THE SAME WORD WITH THE SAME MEANING!!!!  I reallyhave to wonder where all these "experts" are suddenly coming from who obviously don't know a single word of Amharic or Geez!!! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Still no sources... --Gareth Hughes 15:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, now you're wrong, because I did give a source. I added it to the Amharic article. How many more would you like?? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The sources can be found in the library, please be patient until I or somebody else can get to one. In the meantime, do a google search for: Amharic "from Geez" (304 hits).  This should demonstrate to skeptical neophytes that there is indeed a considerable body of thought that holds Amharic to come from Geez, and that I'm not inventing this idea.  A few of these pages even seem to argue your newer theory that it came from an invisible, unwritten sister tongue, but the vast majority take it as read that with so much of the core vocabulary unchanged, one grew directly from the other. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Please stop using the word lying: it is considered VERY rude and personal attack. Look at this page: you are alone in your argument. That's why you need evidence. There's a whole pile of books mentioned in the Amharic language article. Tell me which ones support your claim, and which pages are relevant. --Gareth Hughes 15:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I changed the word lying, but it is infuriating because you clearly don't know what you are talking about and don't speak either language. As for me being "alone" in my argument, maybe on this page, but not on the web, see the post above I just made.  As for which books on the Amharic article support my claim:  All of them. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Particularly relevant link
Here is one of the best sources I have found - the 1911 Brittanica article. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/S/SE/SEMLER_JOHANN_SALOMO.htm Although written in typically haughty turn-of-the-century language, it clearly backs up what I have said about a gradual transformation from Geez into Amharic, that is well attested. (The relevant paragraphs are down the page, and were evidently supposed to have scanned onto the preceding page-article, "Semitic languages", but you know how scanning print goes!) Anyway, I am surprised to hear the transformation from French into Latin is not as well documented. I know for a fact that the transformation from Old English into Middle and Modern English during the same time frame is quite well documented, since there exist substantial quotes in the English language for every single year AD, from about 900 to th present... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * "The Abyssinian chronicles have for centuries been written in Geez, largely intermingled with Amharic elements. This language of the chronicles, in itself a dreary chaos, often enables us to discover what were the older forms of Amharic words. A similar mixture of Geez and Amharic is exemplified in various other books, especially such as refer to the affairs of the government and of the court." - 1911 EB ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Dear ውይይት, I hope you understand the difference between loanwords and words inherited from common source. The more time passes the more phonetical changes appear between source word in source-language (ur-language) and its descendant. If time span between source-language and its descendant is not too big (say 500 years) changes are not many and related words in both languages are easy to recognize (like in Middle and Modern English) though not identical. And finally there are basic words in languages that don't like to be borrowed and cultural items that are borrowed more easily. And we have two sets of words in two languages: in the first they are related but differ, and in the second they are identical, we can presume that 2nd one is loanwords. So what can we see from the following words (in Geez, Tigrigna and Amharic) (all are very basic words):

all -   - hullu

bark -

belly - käbd  - käbdi  - hod

big -

bird -   - wof

black - q'älim  - q'älim  -

bone -

burn -

dog -

ear -

earth -   - märet

hand -

head -   - ras

horn -

knee -   - gulbät

leaf -

liver -   - gubbät

neck -

small -

tooth -

two -   - hulät

water - may  - may  -

we -

white -   - näč’č’

Yes, in many cases wee see that Geez and Amharic words are related (but not borrowed) and Geez and Tigrinya look much more related.Koryakov Yuri 00:10, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what your point is... Several of those Giiz words were also borrowed directly into Amharic as separate lexical items, you merely ignored these and put them beside variants that are more divergent. Namely, these 8 Geez words you gave above, ልጥቅ አቅም ከልብ ምድር ርዕስ ክሳድ ንዑስ ማይ, are all found in Amharic also, in some cases as compound forms; and unlike Tigrinya there is no difference in the spelling. These Amharic words  ሁሉ ሆድ ዎፍ እጅ ቀንድ ሁለት እኛ (and probably also ጉበት, though you gave the same word in Geez / Tigrinya as for ሆድ) show the regular sound changes, and are only slight modifications of the original Geez.  ትልቅ is from a different Giiz word than ዓቢይ, but still from Geez.  (Also, anyone literate in Amharic is going to recognise the words ዓቢይ and እዝን and know what they mean, even though they aren't strictly speaking considered Amharic words...)  ቀሊም has survived as ቀለም, with a change in meaning to "colour" or "paint"; and as for አንደደ, I don't know why you put it next to ተቃጠለ when there is a better Amharic synonym nearly identical in form, አነደደ that would have been much more appropriate.  That leaves only ጥርስ ቅጠል ነጭ, that appear to be entirely separate lexical items, and I don't know the etymology of ጥርስ but  ቅጠል and ነጭ are obviously from Geez stems meaning "to connect" and to bleach.  Maybe I shouldn't assume you can read fidel, since you addressed me as "ውይይት", which is in my signature, but it means "Talk page"... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 02:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * One thing to note here is that Ge'ez isn't as new a language as commonly thought. There are definite inscriptions in Ge'ez (the script - Alphabetic at this point, not an abugida) from the 5-6th centuries B.C. (there are also King inscriptions which could be as old as 1000 B.C. depending on the dating of Yemeni counterparts, but I'm not sure as to the closeness to Ge'ez of the language).


 * @ፈቃደ, Tigrigna is indeed more closely related to Ge'ez than Amharic. It's most evident from the lack of pharangyeals in Amharic, while they have been generally preserved in Tigrigna (and Tigre). Moreover, the cognates in Amharic that are the same as in Ge'ez are more likely to be more recent loanwords than untouched forms, though they could also be unchanged due to the prevalence of writing in Ge'ez while speaking Amharic during the Solomonid dynasty.


 * @Koryakov Yuri: Some of the word comparisons you have above are misleading. "təlləḳ" is completely unrelated to the Ge'ez form (perhaps it is an example of Agaw substratum), and other words you show come from other semetic roots that exist in Ge'ez. angät comes from anag (chain for a neck in Ge'ez) and also exists as ʔangät in Tigre and Tigrigna; tirs (tooth) comes from the word for "molar," rather than being a large corruption of tooth (meaning shifts as small as this don't need many years to occur). The words in Amharic that seemingly have no relation to the Ge'ez probably do not and either come from a different Ge'ez root or are a result of Agaw influence.


 * Yom 07:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Yom, ትልቅ / ታላቅ can surely be traced back to ላቀ ("surpassed, exceeded"), and that does not sound like Agaw to me, more likely Geez. My Geez vocabulary resources are rather limited, but I do note the word ለቅሐ which seems a likely candidate -- although it means "loaned", possibly another shift in meaning... ? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 13:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I was looking through this while on my way to more recent discussions and noticed a few more misleading points made by Koryakov Yuri. Note that I'm not saying that Amharic is more closely related to Ge'ez than Tigrinya (this is obviously not the case).


 * big -  - Misleading as its a different root. ʕabiy or ዐብይ has the meaning of "primary" or "major" in Amharic.


 * burn -  - Huh? This is a completely different root and ignoring an identical root in Amharic. "n-d-d" means to burn in Amharic as well. I'm not sure what the verb would be (መነደድ? not to be confused with መናደድ "to anger"), but in the first person conjugation (as you put for Ge'ez and Tigrinya [? - doesn't Tigrinya have suffixes?], but not Amharic, misleadingly) would be ʔanäd(d?)ädalehu or ʔanäd(d?)ädä if put in the root like seemingly for Tigrinya.


 * earth -   - märet - Ignores "mədər" in Amharic meaning earth (märet means floor or ground, not earth).


