Northwest Semitic is a division of the

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant ...

comprising the indigenous languages of the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...

. It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as

Amorite The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied lar ...

in the

Middle Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pr ...

. The oldest coherent texts are in Ugaritic, dating to the Late Bronze Age, which by the time of the Bronze Age collapse are joined by Old Aramaic, and by the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

by Sutean and the

Canaanite languages The Canaanite languages, or Canaanite dialects, are one of the three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Ugaritic, all originating in the Levant and Mesopotamia. They are attested in Canaanite inscriptio ...

( Phoenician/ Punic,

Edomite Edom (; Edomite: ; he, אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan, located between Moab to the northeast, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east. ...

, Moabite and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

). The term was coined by

Carl Brockelmann Carl Brockelmann (17 September 1868 – 6 May 1956) German Semiticist, was the foremost orientalist of his generation. He was a professor at the universities in Breslau, Berlin and, from 1903, Königsberg. He is best known for his multi-volum ...

in 1908,The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, Chapter V
page 425 who separated Fritz Hommel's 1883 classification of

into Northwest ( Canaanite and

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...

), East Semitic (

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...

, its Assyrian and Babylonian dialects, Eblaite) and Southwest (

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, Old South Arabian languages and Abyssinian). Brockelmann's Canaanite sub-group includes Ugaritic, Phoenician and

. Some scholars would now separate Ugaritic as a separate branch of Northwest Semitic alongside Canaanite.

Central Semitic Central Semitic languages are one of the three groups of West Semitic languages, alongside Modern South Arabian languages and Ethiopian Semitic languages. Central Semitic can itself be further divided into two groups: Arabic and Northwest Semit ...

is a proposed intermediate group comprising Northwest Semitic and

. Central Semitic is either a subgroup of

West Semitic The West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of ancient Semitic languages. The term was first coined in 1883 by Fritz Hommel.East Semitic and South Semitic.

SIL Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...

in its system of classification (of living languages only) eliminates Northwest Semitic entirely by joining Canaanite and Arabic in a "South-Central" group which together with Aramaic forms Central Semitic. The

Deir Alla Inscription The Deir 'Alla Inscription (or Bal'am Son of Be'or Inscription), known as KAI 312, was discovered during a 1967 excavation in Deir 'Alla, Jordan. It is currently at the Jordan Archaeological Museum. It is written in a peculiar Northwest Semitic d ...

and Samalian have been identified as language varieties falling outside Aramaic proper but with some similarities to it, possibly in an "Aramoid" or "Syrian" subgroup. It is clear that the Taymanitic script expressed a distinct linguistic variety that is not Arabic and not closely related to Hismaic or Safaitic, while it can tentatively be suggested that it was more closely related to Northwest Semitic.

Historical development

Orbis eruditi literatura à charactere Samaritico deducta 1689

The time period for the split of Northwest Semitic from Proto-Semitic or from other Semitic groups is uncertain, it has been recently suggested by

Richard C. Steiner Richard C. Steiner (born 1945) is a Semitist and a scholar of Northwest Semitic languages, Jewish Studies, and Near Eastern texts. His work has focused on texts from as early as the Egyptian Pyramid texts to as late as medieval biblical inter ...

that the earliest attestation of Northwest Semitic is to be found in snake spells from the Egyptian

Pyramid Texts The Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts, dating to the late Old Kingdom. They are the earliest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterran ...

, dating to the mid-third millennium BCE. Amorite personal names and words in Akkadian and Egyptian texts from the late third millennium to the mid-second millennium BCE and the language of the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions dated to the first half of the second millennium otherwise constitute the earliest traces of Northwest Semitic, the first Northwest Semitic language attested in full being Ugaritic in the 14th century BCE. During the early 1st millennium, the Phoenician language was spread throughout the Mediterranean by Phoenician colonists, most notably to

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

in today's

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

. The

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician al ...

is of fundamental importance in human history as the source and ancestor of the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

, the later

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

, the Aramaic (

Square Hebrew The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewi ...

), Syriac, and Arabic writing systems, Germanic

runes Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...

, and ultimately

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

. From the 8th century BCE, the use of

Imperial Aramaic Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic language. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower (dialectologica ...

by the

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew ...

(935-608 BC) and the succeeding

Neo-Babylonian Empire The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and bei ...

(612-539 BC) and

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...

