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Classification of Semitic languages

There are a number of different classification schemes for Semitic languages. The main difference seems to be based on whether the writer is working mainly with extinct languages (e.g. Akkadian) or living languages (e.g. Turoyo). I'm trying to work out what the consensus is here, so please feel free to add to this table.

Text from Ignacio Ferrando:

The issue of Semitic subclassification, and especially the position of dialects related to Arabic or Northarabic¹ has produced in the last decades a good deal of scientific debate amongst Western scholars. It is indeed an actual fact that Arabic shares significant isoglosses with Southsemitic languages, such as a rich system of internal or "broken" plurals or the articulation -f for northern -p. On the other hand Arabic also shares some important features with Northwest Semitic, among them the imperfect verbal stem without gemination (yaqtul) and a set of -t suffixes in the perfect stem. In light of these facts, some scholars, following the traditional lines of Semitic studies, classified Arabic within the Southwest Semitic branch along with the languages of South Arabia and Ethiopia; see the works of Diem (1980), Zaborski (1994), Corriente (1992:24) (1996:12-13) and Ratcliffe (1998a) and (1998b:150-152 and 204-213). However, other scholars prefer to accept the hypothesis put forward by Hetzron (1974), which adopts the view that Arabic belongs to the Central Semitic branch, along with the traditionally named Northwest Semitic (Hebrew, Aramaic). Among these scholars we find Voigt (1987), Rodgers (1991), Kaye (1991), Faber (1997) and Lipinski (1997:46-49).

There is also a somewhat intermediate proposal put forward by Garbini (1984:110-112) and Garbini & Durand (1994:140-143), that Arabic is the result of an innovative Northwest Semitic dialect (Amorreic) which entered the Arabian Peninsula in the first millenium b.c. Interference and interaction with the local pre-Semitic substratum, mainly prone to archaism, ultimately produced the Arabic language in its historical form.²

NOTES:

It is not necessary to insist here on the heterogeneity of elements on the basis of which the Arabic koinè (Classical Arabic) was formed, rapidly reaching a prestigious status and spreading, in such a way that it is nowadays justified to speak of "Arabic" rather than of "Arabic varieties". Besides this general perspective, it is important of course not to forget the absence of homogeneity in the first phases of the history of the language.
It is interesting to observe that, in line with the methodological premises of Hetzron (1976), all these attempts of classification are based on morphologic, to a lesser extent phonetic features. But it would be perhaps interesting to consider other levels of language (syntax, lexicon and semantics) when establishing such genetic relationships between languages and/or dialects, as suggested by Owens (1996), who, after emphasizing the role of idiomatic structure as a useful tool for the task of classification and subclassification of linguistic varieties, applies this perspective to Nigerian Arabic.

Different schemes for classifying Semitic languages

Languages	Beyer	Huehnergard	Ethnologue	source unknown	Hetzron
Babylonian-Assyrian	East Semitic	East Semitic	not classified	North Peripheral	Eastern Semitic
Euphrates dialects	North Semitic	East Semitic
Ugaritic	North Semitic	West S/Central S/Northwest S
Ugaritic	West Semitic			North Central	Central S/Northwest S
Aramaic			Central/Aramaic
Canaanite			Central/South
Arabic	South Semitic	West S/Central S/North Arabian	Central/South	South Central	Central S/South Central (Arabic)
Ancient North Arabic		West S/Central S/North Arabian	not classified	South Central	Central S/South Central (Arabic)
South Arabian		West S/South S	South/South Arabian	South Peripheral	South Semitic
Ethiopic		West S/South S	South/Ethiopian	South Peripheral	South Semitic

Huehnergard's A Grammar of Akkadian also has an interesting chart that further subdivides the Semitic family:

East Semitic
1. Akkadian and Eblaite
West Semitic
1. Central Semitic
  1. Northwest Semitic
    1. Ugaritic
    2. Canaanite (including Hebrew)
    3. Aramaic
  2. North Arabian
    1. Arabic Dialects
2. South Semitic
  1. South Arabian
    1. Old South Arabian Languages
  2. Ethiopian
    1. Ge'ez
    2. Amharic

I'd be willing to reorganize the article along these lines, but not until this is paraphrased (ideally by the addition of more language names).

