Okay. So let’s suppose that the bible doesn’t exist. We have no prior knowledge of Adam and Eve, Noah, the ten commandments etc.
Now that the religious amongst you have left the building, let’s think for a minute.
Languages such as Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic are all related (as far as I know, if there are any clarifications, please discuss). Let us assume that since these particular branches of the human family are related, they contain a mother tongue. Of course, regional variations will occur due to the inter-mixing of languages from other (linguistic) family trees. However, these languages have a common denominator (once again, keen linguists are free to discuss - no pun intended).
So, we have a proto-semetic mother tongue that existed a long-time ago (dates/figures/confirmations/ideas appreciated).
At what location (geographically) was the likely birthplace of these languages? When was this proto-semetic language transferred around from place to place (i.e. becoming the various Semetic languages we speak today) and when was it eradicated (if this is not too strong a word)? Who spoke the language?
Semetic languages have always interested me. They seem a keen mix of Afro-Asiatic influence, and I was wondering when all these changes in Semetic languages took place. All ideas and opinions and any feedback is welcome.
Well, proto-Semitic is more of a linquistic theory than anything else, the same way proto-Indo-European is. We know some proto-Semitic language must have existed, but we don’t really know much about it. Here’s what we know.
There are five existing Semitic languages: Arabic, spoken throughout the middle east, Hebrew, spoken in Israel, Aramaic, spoken in a few communities in Northern Israel and southern Syria, Amharic, the offical language of Ethiopia, and Tigrinya, the official language of Eritrea.
Here’s an article from the American Heritage Dictionary that might help
I remember having read a theory according to which Indo-European languages would have spread with the domestication of wheat, the Chinese-related languages with the domestification of rice, and the Semitic language with the domestication of another grain food. I don’t remember which, though, except that I was surprised since it’s not a cereal/grain I considereded as a major one.
I think he just didn’t want people to come in and say, “The original Semitic language was Hebrew because that’s what Adam and Eve spoke” or something like that.
Well, if you believe in Biblical inerrancy, the answer would be that we don’t know what language Adam and Eve spoke, prior to the Tower of Babel.
Alternatively, if you are religious but do not accept Biblical inerrancy, why should the OP assume you wouldn’t be interested in the discussion, and be prepared to think about the issue?
I think the OP just phrased his opening caveat badly…that he meant to say, “I know that, when we’re talking about Semitic languages that sparked the major religions that Westerners believe today, and that each of these religions have origin stories about why we speak the languages we speak today, or at least why those people who wrote the stories spoke those languages. I’m not interested in the religious origin stories, like the story of the tower of babel. From a strictly linquistic view, what is the origin of proto-semitic…” and so on.
There are actually several others, including what are referred to as South Arabic dialects (Yemen-Oman area) but with “Arabic” referring to the geography and not the language. I believe one of them is Himyarite. IIRC, there are additional Semitic dialects in southern Sudan and the Ethiopia/Eritrea area beyond the two named.
Historically, Ge’ez (the liturgical language of Ethiopian Copts), Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and several other Mesopotamian tongues were Semitic (but Sumerian and Elamite were not), and IIRC Ancient Egyptian and Coptic were too (not sure if they were Semitic or “Hamitic” – i.e., the Berber-Hausa group of tongues).
Are the South Arabic languages still around? I thought they had gone extinct.
Ancient Egyptian and Coptic were “Hamitic” languages. However, one extinct language that was Semitic, and that, if circumstances had been different, we might all be speaking some descendant of, was Punic, the language of Carthage.
Amharic and Tigrinya are also spoken by small social circles in Israel by the Ethiopian Jewish refugees.
Also there are more then five existing semitic languages in the world. Off the top of my head I can think of four different laguages that trace their orgins to semitic roots in only Eritrea: Tigrinya, Ge’ez (curently dead and only spoken by the Eritrean/Ethiopian Orthidox chruch, it is also sometimes mislabeled as “Ethiopic”), Tigre, and Arabic.
If you count Ethiopia too they have a lot more languages that can be (albet some are loosely) atributed to Semitic roots, like: Amharinya (Amharic), and Gurage.
I knew I’d get caught in one of these. A little crack, and the over-sensitives come out. Listen, I’ve asked this Q on other web-boards before. What always tends to happen is that some way or another this becomes a religious debate (sometimes it’s bound to as these particular groups of languages are so closely tied with the three most popular - or at least well-known - monothiestic religions). This is exactly what I’m trying to avoid, in order to keep it a strictly linguistic one (as Captain A pointed out). I honestly meant no offence, so please take none the religious amongst you. Everyone is free to comment, which is why I said:
Okay.
How much do we know about thier common origins? Where were the first inscriptions of semitic speaking languages first found?
And what is Hamitic (often when researching semitic languages I come across this) language and how is it related to Semitic?
Would this then provide a clue into the geographic location from where Semitic speaking languages spread? This assumes that the cereal/grain you are talking about grows only in a specific area and can thus be traced back to the origins of the language (long-shot?)
