Talk:South Semitic languages

Backward Migration?
This section of the text:


 * The "homeland" of the South Semitic languages appears to have been the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula—indeed no Semitic language is thought to have originated on the continent of Africa. The modern and historic presence of South Semitic Ethiopian languages (and Ethiopic script) in Africa is believed to be due to a (backwards) migration of South Arabian speakers from Yemen within the last few thousand years. (It can be considered a "backwards migration" in that Afro-Asiatic languages are assumed to have arisen in Africa originally and moved into the Middle East and Arabian Peninsula in the form of Proto-Semitic, since all major branches of the larger Afro-Asiatic family except for Semitic are found in Africa. A minority of academics, e.g. A. Murtonen (1967), dispute this view, suggesting that Semitic may have originated in Ethiopia.)

seems to contradict what Semitic Languages says:


 * 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.

Whereas the first is affirmative in its proclamation that it did not originate in Africa, the latter says that it is more likely that Semitic languages (e.g. beginning with Proto-Semitic) began in Africa, but that it's still up for debate. The text in this article seems POV, so I'm going to change it to something more in line with the latter (which seems more accurate anyway).

Yom 01:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * No contradiction. Proto-Semitic and Semitic per se are different phases, probably separated by thousands of years. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 23:52, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Part of West Semitic and other issues
I don't know why I haven't visited this article before, but there are a few things which place it out of balance with the rest of articles on Semitic languages. The most favoured sources list South Semitic as part of a large West Semitic grouping (this is discussed on various pages linked off these articles). Although there is a reasonable claim for South Semitic being a separate entity, it is not the general overview of our other articles, and we should seek consistency. Likewise, the article should be titled South Semitic languages (we have East Semitic languages, West Semitic languages, Central Semitic languages…). Once these are accepted we can use Infobox Language family in the same way as it used in other groupings. I feel that this is mostly straightforward. Does anyone disagree with this approach? — Gareth Hughes 14:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)