Ben Brumfield

Thankyou for that Ben, including the above there are now four different classifications I know of. In one of them Punic comes under West Semetic somewhere between North & South Arabian and Ugaritic under Canaanite which is also called NorthCentral. A user called user:Wetman on the Phoenician page proposed "Phoenician was one of the northwestern Semitic languages, those languages that include Amorite and Ugaritic, in addition to the Canaanite languages that include Phoenician, Hebrew and Aramaic." As you can see he seperates Amorite from Canaanite and replaces it with Punic. These may be very minor differences in opinion but I wonter how the arguments go for the different classifications?

Categorization of Canaanite languages

Languages	Beyer
parts of Ugaritic	North Canaanite
the language of the names at Ugarit	North Canaanite
Amortite	East Canaanite
Proto-Byblian	West Canaanite
the western area of Amarna glosses
Phoenician-Punic (and the Gezer Calendar)
Proto-Sinaitic	South Canaanite
Taanach and southern area of Amarna glosses
North Hebrew
Ammonite
Moabite
South Hebrew
Gileadite
Edomite

Text from the Semitic languages article reworked

East Semitic	Akkadian — extinct
East Semitic	Eblaite — controversial, either East Semitic or Northwest Semitic — extinct
West Semitic	Central Semitic	Northwest Semitic	Ugaritic — extinct
			Canaanite languages	Ammonite — extinct
				Moabite — extinct
				Edomite — extinct
				Hebrew — renewed
				Phoenician (incl. Punic) — extinct
			Aramaic languages	Syriac
			Aramaic languages	Mandaic
			Amorite — extinct (attested only in proper names transcribed in Akkadian; perhaps parent lang. of NW or Cent. Semitic)
		Southwest Semitic (Arabic)	Arabic
		Southwest Semitic (Arabic)	Maltese
	South Semitic	Southwest Semitic	Ethiopic	North Ethiopic	Tigrinya
					Tigre
					Ge'ez
				South Ethiopic	Transverse	Amharic
						Argobba
						Harari
						East Gurage languages	Selti
							Wolane
							Zway
							Ulbare
							Inneqor
					Outer	Soddo (North Gurage)
						Goggot (Gurange unclass.)
						Muher (Gurage unclass.)
						West Gurage languages	Masqan (Gurage unclass.?)
							Ezha
							Gura
							Gyeto
							Ennemor
							Endegen
			Old South Arabian	Sabaean — extinct
				Minaean — extinct
				Qatabanian — extinct
				Hadhramautic languages — extinct
		Southeast Semitic	Soqotri
			Mehri
			Jibbali
			Harsusi
			Bathari
			Hobyot

How Ethnologue does it

Afro-Asiatic (372)

Semitic (74)
- Central (57)
  - Aramaic (19)
    - Eastern (17)
      - Central (14)
        Northeastern (12)
        ASSYRIAN NEO-ARAMAIC [AII] (Iraq)
        
        LISHANID NOSHAN [AIJ] (Israel)
        
        BOHTAN NEO-ARAMAIC [BHN] (Georgia)
        
        BIJIL NEO-ARAMAIC [BJF] (Israel)
        
        BABYLONIAN TALMUDIC ARAMAIC [BYA] (Israel)
        
        CHALDEAN NEO-ARAMAIC [CLD] (Iraq)
        
        HÉRTEVIN [HRT] (Turkey (Asia))
        
        HULAULÁ [HUY] (Israel)
        
        KOY SANJAQ SURAT [KQD] (Iraq)
        
        LISHANA DENI [LSD] (Israel)
        
        SENAYA [SYN] (Iran)
        
        LISHÁN DIDÁN [TRG] (Israel)
        
        Northwestern (2)
        MLAHSÖ [QMQ] (Syria)
        
        TUROYO [SYR] (Turkey (Asia))
      - Mandaic (2)
        MANDAIC [MID] (Iran)
        