 * By the way, I've just found that märet exists in Tigre (not Tigrinya) as märet and in Ge'ez as maret as well (meaning "earth (not "the Earth), dust, or dirt - same in Amharic). Confirming my suspiscions that it was from a different group (see Leslau on Ge'ez pg. 361). It also exists in Argobba as märet, so it's unlikely to be a loan word.


 * knee -   - gulbät - Ignores "berekek" or በረከከ (to kneel) in Amharic.


 * small -  - Edit: Actually the bellow is wrong (probably cognate with Arabic ānəssa). "nəʕus" - pronounced nəʔus - (I think you meant ʕ not ʔ in your root) means small (plural nəʕusan, so obviously inherited from Ge'ez - possibly taken directly, but not necessarily). Possibly the same root, but there's also a form "ʔanesteña" or አነስተኛ meaning small, with "teña" (or eña?) being an adjective marker (i.e. ʔanes(t?)).


 * black - q'älim  - q'älim  -  - "Q'äläm" is "color" in Amharic (black->colored->color?) - a meaning shift with "ṭəqur" from a different root.


 * "Bone," "water," "dog" (although it's the same as in Ge'ez in Gonder, but that's more likely due to loaning from Tigrinya or Ge'ez), "ear," "white," and perhaps "liver" (? bigger shift than usual) are the ones that are from a completely different root, but not necessarily a non-Ge'ez one.


 * I'm not saying that you are intentionally misleading others. I'm simply saying that some of your comparisons are not apt.


 * Yom 06:24, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Classification again
I'd like to add a couple of the most recent classification systems to the above table and slightly to rearrange it. Both new schemes are taken from future L.Ye. Kogan's article "Semitic languages" in Semitic volume of Russian-language encyclopedia "Languages of the World".

The first one ("Kogan") follows the main classifications based on morphological innovations (like Huehnergard and Hetzron) with the slightly different labels and the following main distinction: South Semitic is treated as three different groups – Old South Arabian (OSA) as a part of Central Semitic and Ethiopic and Modern South Arabian (MSA) as two separate groups within West Semitic.

There are explanations for such a decision: the only two innovations usually used to support South Semitic unity are explained as archaism (retention of "old imerfect *yV-CaC(C)VC as opposed to the innovative Central Semitic *yV-CCVC-u) and areal feature (generalization of -k- in Suffix Conjugation Verbs, found also in Arabic dialects of South Arabia). The main reason for including of OSA in Central Semitic is their common innovation in verbal system (shown by N. Nebes in 1994): replacement of disyllable imperfect stem -CaC(C)VC- with monosyllable stem -CCVC-.

The second scheme ("Militarev", based on his presentation in 2004 and more early works like Militarev 2000) is based on completely different methodology – lexicostatistics. Time scale apart it gives usually interesting results for pure classification especially in cases with little or no evident phono- or morphologic innovations (like Semitic). The main differences are:
 * MSA is treated as independent branch of Semithic;
 * OSA is included in Central Semitic.

Also I added a "Faber" based on Alice Faber article in Hetzron 1997 which is in fact summarizing of Hetzron, Huehnergard and others' efforts. So first three colums are essentially one scheme developed in time and I left only one in the table.

Some slight rearrangements in the teable are: I added Old South Arabian (Sabaean+), corrected Arabic -> Arabian (exc. Arabic proper) and added some colours to easier comparison.

So in view of the aforesaid I think the more appropriate Semitic tree sould be like that:

Eastern Semitic – Akkadian, Eblaite

West Semitic
 * Central Semitic
 * Northwest Semitic (Levantine)
 * Aramaic
 * Ugaritic
 * Canaanite
 * North Arabian (Arabic)
 * Ancient North Arabian
 * Arabic proper
 * Old South Arabian (Sayhadic)
 * Ethiopic (Ethiosemitic)
 * Eastern South Arabian (Modern South Arabian)

I'd like to change the classification in the article but decided first to put it here. And I think it would be better to delete detailed listing of Semitic dialects and languages in this scheme, especially Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Ethiopic varieties.

I hope it would be useful to give full reference for all those schemes:

Koryakov Yuri 23:29, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Faber A. Genetic Subgrouping of the Semitic Languages // R. Hetzron (ed.). The Semitic Languages. London, 1997.
 * Hetzron R. Two Principles of Genetic Reconstruction. Lingua 38 (1976), pp. 89-108.
 * Huehnergard J. A Grammar of Akkadian. Atlanta, 1997.
 * Huehnergard J. Languages of the Ancient Near East // The Ancor Bible Dictionary, vol. 4. 1992. Pp. 155–170.
 * Militarev A.. Towards the Chronology of Afrasian (Afroasiatic) and its Daughter Families. Time Depth in Historical Linguistics. Cambridge, 2000. Pp. 267-307.
 * Militarev А., Kogan L. Semitic Etymological Dictionary. Vol. I. Anatomy of Man and Animals. Münster, 2000. Vol. II. Animal Names. Münster, 2005.
 * Nebes N. Zur Form der Imperfektbasis des unvermehrten Grundstammes im Altsüdarabischen. (Festschrift Ewald Wagner zum 65 Geburtstag) // Semitische Studien unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Südsemitistik / Hrsg. von W. Heinrichs und G. Schöler. Beirut; Stuttgart, 1994, Bd. 1., P. 59–80.

I changed the number of Amharic speakers to 26 million from 17 based on census data (1994 census shows 32% speak Amharic as a first language, which would be 24 million for today's population of 73-4 million in Ethiopia) plus the estimated 2 million speakers of Amharic in the diaspora. I'm assuming 2nd language speakers aren't to be included (it would be more difficult, anyway, since I've not seen an accurate number, but estimates ranging from usually 40% to 60% of Ethiopia's population).


 * Thank you, Koryakov Yuri, for your work on this. I tried to do something on this subject a long while back. You might be interested to look at Linguasphere's pages on Semitic, whilst not covering the diachronic spectrum of Semitic language, it has some statistical analysis. The main thrust of your reading, as presented here, seems to be the placement of OSA. It certainly seems to stand on the 'dotted' boundary between Central and South Semitic. And this is not a new development, Arabic proper has been considered on both sides of the divide. The primary divisions of West Semitic languages are not clear at all: different methods produce different results. We have two core groups — a NW Semitic (Levantine) group and the Ethiopic group — that are fairly established (in relation to other groupings): the relationship of North and South Arabian languages with each other and these groups is complicated. However, I would dispute Militarev's emphasis of Modern South Arabian as a totally distinct, first-order branch of the Semitic language family. That seems both linguistically an over-reaction to methodology and historically and demographically highly unlikely. Also, his placement of OSA not just near but in NW Semitic just seems to be unreal: as I'm based in Aramaic, OSA isn't that familiar. Apart from these major problems with Militarev's system, the other vaguaries of classification I could live with. --Gareth Hughes 14:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank for attention, Gareth (or Hughes?). I certainly know the Linguasphere Register's treatment of Semitic since I've extensively worked on and discussed about it with its author, David Dalby and even produced new version for Caucasus geozone. BTW treat Semitic as three coordinating groupings of 2nd level (chains in DD terminology): Canaanitic, Modern South Arabian and Ethio-Semitic (considering non-inclusion of completely dead branches like Akkadian and Sayhadic).