Are the Berber groups related to Semitic speaking tongues or not? Don’t they all concentrate around N Africa? This is actually one of the places that I think is a good possibility for the birthplace of Semitic languages.
Provides more support for the N Africa theory? What do you think?
Exactly. Though there was no indication about where this place could be situated in this piece. But concerning indo-european languages, this theory implies that these languages would have originated in eastern Turkey (where according to the most recent researchs, based on genetic diversity, the culture of wheat would have originated). So, if this hypothesis were correct, the geographic origin of the semitic languages could be traced back in the same way.
If you mean what’s understood to be the oldest inscriptions found, I think that would be some old Akkadian tablet fragments discovered in Mesopotamia
Hamitic isn’t a language, but a language group, like Semitic, mainly spoken in Africa. If you wanted to make a comparison, think that in Europe, there are a bunch of Germanic languages (German, Dutch, English), and that’s one language family, and also a bunch of Romance languages (Spanish, French, Portugese) and that’s another, but both Germanic and Romance are part of the Indo-European language group. It’s the same way here…you have a bunch of Semitic languages (Hebrew, Arabic, etc.), and a bunch of Hamitic languages (Berber, Hausa, ancient Egyptian, etc.), but they’re both part of the Afro-Asiatic language group, which used to be called Hamito-Semetic.
Would this then provide a clue into the geographic location from where Semitic speaking languages spread? This assumes that the cereal/grain you are talking about grows only in a specific area and can thus be traced back to the origins of the language (long-shot?)
Are the Berber groups related to Semitic speaking tongues or not? Don’t they all concentrate around N Africa? This is actually one of the places that I think is a good possibility for the birthplace of Semitic languages.
Provides more support for the N Africa theory? What do you think? **
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Wendell Wagner, if he wanders into GD or searches for his name, would have to give the straight dope on the current thought about the relationship of Semitic and Hamitic – I’d understood that there was a tendency to “de-lump” and list them as separate “language stocks” (i.e., groups of language families, like Indo-European including Germanic, Romance, Slavic and so on) with some possible relationship.
Hamitic includes Ancient Egyptian and its descendent Coptic, the Berber tongues of the rest of North Africa, and Hausa and several related languages spoken in the Sahel and Sudan (geographic area, not the nation of that name – the lands just south of the Sahara and north of the wetter, largely forested West African coast). I believe Fulani and Wolof, the other two major languages of that stretch, are also Hamitic, but could easily be in error. A group of languages called Chadic, from being spoken in the general area of Lake Chad, are the third major family in the Afro-Asiatic Stock.
Most African languages, by the way, belong to the Niger-Congo stock, with seven families, the largest of which is Benue-Niger, of which almost all members are in the Bantu group. The other six families are located along the West African coast and for some distance inland; Benue-Niger, including Bantu, stretches from eatern Nigeria to Kenya and southern Sudan to South Africa.
O.K., sorry about getting to this thread late. I only just thought about doing a search on my name again. The language family is called Afro-Asiatic theses days. Some basic information can be found on this webpage:
It contains 372 languages broken down into the following subfamilies:
Chadic: 195 languages found mostly in Chad, Cameroon, and Nigeria
Egyptian: 1 language (Coptic)
Omotic: 28 languages found in Ethiopia
Cushitic:47 languages found mostly in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania
Berber: 26 languages found mostly in North Africa
Semitic: 74 languages found in the Middle East and Ethiopia
1 language not yet classified (Birale)
The family is no longer referred to as Hamito-Semitic because that makes it sound like the other languages in the family are as closely related to each other as the Semitic languages are to each other. Rather, the Semitic languages are just one of the six subfamilies. I believe that it’s usually thought that the ancestor of the Afro-Asiatic family was spoken at least 8000 years ago (possibly 10,000 years ago).
I don’t think that I’ve ever read about where it’s usually thought that the Afro-Asiatic family arose. I could make a guess using the Age and Area hypothesis. This is a standard rule of thumb in determining where a proto-language was probably spoken. The rule is that you look where the most widely different languages of the group are spoken in a compact area. This would seem to be Ethiopia, so I would guess that’s where the family started.
I’ve never heard the theory about the spread of the various language families being linked to the spread of grains, and frankly I don’t believe it. Can anybody offer any citations for it from reputable sources?
If your goal is to keep this to a factual debate, just say so - this is GQ after all, and you can set the terms of your discussion in your OP. The Teeming Millions on this board are pretty good about keeping to the boundaries of the particular forum, and when they’re not the mods come out. Perhaps it’s different on other boards - I wouldn’t know.
I applaud your goal of wanting factual information, but was puzzled by your exclusion of the religious posters. In my experience, and amply borne out by my experience on this Board, you will find that some of the most informative people on the topic of the languages of the Bible are the religiously inclined, precisely because they are religiously inclined and have studied the linguistic origins of Scripture. Polycarp, zev steinhardt and cmkeller immediately come to mind, and there are others.
Finally, if your goal is to fight ignorance, which is this Board’s mission statement, using stereotypes about the closed-mindedness of religious believers is not a particularly endearing way of going about it.
why would this introduction cause religious people to leave the discussion?