        MANDAIC, CLASSICAL [MYZ] (Iran)
      - SYRIAC [SYC] (Turkey (Asia))
    - Western (2)
      - WESTERN NEO-ARAMAIC [AMW] (Syria)
      - SAMARITAN ARAMAIC [SRA] (Palestinian West Bank and Gaza)
  - South (38)
    - Arabic (35)
      - ARABIC, ALGERIAN SAHARAN SPOKEN [AAO] (Algeria)
      - ARABIC, TAJIKI SPOKEN [ABH] (Tajikistan)
      - ARABIC, STANDARD [ABV] (Saudi Arabia)
      - ARABIC, MESOPOTAMIAN SPOKEN [ACM] (Iraq)
      - ARABIC, TA'IZZI-ADENI SPOKEN [ACQ] (Yemen)
      - ARABIC, HIJAZI SPOKEN [ACW] (Saudi Arabia)
      - ARABIC, OMANI SPOKEN [ACX] (Oman)
      - ARABIC, CYPRIOT SPOKEN [ACY] (Cyprus)
      - ARABIC, DHOFARI SPOKEN [ADF] (Oman)
      - ARABIC, TUNISIAN SPOKEN [AEB] (Tunisia)
      - ARABIC, SA<IDI SPOKEN [AEC] (Egypt)
      - ARABIC, GULF SPOKEN [AFB] (Iraq)
      - ARABIC, BAHARNA SPOKEN [AFH] (Bahrain)
      - ARABIC, SOUTH LEVANTINE SPOKEN [AJP] (Jordan)
      - ARABIC, JUDEO-TUNISIAN [AJT] (Israel)
      - ARABIC, JUDEO-MOROCCAN [AJU] (Israel)
      - ARABIC, NORTH LEVANTINE SPOKEN [APC] (Syria)
      - ARABIC, SUDANESE SPOKEN [APD] (Sudan)
      - ARABIC, ALGERIAN SPOKEN [ARQ] (Algeria)
      - ARABIC, NAJDI SPOKEN [ARS] (Saudi Arabia)
      - ARABIC, MOROCCAN SPOKEN [ARY] (Morocco)
      - ARABIC, EGYPTIAN SPOKEN [ARZ] (Egypt)
      - ARABIC, UZBEKI SPOKEN [AUZ] (Uzbekistan)
      - ARABIC, EASTERN EGYPTIAN BEDAWI SPOKEN [AVL] (Egypt)
      - ARABIC, HADRAMI SPOKEN [AYH] (Yemen)
      - ARABIC, LIBYAN SPOKEN [AYL] (Libya)
      - ARABIC, SANAANI SPOKEN [AYN] (Yemen)
      - ARABIC, NORTH MESOPOTAMIAN SPOKEN [AYP] (Iraq)
      - ARABIC, JUDEO-YEMENI [JYE] (Israel)
      - HASSANIYYA [MEY] (Mauritania)
      - MALTESE [MLS] (Malta)
      - ARABIC, CHADIAN SPOKEN [SHU] (Chad)
      - ARABIC, SHIHHI SPOKEN [SSH] (United Arab Emirates)
      - ARABIC, JUDEO-IRAQI [YHD] (Israel)
      - ARABIC, JUDEO-TRIPOLITANIAN [YUD] (Israel)
    - Canaanite (3)
      - HEBREW, ANCIENT [HBO] (Israel)
      - HEBREW [HBR] (Israel)
      - SAMARITAN [SMP] (Palestinian West Bank and Gaza)
- South (17)
  - Ethiopian (12)
    - North (3)
      - GEEZ [GEE] (Ethiopia)
      - TIGRIGNA [TGN] (Ethiopia)
      - TIGRÉ [TIE] (Eritrea)
    - South (9)
      - Outer (4)
        n-Group (2)
        GAFAT [GFT] (Ethiopia)
        
        GURAGE, SODDO [GRU] (Ethiopia)
        
        tt-Group (2)
        GURAGE, WEST [GUY] (Ethiopia)
        
        MESMES [MYS] (Ethiopia)
      - Transversal (5)
        Amharic-Argobba (2)
        ARGOBBA [AGJ] (Ethiopia)
        
        AMHARIC [AMH] (Ethiopia)
        
        Harari-East Gurage (3)
        GURAGE, EAST [GRE] (Ethiopia)
        
        HARARI [HAR] (Ethiopia)
        
        ZAY [ZWA] (Ethiopia)
  - South Arabian (5)
    - HOBYÓT [HOH] (Oman)
    - HARSUSI [HSS] (Oman)
    - MEHRI [MHR] (Yemen)
    - JIBBALI [SHV] (Oman)
    - SOQOTRI [SQT] (Yemen)

Aramaic language - work in progress

Aramaic is a Semitic language with a four thousand year history. It is the original language of some parts of the Bible; it has been the language of administration in empires, and the language of divine worship. It was most probably the mother tongue of Jesus, and it is still spoken as a first language by numerous small communities today.