(539-332 BC), a form of the

Aramaic language The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

, spread throughout the Northwest Semitic region of the Levant, northern regions of the Arabian peninsula and southern regions of Anatolia, and gradually drove most of the other Northwest Semitic languages to extinction. The ancient Judaeans adopted Aramaic for daily use, and parts of the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' liturgical language and language of scholarship, and resurrected in the 19th century, with modern adaptations, to become the

Modern Hebrew language Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...

of the State of Israel. After the Muslim conquests of the 7th century, Arabic began to gradually replace Aramaic throughout the region. Aramaic survives today as the liturgical language of the Assyrian Church of the East,

Syriac Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = syc , image = St_George_Syriac_orthodox_church_in_Damascus.jpg , imagewidth = 250 , alt = Cathedral of Saint George , caption = Cathedral of Saint George, Damascus ...

Chaldean Catholic Church , native_name_lang = syc , image = Assyrian Church.png , imagewidth = 200px , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows Baghdad, Iraq , abbreviation = , type ...

, and other churches of Assyrian Christians. It is spoken in modern dialects with an estimated 1 million fluent speakers (some such as Assyrian Neo-Aramaic containing archaic Akkadian influence) by endangered indigenous and non-Muslim populations scattered throughout the Middle East, most commonly by Assyrians as well as Gnostic Mandeans and some Levantine Syriac Christians and Jews. There is also an Aramaic substratum in Levantine Arabic.

Phonology

Sound changes

Phonologically, Ugaritic lost the sound *ṣ́, replacing it with ( ṣ) (the same shift occurred in Canaanite and

). That this same sound became in Aramaic (although in Ancient Aramaic, it was written with qoph), suggests that Ugaritic is not the parent language of the group. An example of this sound shift can be seen in the word for ''earth'': Ugaritic (''’arṣ''), Punic (''’''a''rṣ)'', Tiberian Hebrew (''’ereṣ''),

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of t ...

(''’arṣ'') and Aramaic (''’ar‘ā’''). The vowel shift from to distinguishes Canaanite from Ugaritic. Also, in the Canaanite group, the series of Semitic interdental fricatives become sibilants: ( ḏ), ( ṯ) and ( ṱ) became , ( š) and ( ṣ) respectively. The effect of this sound shift can be seen by comparing the following words:

Vowels

Proto-Northwest Semitic had three contrastive vowel qualities and a length distinction, resulting in six vocalic phonemes: *a, *ā, *i, *ī, *u, and *ū. While *aw, *ay, *iw, *iy, *uw, and *uy are often referred to as diphthongs, they do not seem to have had a different status as such, rather being a normal sequence of a short vowel and a glide.

Consonants

Suchard proposes that: "*s, both from original *s and original *ṯ, then shifted further back to a postalveolar *š, while deaffrication of *ts and *dz to *s and *z gave these phonemes their Hebrew values, as well as merging original *dz with original *ḏ. In fact, original *s may have been realized as anything between and ; both values are attested in foreign transcriptions of early Northwest Semitic languages".

Emphatics

In Proto-Northwest Semitic the emphatics were articulated with pharyngealization. Its shift to backing (as opposed to Proto-Semitic glottalization of emphatics) has been considered a Central Semitic innovation. According to Faber, the assimilation *-ṣt->-ṣṭ- in the Dt stem in Hebrew (hiṣṭaddēḳ ‘he declared himself righteous’) suggests backing rather than glottalization. The same assimilation is attested in Aramaic (yiṣṭabba ‘he will be moistened’).

Grammar

Nouns

Three cases can be reconstructed for Proto-Northwest Semitic nouns ( nominative,

accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...

, genitive), two

genders Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...

(masculine, feminine) and three numbers (single, dual, plural).

Pronouns

Proto-Northwest Semitic pronouns had 2 genders and 3 grammatical cases.

Numerals

Reconstruction of Proto-Northwest Semitic numbers.