 * But turning back to Semitic classification - I don't stick to Militarev's views and have provided his scheme just for info. What I wanted to attract attention to is Kogan's variant who argues (on base of tradional innovations' method) for the independent position of MSA within West Semitic and placement of OSA to Central Semitic (on one level with NW and SC Semitic) and so for the absence of single South Semitic. Koryakov Yuri 19:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yuri (I'm Gareth), thank you for your illumination of Linguasphere: being in a set with chains and nets often makes me think of escapology! I do not have a problem with Kogan's analysis. It basically does away with the awkward South Semitic grouping, reducing it to its three basic components, linking OSA into an enlarged Central Semitic group (as long as its not implanted directly into Northwest Semitic, I can live with that), and leaving Ethiopic and NSA as separate branches of the big West Semitic group. I think, in general, we should to stick to Huenergard analysis as the prime informant to Wikipedia articles as it is more generally accepted, albeit with reservations. Well-considered systems, like Kogan's, could be mentioned to supplement this. I would like to hear Mustafaa's views on this too, but he only comes around every once in a while now. --Gareth Hughes 11:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I suggest the so called Ethio-semitic language be renamed as `Abyssian Semitic language´. This name will save us from political baises. Moreover, in my view it is wrong to call the ´Geez´script Ethiopic - how can we name an ancestor after its offspring? -129.177.236.167


 * How does Ethio-semitic hold any biases? They are semitic languages, and they are found in Ethiopia. If you're insinuating (as some ignorant southern separatists often do), that Ethiopia was not used to refer to northern Ethiopia, think again. In Ezana's Chronicles, an inscription of his shows up in SA, Greek, and Ge'ez. When naming the tribes over which he has dominion, he names on called Habashat in the Ge'ez and SA (Sabaean) versions, but names it Aethiopia (I can do the A+e thing) in the Greek version; Habashat, Habesha, Abesha, and Abyssinia, have always refered to the northern part, and if it is equal to the Greek word Aethiopia (I'm not sure the exact ending, I just know it began with Aethiop- or something similar), then Aethiopia is not at all a misnomer for modern Ethiopia. Keep in mind that Abyssinia was not that widely used until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are many European texts that refer to Ethiopia (e.g. a certain French one refers to Ethiopie around the 16th or 17th century I believe) and not Abyssinia when referring to the same state that evolved into modern-day ethiopia. Regarding Ge'ez being called Ethiopic, I agree, but not for your reasons. A language need not be named after its country of origin; Ge'ez already has a language name, so there's no reason to give it a new name.

Yom 22:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Judæo-Aramaic language -- extinct
That is not true. While I do agree it will die within the next 50 years, but their are still Jews speaking their dialects. Actually, I had a Iraqi Jews sleep over my house last year, and I heard him speak it..really amazing. Again, their are still many old Jews in Israel that fled during the 60s and 70s from Iraq, that still speak the langauge, but in the end will die and they dont speak it with their children..rather they speak hebrew or english. Besides, their are still around 1000 Jews left in Northern Iraq. So maybe we should change the status for right now? Chaldean 23:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Please remember that a majority of Orthodox Jews still understand and even speak Aramaic. An example of this is the weekly study of the Aramaic Targums and the daily study of the Talmud.

MSA vs Classical
That these two are the same language is obvious to any speaker. That they differ in newly coined vocabulary (Taawila, Haasuub, Sawtiyyaat, fiilm...) and in some stylistic choices (tamma 'ilghaa' X...) is equally obvious, and is scarcely a controversial point. I don't see that there's anything here needing citing, although if there were, Kees Versteegh's The Arabic Language discusses some of the differences. - Mustafaa 10:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I must agree, I really don't understand how the three subsections under fusha have been arrived at - I mean, can anyone explain how "classical Arabic" differs from "Middle Arabic" (whatever that is) and "Modern Standard Arabic"! If you read Imru' Al Qais (doesnt get any "classicer than that"), Al Gahith (assuming Middle is as in "Middle Ages" as in "before the Renesance") and any newspaper you pick up at any news stand in any Arabic city today and compare the language you will find that they use the same vocabulary, the same structure, the same grammar and the words are all pronounced in the same way.  How are they three different dialects?  --Maha Odeh 12:39, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Article contains alot of errors and is too African-centric
I want to comment on the following sentences, which seem to me false and alot of original research, which according to Wikipedia rules WP:NOR is not allowed here:

This is totally incorrect, or 100% orginal research. The origin of semitic languages and population is the arabian peninsula, not Africa. 
 * Since Semitic is a member of Afro-Asiatic, a principally African family, the first speakers of Proto-Semitic are generally believed to have arrived in the Middle East from Africa, in the 4th millennium BC, although this question is still much debated.

What about central Asia? The umayads caliphate borders extended till the borders of china. And they imposed Arabic on their ruled Area. Specially after the battle of talas between the arabs and china, and after the scientific renaseince becasue of the abbasid caliphate, the arab culture, relgion, and language was imposed there. They werent completly arabized, but the lingu franca was definatly arabic, not persian or turkish.
 * With the emergence of Islam, the ascent of Aramaic was dealt a fatal blow by the Arab conquests, which made another Semitic language — Arabic — the official language of an empire stretching from Spain to Pakistan. 

Now, this is 101% incorrect. How can Yemen be not arabic??!! With all respect to whoever entered this, this is a joke!. Yemen's spoke arabic, only in a different dialect then the mecca's arabic. What we call today Arabi al-fusha (high arabic), is simply the accent that the quraish tribe(the main inhabitants of mecca) spoke. The greatest EVER pre-islamic arab poet was Imru' al-Qais, with his fullname امرؤ القيس بن حجر بن الحارث الكندي, from the kinda tribe, was a YEMENI!!! He was acknowledged as the most distinguished poet of pre-Islamic times by the Prophet Muhammad, and by 'Ali, the fourth caliph. He was so great that some people during the life time of mohammad and until today, think that some parts of the quran(the master peice of arabic language) were actually copied from Him!! And there were many other famous pre-islmaic arab poets from yemen. Even the main inhabitatents of medina(in saudia arabia) were the aws and khazerk,two yemeni arab tribes. So how in this world can it be that yemeni's didnt speak arabic???!! The yemeni's are the aborginal arabs, agreed by all genealogist, even by the famous 13th century historian Ibn Khaldun. With all respect, but all is needed is to open a 4th grade history school book to know that fact. Its true that their are minorites in yemen, until today that speak ancient south arabian languages(e.g. in al-mahra and soqotra), but these are very tiny, isolated minorites.And its a proven fact that they arent in the first place arabs, but rather people that immigrated from the horn of africa. Hence, their african look and dark skin.
 * Its spread among the masses took much longer; however, as natives abandoned their tongues for Arabic and as Bedouin tribes settled in conquered areas, it became the language of not only central Arabia, but also Yemen, the Fertile Crescent, and Egypt.

This whole article contains alot alot of errors, and is tooooo african-centric. jidan 22:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Afro-Asiatic isn't principally African now? Give me a break. Semitic is in fact the only branch of Afro-Asiatic found outside of Africa. All the others only exist within Africa, and there's plenty of evidence pointing to an African origin of Proto-Semitic (i.e. the original semitic language).


 * With regards to Yemen, there were plenty of Yemenis who didn't speak Arabic. Namely those who spoke Sabaean (and related languages) and Western South Arabian (whose sucessors are modern SA languages), which still exist in Yemen (including Socotra) and Oman today. This isn't a question of ethnicity. Certain Yemeni tribes are indeed considered "the original Arabs," but that doesn't mean that all Yemenis spoke Arabic. I'm sure that some nomadic tribes in the fertile crescent (and perhaps Egypt) spoke Arabic, but that doesn't mean that large populations did not change their language from a different one to Arabic. South Arabian languages are not dialects of Arabic! If they migrated from the Horn of Africa, then does that make them not Yemeni? If so, then all of Yemen's history from the 10th c. BC (and before) up to the 6th & 7th centuries AD was the history of Africans from the horn (just in case this is misconstrued, I'm refering to Out of Africa). Their dark skin means nothing, too. Ramzi Binalshibh looks like a Horn of African (but I don't think he's one of those minorities) &mdash; does that mean he's not Yemeni?


 * By the way, the Britannica link says nothing about the homeland of Semitic languages. Your edits also removed some of the diacritics (e.g. kitāb became kitab). I am reverting them for now.


