Central Semitic languages are one of the three groups of

West Semitic languages The West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of Semitic languages. The term was first coined in 1883 by Fritz Hommel.Modern South Arabian languages The Modern South Arabian languages, also known as Eastern South Semitic languages, are a group of endangered languages spoken by small populations inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen and Oman, and Socotra Island. Together with the Ethiose ...

and

Ethiopian Semitic languages Ethio-Semitic (also Ethiopian Semitic, Ethiosemitic, Ethiopic or Abyssinian) is a family of languages spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan. They form the western branch of the South Semitic languages, itself a sub-branch of Semitic languages, ...

. Central Semitic can itself be further divided into two groups:

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

and

Northwest Semitic Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic language, Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite l ...

. Northwest Semitic languages largely fall into the

Canaanite languages The Canaanite languages, sometimes referred to as Canaanite dialects, are one of four subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages. The others are Aramaic and the now-extinct Ugaritic and Amorite language. These closely related languages origin ...

(such as

Ammonite Ammonoids are extinct, (typically) coiled-shelled cephalopods comprising the subclass Ammonoidea. They are more closely related to living octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish (which comprise the clade Coleoidea) than they are to nautiluses (family N ...

, Phoenician and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

) and

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

Overview

Distinctive features of Central Semitic languages include the following: * An innovative

negation In logic, negation, also called the logical not or logical complement, is an operation (mathematics), operation that takes a Proposition (mathematics), proposition P to another proposition "not P", written \neg P, \mathord P, P^\prime or \over ...

marker *bal, of uncertain origin. * The generalization of ''t'' as the suffix conjugation past tense marker,

levelling Levelling or leveling (American English; see spelling differences) is a branch of surveying, the object of which is to establish or verify or measure the height of specified points relative to a datum. It is widely used in geodesy and cartogra ...

an earlier alternation between *k in the first person and *t in the second person. * A new prefix conjugation for the non-past tense, of the form ''ya-qtulu'', replacing the inherited ''ya-qattal'' form (they are schematic verbal forms, as if derived from an example

triconsonantal root The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowel ...

''q-t-l''). *

Pharyngealization Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...

of the emphatic consonants, which were previously articulated as

ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...

. Different classification systems disagree on the precise structure of the group. The most common approach divides it into Arabic and Northwest Semitic, while

SIL Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' 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 comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

has

South Central Semitic The Arabic language family is divided into several categories which are: Old Arabic ( pre-Islamic Arabic), the literary varieties (Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic), and the modern vernaculars. The genealogical position of Arabic wi ...

(including Arabic and Hebrew) vs. Aramaic. The main distinction between Arabic and the Northwest Semitic languages is the presence of

broken plural In linguistics, a broken plural (or internal plural) is an irregular plural form of a noun or adjective found in the Semitic languages and other Afroasiatic languages such as the Berber languages. Broken plurals are formed by changing the pattern ...

s in the former. The majority of Arabic nouns (apart from

participle In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...

s) form plurals in this manner, whereas virtually all nouns in the Northwest Semitic languages form their plurals with a

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

. For example, the Arabic بَيْت ''bayt'' ("house") becomes بُيُوت ''buyūt'' ("houses"); the Hebrew בַּיִת ''bayit'' ("house") becomes בָּתִּים ''bāttīm'' ("houses").

References

* Semitic languages {{Semitic-lang-stub