Aramaic (ארמית [Arâmît]) (ܐܪܡܝܐ [Ârâmâyâ])
Spoken in:	Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Georgia, Lebanon, Palestine, Russia, Syria, Turkey
Region:	Throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, Europe, North America and Australia.
Total speakers:	445,000 fluent
Ranking:	Not in top 100
Genetic classification:	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic Aramaic
Official status
Official language of:	None
Regulated by:	None
Language codes
ISO 639-2	arc
SIL	Various: AII (for Assyrian Neo-Aramaic), AIJ (for Lishanid Noshan), AMW (for Western Neo-Aramaic), BHN (for Bohtan Neo-Aramaic), BJF (for Bijil Neo-Aramaic), BYA (for Babylonian Talmudic Aramaic), CLD (for Chaldean Neo-Aramaic), HRT (for Hértevin), HUY (for Hulaulá), KQD (for Koy Sanjaq Surat), LSD (for Lishana Deni), MID (for Mandaic), MYZ (for Classical Mandaic), QMQ (for Mlahsö), SRA (for Samaritan Aramaic), SYC (for Syriac), SYN (for Senaya), SYR (for Turoyo), TRG (for Lishán Didán).

Classification

Aramaic belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family, and to its Semitic sub-family (which also includes Arabic and Hebrew) and, ultimately, to its Central branch.

Appendices

References

Beyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic language: its distribution and subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. ISBN 3-525-53573-2.
Casey, Maurice (1998). Aramaic sources of Mark's Gospel. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-633141-1
Rosenthal, Franz (1961). A grammar of Biblical Aramaic. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden.
Stevenson, William B. (1962). Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic (2nd ed.). Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-815419-4.

External links

Ethnologue report for Aramaic
Learn Assyrian Aramaic - US site teaching Assyrian Aramaic online.
Learn Assyrian Online - US site teaching Assyrian language and culture
Assyria Online - Assyria Online - large collection of resources
Semitisches Tonarchiv (many sound recordings of modern Aramaic) - University of Heidelburg site in German.
English to Aramaic Dictionary - broken link, it should be Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon: Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati

Grammar Universals

Some of the grammar articles on WP are in a mess. They are heavily biased towards English and Indo-European languages. Grammatical tense/multilingual sources is a preparation area for a more universal approach to tense in language. This is my thinking outloud section.

Conceptual hierarchy

Temporal deixis (semantic feature of referring to time).
- Non-morphosyntactic temporal deixis (time referrence is inferred only by context).
  - Temporal adverbs used for clarification.
- Morphosyntactic temporal deixis (time referrence is grammatically marked).
  - Syntactic temporal deixis (a grammatical particle marks time referrences).
  - Morphological temporal deixis (one or more words carry the time referrence marker).

Often blurred kinds of temporal deixis:

Tense (major temporal referrence).
1. Absolute tense (referrence to the 'now' of the utterance).
2. Relative tense (reference to the 'then' of narative).
3. Hybrid tense (reference to the 'then' of narrative in referrence to the 'now' of utterance).
'Temporal contouring' (the 'viewpoint' and 'kind of action')
1. Aspect (grammatical coding - aspectuality is additional encoding) (perfective/imperfective) ('viewpoint')
2. Aktionsart (lexical coding - words have encoded aspectuality) (stative/dynamic) ('kind of action')

Getting tense?

Anders: I am primarily indebted to the Sw Natl Encyclopedia and Siegfried Lienhard: Tempusgebrauch und Aktionsartenbildung in der modernen Hindi for what follows. (Another book to check out is, according to Lienhard, Horst Renicke: Die Theorie der Aspekte und Aktionsarten and perhaps also Max Deuschbein: Aspekte und Aktionsarten im Neuenglischen. There is also a more recent, massive tome, edited by Östen Dahl, Tense and Aspect Systems.)

Aktionsarten are verbal constructions, describing the general characteristics of actions, as objectively stated by the speaker. A personal involvement of the speaker is possible, but subordinate. Examples of Aktionsarten are starting (ingressive-inchoative), instantaneous, continuing (progressive-continuative) and ending (egressive-conclusive).

Aspects are kinds of time perspectives which describe the speaker's view, like perfective, progressive or habitual.

Lienhard regards tenses (at least in Hindi) as secondary phenomena that relate originally aspect carrying forms to time domains. "A tense" originates "by a kind of linear interpretation of a localized aspect". (My translation of Lienhard's quoting F. Rundgren: Intensiv und Aspektkorrelation. Studien zur äthiopischen und akkadischen Verbalstammbildung.)

Finally, it seems that Jerzy Kurylowicz in Aspect et temps dans l'histoire du persan, and his L'apophonie en indo-européen discusses the pair of opposites imperfective-perfective in an interesting way, assigning different symbols consisting of combinations of Greek letters and subscripts to, for example, I write, I am writing, I have written, I have been writing, I wrote, I was writing, I had written and I had been writing.