Verbs

The G fientive or G-stem (Hebrew ''qal'') is the basic, most common, unmarked stem. The G-stem expresses events. The vowel of the prefix of the prefix conjugations in Proto-Northwest Semitic was *-a- and the stem was *-qṭul- or *-qṭil-, as in *ya-qṭul-u 'he will kill', while the stem of the suffix conjugation had two *a vowels, as in *qaṭal-a 'he has killed'. The G stative is like the fientive but expressing states instead of events. The prefix conjugation of stative roots, the vowel of the prefixes was *-i- and it contained and *a vowel, e.g. *yi-kbad-u 'he will become heavy', while the second vowel of the suffix conjugation was either *-i-, as in *kabid-a 'he is/was/will be heavy', or *-u-, as in *ʕamuq-a 'it is/was/will be deep'. Whether the G-stem stative suffix conjugation has *i or *u in the stem is lexically determined. The N-stem (Hebrew ''nip̄ʕal'') is marked by a prefixed *n(a)-. It is mediopassive which is a grammatical voice that subsumes the meanings of both the middle voice and the passive voice. In other words, it expresses a range of meanings where the subject is the patient of the verb, e.g. passive, medial, and reciprocal. The stem of the suffix conjugation is *naqṭaland the stem of the prefix conjugations is *-nqaṭil-; as is the case with stative Gstem verbs, the prefix vowel is *-i-, resulting in forms like *yi-nqaṭil-u 'he will be killed'. The D-stem (Hebrew ''piʕel'') is marked by gemination of the second radical in all forms. It has a range of different meanings, mostly transitive. The stem of the suffix conjugation is *qaṭṭil-, and the same stem is used for the prefix conjugations. It is not clear whether the Proto-Northwest-Semitic prefix vowel should be reconstructed as *-u-, the form inherited from Proto-Semitic (i.e. *yuqaṭṭil-u), or as *-a-, which is somewhat supported by evidence from Ugaritic and Hebrew (*yaqaṭṭil-u). The C-stem (Hebrew ''hip̄ʕil'') more often than not expresses a causative meaning. The most likely reconstructions are *haqṭil- (from older *saqṭil-) for the stem of the suffix conjugation and *-saqṭil- for the stem of the prefix conjugations. The reconstructed prefix vowel is the same as that of the D-stem, and similarly, the participle is to be reconstructed as *musaqṭilum. All of the stems listed here, except the N-stem, could bring forth further derivation. The "internal passive stems" (Gp, Dp, and Cp; Hebrew passive ''qal'', ''puʕal'', and ''hɔp̄ʕal'') aren't marked by affixes, but express their passivity through a different vowel pattern. The Gp prefix conjugation can be reconstructed as *yu-qṭal-u 'he will be killed'. Reflexive or reciprocal meanings can be expressed by the t-stems, formed with a *t which was either infixed after the first radical (Gt, Ct) or prefixed before it (tD). The precise reconstruction are uncertain.

Conjunctions

* *wa, 'and' * *pa/ʔap, 'and then, and so' * *ʔaw, 'or' * *huʼāti and *hiʼāti, direct object markers * *ha, 'to, for' * *ka also *kī, (and *kaj?) 'like, as' * *bal, 'without, non-' * *bi, 'in, with' * *la, 'to, for' (dat/dir) * *min(V), 'from' * *ʕad(aj), 'up to, until' * *ʕal(aj), 'on, against' * *jiθ, 'there is/are'

Notes

Bibliography

*Blau, J. 1968. "Some Difficulties in the Reconstruction of 'Proto-Hebrew' and 'Proto-Canaanite'," in In Memoriam Paul Kahle. ''BZAW'', 103. pp. 29–43 *Cross, F. M. 1965. “The Development of the Jewish Scripts,” in ''The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of W. F. Albright'', ed. G. E. Wright. New York. Reprinted 1965, Anchor Book Edition; New York, pp. 133–202. *Cross, F. M. 1967. “The Origin and Early Evolution of the Alphabet,” ''EI'' 5: 8*-24*. *Cross, F. M. 1982. “Alphabets and pots: Reflections on typological method in the dating of human artifacts,” ''MAARAV'' 3: 121-136. *Cross, F. M. 1989. “The Invention and Development of the Alphabet,” in ''The Origins of Writing'' (ed. W. M. Senner; Lincoln: University of Nebraska), pp. 77–90. *Cross, F. M. and Freedman, D. N. 1952. ''Early Hebrew Orthography: A Study of the Epigraphic Evidence'' New Haven: American Oriental Society. *Daniels, Peter. 1996. ''The World’s Writing Systems''. New York: Oxford. *de Moor, Johannes C. 1988. "Narrative Poetry in Canaan," ''UF'' 20:149-171. *Donner, H. and Rollig, W. 1962-64. ''Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften''. 3 volumes. Wiesbaden. (5th ed.) *

Driver, G. R. Sir Godfrey Rolles Driver (20 August 1892 – 22 April 1975), known as G. R. Driver, was an English Orientalist noted for his studies of Semitic languages and Assyriology.J. A. Emerton, 'Driver, Sir Godfrey Rolles (1892–1975)'. In ''Oxfor ...