 * Yom 04:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry about the diacritics. Ok, since my explantions didn't help. According to Verifiability, anything you enter in an article must be verfiable. And must adhere to Reliable sources, No original research and Neutral point of view. So can you please provide the sources for those edits you made? ,

And I certainly want to see the source that says yemeni's didn't speak an accent of Arabic prior to islam. All sources listed in the main article were not entered by the same user who made this rather strange claim. jidan 11:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Not only did the Yemenis not speak Arabic, several tribes still don't - Mehri, Soqotri, etc. The old South Arabian language was related to Arabic, of course, but no more closely than Hebrew. The Yemenis being Arabs has nothing to do with whether they did or did not speak the language we now call Arabic - the Franks, for example, didn't speak French... - Mustafaa 23:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * True. It's closer to Ge'ez actually, which is obviously not a dialect of Arabic (actually most 'dialects' of Arabic are different enough to be considered different languages). What type of citation do you need, Jidan? I can provide some saying that Sabaeans spoke South Arabian (note: not South Arabic) or Sabaean, and the like, but I can't prove that no Yemenis spoke Arabic, if that's what you're asking (actually, the burden of proof that Yemenis spoke Arabic [which I'm sure some did through contact in the north] is on you, as that is an assertion and it has no citations in the article). Just ask me what proof you need, specifically, Jidan. Sorry for forgetting about this argument.


 * ዮም  (Yom)  |  contribs  •  Talk  00:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The distinction between accent and language, is very hard. As I said, what we call today "arabi al-fusha"(high arabic), is nothing but the arabic accent of the quraish tribe. So it was based on a tribe, not a state. And here is the major difference! Because then we would have to say that the quraysh tribe are the only people that spoke arabic, the rest was arabized! And this is nonsense. Arab people(in the Arabian peninusla, al-sham, iraq) had all the same core language but different accents. The yemeni merchants certainly didn't talk with the merchants of mecca using greek or persian!! And some of the greatest pre-islamic poets came from yemen, syria, iraq. Very important to mention is that the kaaba in mecca was holy for ALL arab tribes. And lets not forget the trading between each other, So the arab tribes were not isolated between each other, and knew how to communicate with each other using a basic language.And this basic language was not greek, persian, hebrew, aramian, gee'z or whatever.....It was simply Arabic! ;-)... only with different accents. Jidan 12:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear Friends: The chief danger to Allowing Linguists to Define the Word Semite Historically, is that they are in way over their heads, History-wise. Many of their rediculous statements seem to point to Arabia & Mesopotamia as the Origin of both the Semitic languagers and the Semites themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth....

Semites originated in the region of Armenia, not Arabia, and the Concept of the Term Semite is More Correctly Defined as those Descendants & Ancestors of Noah, including their First Known Tribal sources, Adam & Eve. (The HAWWA...the Children of Eve...from this ancient Tribe of Hayastans, came Cain, Abel, Seth, and then Noah, his three sons and Abraham the Patriarch ... None of these came from Africa... No other people are Semites...The Arabs are Hybrids..of at least 8 nations, and are only Fractionally Invested with Hebrew Genetics...

Arabs have mixed with these Hebrews: (1) Abraham - only Ishmael (2) Esau who was exiled, and joined his uncle Ishmael. (3) Lot the Nephew of Abraham & his Daughters whom escaped from the disasterous Volcanic destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah, and settled in the region of Moab. No other Arab-Hebrew Mixtures can be proved ...and these are not Semites...they are simply Hybrids...Linguists shouldn't write historical articles...they are full of crap!

Linguists and their idiotic categorizations are Suspect, in every mis-identified, revised history and Politically Correct agenda known today.

Best regards,

Don Tipton - Writer


 * Dear Don Tipton — Writer — the word Semitic is used in number of different ways. However, the only scientific use of the term is the linguistic one, and therefor the linguists understanding of the term is the only one of any scientific merit. The Semitic languages are a group of genetically related languages of common origin. This does not suggest anything about those who speak them. The notions you outline above have no scientific basis. — Gareth Hughes 11:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Don, the linguists you're talking aren't writing about the history of peoples but about the history of languages. You're mistake is that you're confusing the two.  Lots of people, even whole communities, tribes, kingdoms, and so on, now and throughout history, didn't speak the same language as their ancestors.  If linguists shouldn't be "allowed" to write what you consider to be history, certainly non-linguists shouldn't be "allowed" to make ignorant claims about languages.  (I put "allowed" in quotes because of course anyone is allowed to say whatever they want, though no one is required to listen to nonsense.)

Afro-Asiatic may or may not be "principially African" (whatever that means, by the same reasoning, I suppose, the Germanic languages must be classified as "principially American"), but this isn't the Afro-Asiatic article, it's the Semitic article, and Semitic isn't "principially African" at all. The commonly assumed Urheimat of Semitic is the Arabian peninsula. Pre-Semitic migration might have taken Pre-Semites from the Horn of Africa to Arabia, but that evidently falls out of the scope of this article. dab (&#5839;) 21:15, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

s/Iran/Iraq/ -- last change
The last "correction"] looks unjustified. Perhaps, the original idea was:


 * Iraqi Arabic — apart from people from Iraq, the group of speakers of this dialect also includes speakers in Iran

So, I revert the unjustified change, until someone who knows better rewrites it in such a way that there is no temptation to see a misprint here.--Imz 00:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The number of Tigrigna speakers

 * The CIA report provides neither numbers nor percentages concerning the Tigrigna language speakers or the members of the Tigray ethnic group.
 * The Abegaz article claims (p. 3) that the '98 census indicates that 6.1% of the Ethiopian population natively speaks Tigrigna, and 6.2% are ethnically Tigray, of a population amounting to 53 million. This means roughly 3 million Tigrigna speakers. The population chapter of the Ethiopian National Statistics report states (p. 6) there are currently (2006) 4335 thousand Tigray Ethiopians, but does not state how many of them speak Tigrigna natively or at all. The current Ethnologue report on Eritrea states there were 1,200 thousand speakers of Tigrigna in Eritrea on 2001. Hence it is not unreasonable to conjecture that there are currently at least 4335+1200=5535 thousand Tigrigna speakers around the world, and this bound is rather tight. However, this calculation is, in my opinion, original research, and in any case is not consistent with the 6.75 million figure mentioned in the 03:37, 17 February 2007 revision of the article.
 * The current Ethnologue report on Tigrigna states: "Population total all countries: 4,449,875". It seems likely, but is not clear, that this number is calculated relative to the Ethiopian 1998 census.

I think that, lacking further sources, the best that can be said, for the time being, is that the total number of Tigrigna speakers is ~4.5 million as of 1998 according to the current Ethnologue report. Additionally, the reader can be referred to the links mentioned above for further research. I've changed the article correspondingly. Itayb 10:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Third opinion. The Ethnologue report on the language is the only source that gives a worldwide statistic for Tigrigna speakers. It is prohibited original research to try to calculate an estimated number using other figures. You should use the 4,449,875 figure or an approximation of it. Grouse 22:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Calculation is not original research; see WP:A. But the calculation should be transparent to the reader, and this is not. Saying
 * Estimates disagree.
 * Ethnologue estimated 4,450 thousand in 1998. (citation)
 * There are 4,335 thousand Tigray Ethiopians (citation)
 * As of 1998, almost all Tigray Ethipians spoke Tigrinya (citation)
 * There are 1,200 thousand Tigrigna-speaking Eritraeans (citation)
 * is merely stating the facts. The discrepancy is probably entirely due to the Ethnolofue estimate being a decade old. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * That's agreeable to me, Septentrionalis, but the 1,200,000 citation should be grouped with the Ethnologue citation, as that's based on a total Eritrean population of ~2.75 million (addition of all speakers in 2001), whereas the current population is about 4.8 million (July 2006 CIA estimate - 4,786,994), of whom the CIA factbook estimates 50% are Tigrinya (an ethnic group literally defined by the ability to speak the language, so its pedantic to say that its not a reliable figure because it doesn't state how many of the Tigrinya actually speak Tigrinya). This would yield about 2.4 million (more exact, 2,393.5 thousand) speakers in Eritrea, with about 4.335 million in Ethiopia, or about 6.7 something million altogether. It's not original research to divide the two population estimates because of differing accuracy and times of citations. This isn't a case of using high estimates over low ones, but more recent ones for each country where the population is found rather than using outdated data for all speakers. I don't doubt that there were 4.5 million speakers in 1998, it sounds relatively accurate to me (probably 3.3 million in Ethiopia 1.2 million in Eritrea or something like that), but there's no need to revert to old data when we have reliable new data for one of the regions, and a straight forward calculation from a single source (CIA factbook) from the other. As Septentrionalis said, see WP:A:


 * Editors may make straightforward mathematical calculations or logical deductions based on fully attributed data that neither change the significance of the data nor require additional assumptions beyond what is in the source. It should be possible for any reader without specialist knowledge to understand the deductions. For example, if a published source gives the numbers of votes cast in an election by candidate, it is not original research to include percentages alongside the numbers, so long as it is a simple calculation and the vote counts all come from the same source. Deductions of this nature should not be made if they serve to advance a position, or if they are based on source material published about a topic other than the one at hand.


 * ዮም |  (Yom)  |  Talk  • contribs • Ethiopia 22:51, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * As for the 1.2 million being grouped with Ethnologue; of course, Ethnolgue is one of the sources for it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I also agree with Septentrionalis. That's good progress.


 * Septentrionalis has made three points, which i would like to repeat, explaining my interpretation of them.
 * "the calculation should be transparent to the reader, and this is not" (my emphasis). So the current situation, where the number 6.75 appears all by itself, even though it is affixed with citations from reliable sources, is not satisfactory, and should change. This is in agreement with all other external opinions so far: Grouse's, JulesH's and WAS 4.250's.
 * "the calculation should be transparent to the reader" by "stating the facts". As far as i see it, there are three ways of doing this: in the main body of the article, in a footnote (as suggested by WAS 4.250), or in a separate document (e.g. the article's talk page), on condition that it is clearly linked from the relevant point in the main article. In any case, when presenting the reader with a calculation, which is not explicitly attributable to a reliable source, it is not enough merely to state references and let the readers figure out for themselves what piece of information from which source has been used and in what way the different pieces have been combined to yield the end result. As WAS 4.250 has put it, "[t]he end result [...] clearly lets the readers decide the truth for themselves." (my emphasis)
 * "Saying
 * Estimates disagree.
 * Ethnologue estimated 4,450 thousand in 1998. (citation)
 * There are 4,335 thousand Tigray Ethiopians (citation)
 * As of 1998, almost all Tigray Ethipians spoke Tigrinya (citation)
 * There are 1,200 thousand Tigrigna-speaking Eritraeans (citation)
 * is merely stating the facts."
 * "As for the 1.2 million being grouped with Ethnologue; of course, Ethnolgue is one of the sources for it."
 * The number of Tigrinya speakers, as calculated by Ethnologue, should be clearly presented in the article. This is in agreement with all other external opinions so far: Grouse's, JulesH's and WAS 4.250's. Grouping the 1.2 million with Ethnologue does not mean simply summing the numbers up and presenting this sum to the reader as the single version. Itayb 08:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest the following wording; I have not bothered to code links: "(about 6.7 million<:ref>In 1998, Ethnologue estimated 4.45 million Tigrinya speakers; 3.2 million in Ethiopia, 1.2 million in Eritrea, 10,000 Falashas in Israel, some 15,000 elsewhere. The Tigrinya ethnic group, almost entirely Tigrinya speaking, has increased since, to 4.3 million in Ethiopia, 2.4 million in Etritrea<:/ref>)". All of these figures have appropriate references, which should be cited. Footnotes are intended to keep messes like this out of running text. (The 15000 is obtained by subtraction; it's needed to make Ethnologue's figures add up.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Fine by me. In fact, I'll add that to the article now, with the addition of (2005) after the 4.3 million number and (Jul 2006) after the 2.4 million number for further accuracy. &mdash; ዮም  |  (Yom)  |  Talk  • contribs • Ethiopia 19:29, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Septentrionalis' suggestion is, except for the use of the word "Falasha" (see below), an improvement over the previous version. But it is still inaccurate, and tends to original research.

Here are the facts:

Explanation:
 * [1] estimated the population of Eritrea as of July 2006 to be 4,786,994 (it is unclear whether the estimate was conducted in July 2006, or whether the estimate pertains to the size of the population as of July 2006, or both). The same report claims 50% of the population of Eritrea belongs to the Tigrinya ethnic group. No date is associated with this figure. 50% of 4,786,994 is 2,393,497.
 * [3] (table B3, p. 8) estimates the size of the population of the Tigray region in Ethiopia for July 2006 to be 4,334,996 (the estimate was derived by projecting the 1994 census (p. 2)).
 * According to [4] the total population of Tigrinya speakers, taking all countries into account, amounts to 4,449,875. This report does not clearly state the date relative to which the estimate was calculated. It lists exactly four countries, where Tigrinya is spoken: Ethiopia (Tigray province), Eritrea, Germany and Israel. It details the number of speakers in Ethiopia (3,224,875), Eritrea (1,200,000) and Israel (10,000). It does not give the number of speakers in Germany, nor does the Ethnologue listing on Germany mention the Tigrinya language. As for the sources consulted for the number of speakers, for Ethiopia the listing cites: "1998 census", for Eritrea it cites: "2001 Johnstone and Mandryk" and for Israel it cites: "1994 H. Mutzafi". No source is cited for the total number of speakers.

Comments:
 * The estimates of the CIA and the Ethiopian CSA are not identical. For instance, according to the CSA, "the total projected population of the country for July 2006 is estimated to be 75,067,000 persons" (p. 2), whereas the CIA estimate of the same parameter for the same month is 74,777,981 [2]. In this case, the two estimates are relatively close (the difference between them is less than 0.5% of either estimate).
 * [4] distinguishes between the Tigrinya ethnic group (3,224,875 in Ethiopia (1998 census)) and the Tigrinya-speaking population (3,284,568 (1998 census)). [5], too, citing the 1994 census as source, distinguishes between the ethnic group (6.2% of the population of Ethiopia) and the linguistic group (6.1%). Both sources pertain only to Ethiopia. I have yet to see authoritative statement of the world-wide difference between the two populations. Of the sources below only the Ethnologue report has attempted a quantitative characterization of the Tigrinya speaking population: 4,449,875.
 * The fact that the Ethnologue report states as source the 1998 census, does not necessarily mean the numbers used pertained to 1998. It may be (i've never read this report), that the numbers used were projections to 2005, just as [4] states (p. 2) the numbers it gives for July 2006 are projections based on the 1994 census. As far as i know, the CIA reports may also be projections based on old data.
 * According to [4], "Falasha" is conceived as pejorative by Beta Israel. It means "exiles" or "strangers" in Amharic.

