Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical proto-language of the Semitic languages. The earliest attestations of a Semitic language are in Akkadian, dating to ca. the 23rd century BC (see Sargon of Akkad). Early inscriptions in the (pre-)Proto-Canaanite alphabet, presumably by speakers of a Semitic language, date to ca. 1800 BC. Proto-Semitic would most probably have been spoken in the 4th millennium BC, roughly contemporaneous to Proto-Indo-European.

Homeland

The Semitic Urheimat is likely in the Middle East; more specifically, Kienast (2001) advocates the Arabian peninsula. The East and West Semitic branches spread to Mesopotamia and the Levant during the Bronze Age, while South Semitic speakers migrated to Africa before the 8th century BC (see D?mt) via the Yemen gap.

Alternative scenarios make Ethiopia the Proto-Semitic homeland^[1].

Since Semitic is a branch of Afro-Asiatic, the question of the Proto-Afro-Asiatic homeland is a related debate.

More recently Juris Zarins has suggested that the development of a Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex of cultures developed in the period of the 6,200 BCE climatic crisis, stretching from Southern Palestine down the Red Sea shoreline, and northeastward into Syria and Iraq, spread Proto-Semitic languages through the region^[2]. This complex may have developed from the fusion of Harifian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B cultures in Southern Palestine.

Sound system

Proto-Semitic is generally reconstructed as having the following phonemes (as usually transcribed in Semitology; tentative IPA values are given in square brackets)^[3]:

Notes:

1. Nowadays it has become more fashionable to reconstruct z, s, , and sometimes as affricates, i.e. , , , and . If these sounds were affricates, many scholars are inclined to think that ? was really a simple . This is the reconstruction for other branches of Proto-Afro-Asiatic; suggesting that this was still the case for Proto-Semitic as well would explain merging in Canaanite with ?, rather than s. However, the exact history of these sounds has yet to be worked out.
2. The sounds notated here as "emphatic" sounds occur in nearly all Semitic languages, as well as in most other Afroasiatic languages, are generally reconstructed as glottalized in Proto-Semitic. In modern Semitic languages, they are variously realized as pharyngealized (Arabic, Aramaic) or glottalized (Ethiopian Semitic languages, Modern South Arabian languages); Modern Hebrew and Maltese are exceptions to this general retention, with all emphatics merging into plain consonants.
3. In Aramaic and Hebrew, all non-emphatic stops were softened to fricatives when occurring singly after a vowel, leading to an alternation that was often later phonemicized as a result of the loss of gemination.

Reflexes of Proto-Semitic sounds in daughter languages

Each Proto-Semitic phoneme was reconstructed to explain a certain regular sound correspondence between various Semitic languages:

Proto-Semitic	Akkadian	Arabic		Phoenician		Hebrew		Modern Hebrew	Aramaic		Ge'ez		Modern South Arabian
		?				?	/		?	/	?
		?				?	/		?	/	?
		?				?			?	/	?
		?				??			?	/	?
		?		?		?			?		?
		?				?	/		?	/	?
		?				?	/		?	/	?
		?				?			?		?
		?				??			??		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				??			??		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				?	/		?	/	?
		?				?	/		?	/	?
		?		q		?			?		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				?			?		?
		?		?		?			?		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				?			? ?		?
		?				?			?		?
		?				? ?			? ?		?
		?				?			?		?
Proto-Semitic	Akkadian	Arabic		Phoenician		Hebrew		Modern Hebrew	Aramaic		Ge'ez		Modern South Arabian

Notes:

1. Arabic pronunciation is that of reconstructed Qur'anic Arabic of the 7th and 8th centuries CE. If the pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic differs, this is indicated (for example, ).
2. Proto-Semitic appears to have merged with in Tiberian Hebrew, but is still distinguished graphically.
3. Biblical Hebrew as of the 3rd century BCE apparently still distinguished and (based on transcriptions in the Septuagint).
4. Although early Aramaic (pre-7th century BCE) had only 22 consonants in its alphabet, it apparently distinguished at least 27 of the original 29 Proto-Semitic phonemes, including , , , , . This conclusion is based on the shifting representation of words etymologically containing these sounds; in early Aramaic writing, they are merged with , , , , , respectively, but later with , , , , .^[4]

References

1. ↑ e.g. A. Murtonen; see Fleming, Harold C. (1968), "Ethiopic Language History: Testing Linguistic Hypotheses in an Archaeological and Documentary Context" in Ethnohistory, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn), pp. 353-388
2. ↑ Zarins, Juris (1990), "Early Pastoral Nomadism and the Settlement of Lower Mesopotamia" (Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research), No. 280 (Nov., 1990), pp. 31-65
3. ↑
4. ↑

• Burkhart Kienast, Historische semitische Sprachwissenschaft (2001).
• Proto Semitic Language and Culture - The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

See also

• List of Proto-Semitic stems
• History of the alphabet
• Afro-Asiatic languages
• Proto-Afro-Asiatic
• Proto-Indo-European language

External links

• Proto Semitic Language and Culture - The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
• Bartleby: American Heritage Dictionary: Semitic Roots Index

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