1976. ''Semitic Writing: From Pictograph to Alphabet''. 3rd edition. London. *Garbini, G. 1960. ''Il Semitico di nord-ovest''. (And a critique by E.Y. Kutscher, ''JSS'' 10 (1965):21-51.) * *Garr, R. 1985. ''Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000-586 B.C.E.'' Philadelphia: UPenn. *Gelb, I. J. 1961. “The Early History of the West Semitic Peoples,” ''JCS'' 15:27-47. *Gelb, I. J. 1963. ''A Study of Writing''. 2nd edition. Chicago. *Gibson, J. C. L. 1971-87. ''Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions''. 3 Vols. Oxford: Clarendon. *Ginsberg, H. L. 1970. “The Northwest Semitic Languages,” in ''The World History of the Jewish People'', volume 1/2: Patriarches. Tel Aviv. *Greenfield, J. C. 1969. “Amurrite, Ugaritic and Canaanite,” in ''Proceedings of the International Conference of Semitic Studies''. Jerusalem. pp. 92–101. *Halpern, B. 1987. “Dialect Distribution in Canaan and the Deir Alla Inscriptions,” in ''“Working with No Data”: Semitic and Egyptian Studies Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin''. Ed. D. M. Golomb. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. pp. 119–39. *Harris, Z. 1939. ''Development of the Canaanite Dialects''. AOS, 16. New Haven: AOS. *Herr, Larry G. 1980. "The Formal Scripts of Iron Age Transjordan," ''BASOR'' 238:21-34. * Hoftijzer, J. and Jongeling, K. 1995. ''Dictionary of the North-West Semitic inscriptions''. 2 volumes. Leiden/New York: Brill. Not including Ugaritic. *Huehnergard, J. 1990. "Remarks on the Classification of the Northwest Semitic Languages," in ''The Balaam Text from Deir Alla Re-evaluated: proceedings of the international symposium held at Leiden, 21–24 August 1989''. pp. 282–93. *Kaufman, S. A. 1988. “The Classification of North West Semitic Dialects of the Biblical Period and Some Implications Thereof,” in ''Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Panel Sessions: Hebrew and Aramaic Languages)''. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies. pp. 41–57. *Moran, William L. 1961. “The Hebrew Language in its Northwest Semitic Background,” in ''The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of W. F. Albright'', ed. G. E. Wright. New York. Reprinted 1965, Anchor Book Edition; New York, pp. 59–84. *Moran, William L. 1975. “The Syrian Scribe of the Jerusalem Amarna Letters,” in ''Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient Near East'' (ed. H. Goedicke and J. J. M. Roberts; Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press) 146-166. *Moscati, Sabatino, ed. 1969. ''An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages: Phonology and Morphology''. Porta Linguarum Orientalium, ns, 6. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. *Naveh, J. 1987. ''Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography''. 2nd edition. Jerusalem: Magnes. Especially sections on West Semitic. *Parker, Simon B. 1997. ''Stories in Scripture and Inscriptions: Comparative Studies on Narratives in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions and the Hebrew Bible''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Rabin, C. 1971. "Semitic Languages," ''Encyclopaedia Judaica'', volume 14, pp. 1149–57. *Rabin, C. 1991. ''Semitic Languages'' (Jerusalem: Bialik).

n Hebrew N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...

*Rainey, A. F. 1986 “The Ancient Hebrew Prefix Conjugation in the Light of Amarnah Canaanite,” ''Hebrew Studies'' 27:1-19. *Rainey, A. F. 1990. “The Prefix Conjugation Patterns of Early Northwest Semitic,” pp. 407–420 in Abusch, Tz., Huehnergard, J. and Steinkeller, P., eds. ''Lingering over Words, Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran''. Atlanta: Scholars. *Renz, J. 1995. ''Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik''. 3 volumes. Darmstadt. *Vaughn, A. 1999 “Palaeographic Dating of Judean Seals and Its Significance for Biblical Research,” ''BASOR'' 313:43-64. *Suchard, B. 2019 "The Development of the Biblical Hebrew Vowels: Including a Concise Historical Morphology" Brill p.37-50, 232-252 {{Authority control Languages attested from the 14th century BC 1908 introductions 1900s neologisms Central Semitic languages