References: [1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/er.html [2] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/et.html [3] http://www.csa.gov.et/text_files/national%20statistics%202005/Population.pdf [4] http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=tir [5] http://www.ethiomedia.com/newpress/census_portrait.pdf

Itayb 23:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * When a source states a figure as of a given date, July 2006 or some other, it must be presumed to mean that unless it says otherwise or is expressly contradicted by another reliable source. Arguing otherwise is original research.
 * My only reason for suggesting Falasha is that Ethnologue used it; but it is the common English term.
 * As for the discrepancies, I'm not surprised. There's a reason I suggested citing all figures to 2 significant digits or less. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Firstly, thanks, Yom, for correcting "Falashas" to "Beit Israels".
 * Secondly, more specific and terse critique of Septentrionalis' suggestion:
 * "In 1998, Ethnologue estimated 4.45 million Tigrinya speakers" - Should be: "In 2005 Ethnologue estimated 4.45 million Tigrinya speakers". The Ethnologue listing does not state this number pertains to 1998, nor that the estimate was calculated in 1998.
 * "some 15,000 elsewhere" - Who knows why there are c.15,000 "missing"? Maybe and the 15,000 are due to the method of calculation, which took account of, say, an expected increase in birth rate? (Note, that ethnologue cites no source for the number of Tigrinya speakers in Germany, and hence the claim that there is such in Germany should be taken with a grain of salt.)
 * "The Tigrinya ethnic group, almost entirely Tigrinya speaking" - Citation needed.
 * "4.3 million in Ethiopia (CSA 2005 National Statistics, Table B.3.)" - All the CSA report says, is that the Tigray region is estimated (by projecting from the 1994 data to July 2006) to be inhabited by ~4.3 people. Citation is needed in order to determine the ethnic/linguistic make-up of this population. Itayb 07:59, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

First Language vs Total Speakers
Is there a way we can have comparable statistics, that we have either all statistics listed as Total Speakers or as First Language Speakers as opposed to the way that some are First Language and some are Total? If so, does anyone know where we can locate such information? --  Valley   2   city   ₪‽ 02:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

BC
I replaced all of the acronyms "BC" with "BCE", because the term BC is to imply the phrase "Before Christ", and seeing as this is not a Christian dictated wiki I thought it was more appropriate to have BCE which is "Before Common Era" and more politically correct in my opinion. ~  אדם  04:47, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Just my two cents worth here but this is just "sanitizing" articles in the name of "political correctness". Jesus Christ (or Yeshuah Ben Yoseph, or Iesous Christos, or Yeshuah H'Mshiah or Isa, or whatever you wish to call him) is a historical person.  The estimated year of his birth has been the accepted, albeit seemingly random (to a non-Christian), method of figuring dates in the West for centuries.  You don't have to believe that he was the son of God to measure time by this traditional standard. In fact, simply changing the designation doesn't change the fact that you are still measuring time according to his year of birth.  Whether you call it "BC" or "BCE", is it not a fact that the Maccabee Revolt began 166 years before Christ's birth?  And is it not a fact that the Temple was destroyed by the Romans 70 years after Christ's birth?  This is true whether one is Christian or not.  Using the term "BC" does not mean this wiki is "Christian dictated", as you so militantly put it, it simply means that as an English language wiki we follow the traditional, standard Western method of reckoning historical dates. --William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 16:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

all ranting aside, this sort of replacement (in either direction) is considered "style warring" and frowned upon. AD/BCE is the "Dionysian era", and AD 70 is not "70 years after Christ's birth", since Jesus of N. was born in ca. 4-6 BC, not in AD 1. But this very fact goes to show that usage of the Dionysian era has nothing to do with Christ anymore and is mere convention. Otherwisee, "Christ was born in 4 BC" would be a contradiction in terms. dab (𒁳) 16:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Preserved genitive case in Hebrew
The article states that the genitive case is extinct except in Arabic. Doesn't the adjectival ending -i in Hebrew preserve this case ending? For example: Israeli, Ivri, Shmeimi (heavenly, from Shamayim which means sky) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.229.237.113 (talk) 21:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC).


 * No, the adjective ending -i in Hebrew is an adjective ending, not a genitive. It declines like an adjective (i.e, gender and number agreement), it cannot be added to proper names, its semantics are different from a genitive, etc. If someone can cite something that shows that the ending was originally a genitive ending, then there might be a place to mention it. Fundamentisto (talk) 12:57, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

"Data" as a plural noun
Do we have a policy on the use of the word "data"? I realize that the derivation is attributed to the plural of the Latin singular noun "datum" and that in the past both usages were considered standard, but phrases like "the data are..." are becoming increasingly awkward in modern English usage. Its use on Wikipedia should be standardized.--William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 16:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

422 million
Arabic Afro-Asiatic, Semitic 206 million (1998),Total population of Arab countries: 323 million (CIA 2006 est). now Encarta 2006 422 million

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
 * I think we need to get the number in line with the articles Arabic language and Afroasiatic languages, where the number of first language speakers is given as 280 Million. Ethnologue actually puts the total number for standard Amharic at less than 250 Million, none of them mother tongue speakers. This is the source where even this page's references link to. The Encarta link is quite dead, and anyway Encarta is a tertiary source, just like Wikipedia itself. So it would be good if we get rid of the inflated figures in this article. Arabic is still a pretty large and important language, by all standards, and its status is not served by exaggeration. By the way, population figures of a country (the CIA source) say nothing about language use, and this figure should be entirely discarded. Many people in Arab countries speak different languages as first languages, eg. in Sudan or Yemen. Landroving Linguist (talk) 09:52, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

words of Arabic languages
words of Arabic languages are in alkoran but dont use between people today..and it easy to understand to arab


 * What are you talking about? the word "bab" (door) is in the Quran, tell me which Arabic dialect does not use it? No, let's look at it in another way, do you have a particular word in mind that you know is not used anymore? I can count dozens upon dozens that are. --Maha Odeh 12:53, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

KTB or KTL
The Hebrew examples using the root meaning 'write' are written with k-t-l but kaph tav bet. Why? &mdash;Tamfang 22:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? They're written with the k-t-b root cast into different mishkalim. Where do you see k-t-l? Tkeu 05:08, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I guess the ḇ was mangled in the font of the other computer I use. Never mind!  —Tamfang 06:55, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Av
Under the common words section, it says that father in hebrew is ab (alef, bet), but it's actually aba (alef, bet, alef)...am i missing something here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.6.122.7 (talk) 23:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Av (ab, אב) is father in Hebrew. Aba (אבא) is an Aramaic loanword used similarly to something like Dad in English, but used more commonly. Fundamentisto (talk) 12:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Medieval Hebrew
In the section "1st millennium BC" there is a line ...gradually pushing Akkadian, Hebrew, Phoenician, and several other languages to extinction (although Hebrew remained in use as a liturgical language) And in the section "Present situation" there is a line Hebrew, long extinct outside of Jewish liturgical purposes, was revived at the end of the 19th century... Are the ideas 'extinct' and 'liturgical' appropriate for Hebrew, considering the continued use of Medieval Hebrew for poetry, science, philosophy, law, rabbinic literature, and communication among Jews from different countries? Eliezerh 01:00, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, "extinct" means that there were no native speakers of Hebrew after the first century CE at the latest. "Liturgical" means that the primary means of learning Hebrew as a second language was for use in reading the Torah.  The other uses you cite are secondary.  All writers of Medieval Hebrew learned it first for liturgical purposes. (Taivo (talk) 14:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC))

Israelit

 * Modern Hebrew — also called Israelit


 * By whom? Theoretically "yisraelit" would mean the language "Israeli" in Israeli Hebrew, but I've never actually heard anyone use that term. Fundamentisto (talk) 12:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Maltese "semi-semitic"
I would like to address the user who qualified Maltese as 'semi-Semitic': personally, I strongly disagree with this. Maltese is Semitic in the same way English is Germanic, even after the absorbtion of foreign vocabulary (and in Maltese' case, some grammar too). golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 16:20, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Maltese vocabulary is only approx 30% Semitic, with around 60% Romance. Even though its lexography and historical sytax was Semitic, the modern day form of Maltese is not. 78.151.146.252 (talk) 17:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If you have a reliable source that recognizes any such categorization as "Semi-Semitic", maybe we can go with that. Otherwise, it is definitely WP:OR.  Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 17:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I have a reliable source which shows the percentages. Based on those percentages, and the definitions of how a language is linguistically classified, Maltese was historically Semitic, but is now only partially Semitic, and the majority of it is Romantic. 89.242.88.123 (talk) 07:48, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Maltese's vocabulary may be mostly Italic, but its grammar is Semitic, and that's the factor used to determine language classification. Maltese is no more a Romance language than English is.--Yolgnu (talk) 09:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Not so. Maltese lexography and grammar is influenced by Italian and French word orders too. The most accurate description of Maltese would be a Romance-Semitic hybrid. Suggesting it is one or the other is purely POV. Additionally, Siculo-Arabic wasn't the first foundation of Maltese. The Sicani language was, and that certainly wasn't Semitic, meaning that although there was a time when the majority influx of vocabulary and grammar was Semitic, Semitic certainly wasn't the first, and is no longer the majority historical influence. 89.242.88.123 (talk) 09:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Re: "The most accurate description of Maltese would be a Romance-Semitic hybrid." Once again, if the only source for this classification is "89.242.88.123", then we can't use it; please read this page: WP:OR.  On the other hand, if you have a published Reliable source that uses this as a linguistic classification, you may be getting somewhere. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 10:57, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I have sources which say that the majority of vocabulary is romantic, and there are other sources which show large sections of grammar and lexography are romantic too. Therefore, it is not OR. 78.146.5.2 (talk) 16:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * As long as you do not show references to these sources, if possible published, your claim remains OR. Please have a look at the pertinent Wikipedia policies before you make unusual claims. Unusual claims need to be well supported by published sources, or they have no place in Wikipedia. Landroving Linguist (talk) 17:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * But there are sources backing up that the majority vocabulary in Maltese is Romantic, and that Romance vocabulary patterns are used. 78.146.5.2 (talk) 17:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Please pay special attention to the part of the policy entitled WP:SYNT. If you have one source stating that the vocab is Romance, and another source stating that the "patterns" are Romance, that still cannot justify wikipedia inventing a novel linguistic family classification known as "Romance-Semitic hybrid", that no linguist has ever used before.  And you still haven't shown us any sources of any kind yet. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Classifying Maltese as "semi-Semitic" is ridiculous. It makes no more sense than classifying English as "semi-Germanic".  Neither is "semi-" anything.  Maltese is a Semitic language with lots of Romance loanwords just as English is a Germanic language with lots of Romance loanwords.  Quit getting silly with Maltese.  Let the linguists handle it.  They have been doing a good job for the last few centuries.  Nationalistic agendas have no place in Wikipedia. (Taivo (talk) 18:48, 3 July 2008 (UTC))


 * Nationalist agenda? And please explain how this is a nationalist POV? I am a linguist thank you very much, and can assure you that my studies on the matter would by far outstretch yours. No one is suggesting that a new branch of language is synthesised. One is pointing out that Maltese is no longer "Semitic" in its form, considering that the majority of it is now of Romance origin. Historically, yes, Maltese was a Semitic language, but with 52% of the vocabulary from Italian alone (so without French or other Romanic influences, which make it even higher), compared to only 30% Siculo-Arabic, and with the majority of Syntax patterns from Italian (and lesserly, English), it is ridiculous to imply that Maltese is a traditional definition of a Semitic language - it is far from it, and this needs to be reflected in the text. So yes, please do leave it to the linguists. 78.146.5.2 (talk) 19:10, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Since everyone's ire is up (btw, I still stick by my original statement, but agree that Romance infulence on Maltese could be more fully expressed in the article) how about casting your eyes a little lower? I'd appreciate any comments re:Maltese being included in the 'common vocab' box. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 19:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Here, Maltese is even referred to as a "semi-Romance" language. 78.146.5.2 (talk) 22:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but it's clear a consensus has been reached.--Yolgnu (talk) 23:39, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you rejecting this source? Wikipeda is not a democracy. 89.243.51.169 (talk) 15:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you the same editor whose ip was 78.146.5.2? Please get yourself an account, it'll make things easier. I read through the 'source' you provided; English has been called a semi-Romance language; as Owen Barfield observed, ‘the English language has been facetiously described as “French badly pronounced”’. The author appears to be making a(n ironic) point rather than suggesting a new way of listing languages. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 13:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No that is not the same editor as myself. The source clearly states what the authors consider the language to be. Another source calls it a Romance-Arabic crossbreed. There are plenty of sources backing the idea of it being a hybrid up, and this should be clearly indicated in the article. 195.131.165.203 (talk) 09:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Classifying Maltese as "semi-Semitic" based on extensive borrowing would be reasonable, were vocabulary inventory the way linguistic classification is done. However, that's simply not the yardstick used. As many others have pointed out, English is classified as Germanic despite a majority-Romance vocabulary.  Similarly, Romany is classified as Indo-Aryan despite having lost most Indo-Aryan vocabulary.


 * Editors who want to classify Maltese as semi-Semitic, Semitic/Romance or whatnot would be advised to look into the rules on how languages are classified. They may disagree with those rules -- perhaps reasonably -- but it seems pretty obvious that Maltese should be classified as Semitic, period. -Ben (talk) 15:08, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Using Maltese in comparing Proto-Semitic roots
Saying that b-y-d means white and egg in Maltese as well as Arabic, or including Maltese in the comparison of Proto-Semitic roots, is like saying "the PIE root *mater means mother in Latin (mater), as well as in French (mère), but sister in Albanian (motër)". Since Maltese has an attested ancestor, Classical Arabic, including Maltese is unnecessary and misleading.--Yolgnu (talk) 03:58, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Excluding Maltese isn't helpful; these examples actually highlight a close relationship with Syriac. Anyway, keeping something as controversial as 'proto-Semitic' roots exclusive, as though there was major academic consensus on it, is absurd. Also, you are mistaken. The Maltese language is not only fully pre-Hilalian but has little surviving connection with Classical Arabic (eg its lack Quranic verbs), thanks to Siculo-Arabic. Much current research (like that of Clive Holes) even suggests the presence of dialects in competition with Classical Arabic, which makes touting it as a cover-all 'ancestor' even harder to justify. All of which is neither here nor there. Maltese as a distinct language warrants inculsion. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 06:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, this is all OR. Mainstream linguistics says that Maltese is descended from Classical Arabic via Siculo-Arabic. The impressive-sounding "Fully Pre-Hilalian" is in fact just a dialectical division, and the fact that Maltese is not very conservative is neither here nor there. This "dialects in competition with Arabic" sounds as likely as the "dialects in competition with Latin" theory. "Touting Classical Arabic as a cover-all "ancestor"", as you put it, is as accepted as "touting Latin as a cover-all "ancestor"" for the Romance languages. And if you know anything about comparative linguistics, you'll know that languages with attested ancestors are not used, only the ancestor is. Comparative linguists don't use French to reconstruct PIE.--Yolgnu (talk) 06:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't decide whether you're being a language snob (the worst kind of snob there is) or pig headed. Either way, I'm not going to get into this right now (I'm working on my dissertation): needless to say, I refute you utterly and stand by Maltese' inclusion as a distinct language of considerable independent worth, deserving a place in that table. I'll return to this subject at a later date. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 11:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've stated my argument, and I've no doubt other editors will see right through your counterargument of "weirdo creep", "snob", and "pig-headed". You keep stressing that Maltese is a "distinct language" of "considerable worth", as if I'm denying that or am somehow insulting Maltese. I am not. I am merely explaining why the inclusion of Maltese in this particular context is inappropriate. As always, I welcome suggestions and opinions from other editors.--Yolgnu (talk) 13:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I should not have reacted by name calling: I left a note on your talkpage about that. However, your stalking of me has become ridiculous. I haven't commented on your poetaster's stabs at Catallus, nor the litany of other offences your talk page attests to. Stressing the point of Maltese' legitimacy is simply in response to your continued denial of the fact. Hopefully others will involve themselves; I am not too proud to accept that I may be wrong (and the Culture of Malta shows that working together can produce things of benefit, albeit after Taivo's intervention stopped your hack/slash edits). But I will not allow repeated offensive behaviour to be directed my way. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 13:16, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * So you apologise for your disgraceful personal attacks by following them up with more? Your ridiculous ad hominem character assassination attempt is a pathetic attempt to hide your complete lack of a counterargument.--Yolgnu (talk) 13:40, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Go on, accuse me of vandalism too while you're at it. Isn't that your usual M.O.? Bah! golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 14:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * May I remind Yolgnu of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. Cheers. 78.146.5.2 (talk) 19:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Funny, isn't that what I just reminded Kalindoscopy of?--Yolgnu (talk) 23:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Section for 3rd opinions
If the question is whether Maltese should be used "to compare Proto-Semitic roots", I can see Yolgnu's point comparing it to using French for PIE - that is, Maltese is not independent enough a branch of Semitic to warrant inclusion. However, it is not clear that this is the only express purpose of the chart in the article. If it can be taken to be a chart simply comparing diversity among Semitic languages, then Maltese does have some interesting and diverse forms for comparison, that couldn't hurt (that also by the way attest to the Semitic nature of Maltese!) Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 23:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The preceding section in the article contains information about triliterals and includes Arabic, Hebrew and Maltese. If the scope for the vocab section is similarly comparative, it's fitting that the Maltese language be featured. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 23:48, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I really feel that this section, whose main article is List of Proto-Semitic stems, is equivalent to the list of Proto-Indo-European stems on Wiktionary. I think a better place to compare Maltese with other Semitic languages would be here, and a good idea would be to create a table at Varieties of Arabic to compare Maltese with its brothers, just as French and Romanian are compared at Romance languages and not List of Proto-Indo-European Stems. Regardless of whether we include Maltese in the table, I think we can all agree that saying that " the root b-y-ḍ in Arabic has the meaning of "white" as well as "egg", just as in Maltese bajda means "white" (f. sing.) and also "egg", whereas in Hebrew it only means "egg" ", is redundant. There's nothing notable about a language preserving the same meaning for a word as its ancestor.--Yolgnu (talk) 00:13, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Aren't languages normally 'sisters'? Anyway, I agree with some of your suggestions (inclusion in here),, but still believe that the vocab box on 'Semitic languages' is broad enough to contain another Semitic language. It would however be untrue to include Maltese under 'Varieties of Arabic', because while Maltese may be descended from Siculo-Arabic it is not, in itself, Arabic. It is a distinct language. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 08:04, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * "Varieties of Arabic" is in many ways a misnomer (it's equivalent to calling the Romance languages "Varieties of Latin"), but nevertheless, that's what descendants of Arabic are called. Tunisian Arabic, Egpytian Arabic, Sudanese Arabic and Bahraini Arabic are  distinct languages just as much as Maltese is, only Maltese isn't called "Maltese Arabic".--Yolgnu (talk) 09:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Distinguo. Maltese is not (and never was/will be, as far as I can tell) "Maltese Arabic" because it is a different language. Its closest truly 'Arabic' link is Siculo-Arabic. Maltese has its own literary norms and idioms independent of linguistic considerations. It is not Arabic in the same way at all and that kind of ignorant generalisation really is offensive. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 11:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Maltese is just as Arabic (or just as un-Arabic, if you want to put it that way) as every other variety of Arabic, just as it is as Semitic as every other Semitic language, nationalistic POVs aside. So please make yourself useful and help me create a table on Varieties of Arabic. If you don't want to, there are plenty of Maltese Wikipedians who will.--Yolgnu (talk) 12:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Maltese is a language in its own right, there's nothing nationalistic about that: I'm beginning to wonder whether or not you have a stable grasp on the English language. I hope you DO find a 'Maltese wikipedian' (or anyone with an idea about Maltese) to help you, as it's painfully obvious you don't have any idea about the language. Make yourself useful and help push up the dasies. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 12:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, I've just realised that the vocab box was originally intended as a comparison between Semitic languages, nothing more. Proto-Semitic roots are included in the box and give an interesting comparison between the different words. It doesn't seem as though its main focus is/was some sort of Proto-Semitic 'reconstruction' through modern Semitic languages.. there's a whole article about Proto-Semitic where that can take place, anyway. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes &amp; prisms (talk) 11:15, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, we're confusing sociological and cladistic definitions of "language". For the purposes of comparative lexica, it's the cladistic definition that's relevant. Under that view, Maltese is clearly a variant of Arabic. The fact that other variants of Arabic are called "Arabic" while Maltese is not is a social phenomenon due to ethnic identification and has nothing to do with how closely they're related. kwami (talk) 01:56, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I was wondering why Maltese was included in the table!
 * I agree with kwami and Yolgnu on that matter. It should be removed along with Phoenician. I think it's redundant to list Maltese alongside Arabic; and Phoenician (although be it north Canaanite) alongside Hebrew.--Xevorim (talk) 11:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Why not just remove Arabic and Hebrew :) the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 10:57, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I maintain that its removal is unwarranted and its inclusion is proper in a comparative list of Semitic languages. Kalindoscopy: un enfant espiègle (talk) 11:31, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A "perfect" comparative table would contain forms from every single Semitic language. But this is completely impractical and actually hides certain things in the "noise".  Therefore, we construct comparative tables in certain ways.  We include principal daughters from each of the main subgroups, spread appropriately through the family.  In this case, Phoenician and Hebrew are virtually the same node, so including both is not strategic.  In the same way, including Maltese as well as Arabic is not strategic, since Maltese is a descendant of Arabic.  Neither Maltese nor Phoenician should be included in the chart as long as Hebrew represents the Northwest Semitic group and Arabic represents its node. (Taivo (talk) 11:59, 13 September 2008 (UTC))
 * There are three things which would improve the table. First, Geez is the only representative of South Semitic.  The table should also include Amharic--Geez is a Northern South Semitic language and Amharic is a Southern South Semitic language.  Second, Phoenician and Maltese are totally useless in the table for the reason I have stated above.  Third, if the nationalists insist on needlessly including Maltese and Phoenician, then they should be placed next to the languages which they are most closely related to--Maltese is a descendant of Arabic and Phoenician is a very closely related language to Hebrew. (Taivo (talk) 12:04, 13 September 2008 (UTC))
 * sighs*. Phoenician and Maltese are interesting Semitic languages and a comparison between them (because they really are so different from their descendant/ancestor) just makes the article that much more informative. Obviously this falls outside the scope of prevalent demagoguery. Apologies for reverting your edit before reading your comment: I'll change it back. the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 13:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I could include the Amharic cognates - however, for two of the words (tongue and water) the words would not be cognates - at least water is a loan from Central Cushitic. What would you do with these in that table? For the other words, they are the same as Ge'ez, except father, which is /abbat/. On a personal note: I don't like the use of the word demagoguery in the previous contribution. The comment is beside the point. Certainly the information on Maltese and Phoenician is interesting - just not in this article. In the article on Maltese (and maybe Arabic) it would serve its purpose well. Just because information is interesting, it does not need to be shown around everywhere. Landroving Linguist (talk) 17:48, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I am confused. I believe that this section was labelled "3rd opinions" and that outside informed viewpoints were actually being solicited regardless of the position of the author.  The use of the term "demagoguery" for what is common and widely accepted practice among historical linguists indicates that the request for 3rd opinions was perhaps in error.  I'm not completely familiar with the exact similarities between Amharic and Geez, but was simply indicating that this was one possible node (Southern South Semitic) that had no representative in the table.  Noncognate forms are usually not included in charts such as this.  (Taivo (talk) 19:36, 13 September 2008 (UTC))
 * I never asked for third opinions.. but accept the changes you've made and the authority you seem to have on this subject. the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 13:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)