Anders: I'm afraid that this question requires a definition of "word"... Hindi uses verbs, lots of them in a row, to express subtle shades of meaning, but who am I to tell if they are verb forms as separate words, or if they can be classified as inflectional morphemes? The most common term is "compound verbs", but I don't find any consensus on the interpretation of usages. Compare the general nonspecific gâ.ri caltî hai "the train gone is" 'the train goes' or gâ.rî caltî thî "the train gone was" 'the train went' with gâ.rî cal dî "train went gave" 'the train left', in principle stressing that the action concerns somebody else than the doer, and the more sudden gâ.rî cal pa.rî "train went fell (preterite of 'fall')" 'the train began to move'.

This is interesting to compare to the Chinese general notion of going (away) chu, the completed/accomplished (perfective?) having gone laile, the having gone once laiguo or the ongoing going laizhe.

Flaminius: Japanese adjectives are conjugated in the same paradigm as verbs, although the two parts of speech have different inflectional forms for the same paradigm. To tell you the truth I am not very comfortable using the word conjugation in Japanese grammar for the paradigm is not defined by such features as are common in European and Semitic languages; person, number, gender etc. For detail please refer first to my then-irrelevant posts in Ottoman Turkish thead.

I will show a part of Japanese conjugational paradigm just to contrast conjugations of verbs and adjectives (hyphen separates the stem and the inflectional affix).

Present or unmarked tense shiro-i (am/are/is white) (< CJ shiroshi) kam-u (I/you/he/she/they bite)

After-Noun-Clause form shiro-i N (a/the white N) (< CJ shiroki) kam-u N (a/the N that bites)

Past test or perfect aspect shiro-katta (was/were white) (< shiroku-atta; white-existed morphologically) kan-da (I/you/he/she they bit) (< kam-ta; morphologically)

After-Negation form in the unmarked tense shiro-ku nai (white not); the negative word nai is another adjective. kam-a nai (do/does not bite)

And-Form (I suspect this is adverbialisation) shiro-ku te kuroi (am/is/are white and black) kan-de taberu (bite and eat = awkward masticate)

Henri: I confess myself a little confused by the examples given by Anders to illustrate aspect in Chinese verbs.

But why the switch of verbs, from «chu» («qu» ?) to «lai» ? In any event, the use of the particle «zhe» after verbs is especially interesting, but it is important not to identify such combinations with an English progressive tense. Thus a dialogue of the type What are you doing ? - I'm eating would be rendered in Chinese by Ni zuo shemma ? - (Wo) chifan rather than by Ni zuozhe shemme ? - (Wo) chizhe fan. In my experience, «zhe» is most often suffixed to a verb to indicate that it serves as ongoing background to the action desribed by another verb. Thus the phrase mentioned by Flam on another thread I have once heard a chinese comment on his compatriot students of Japanese, "xiao3 zhao2 jin3, ku2 zhao2 chu2." In a peculiar parallel to Henri's expression it means "laughing enter but crying exit." which I, however, would transliterate slightly differently, as follows: «Xiao4zhe0 jin4, ku1zhe0 chu1».

Indeed, if I may speculate, I can't help wondering if the «te» suffix in Japanese And-Form (I suspect this is adverbialisation) shiro-ku te kuroi (am/is/are white and black) kan-de taberu (bite and eat = awkward masticate) is not, in fact, derived from this use of the particle «zhe» in Chinese. Let us hope that that Chinese Otto Jespersen of the Japanese language does turn up while we are still around to benefit !...

Flaminius: Myself And-Form (I suspect this is adverbialisation) shiro-ku te kuroi (am/is/are white and black) kan-de taberu (bite and eat = awkward masticate) Verbs can form request expressions with this te-form. E.g., kande kudasai (Please bite) kudasai < CJ kudasare; polite to give; imperative.

I consider this usage somewhat akin to English expressions like "ask you to bite," although the subject to the infinitive is not explicitly shown in the Japanese counterpart.

However, an adjective in te-form before a verb is ungrammatical. E.g., *shiroku-te kudasai. In order for any form of imperative/request expression using adjectives to be grammatical, a verb in te-form should intervene between the adjective and the main verb.

Thus, some examples of such expressions are; shiroku-natte kudasai. (natte < naru; become)

  Become white, please.

shiroku-shite kudasai. (shite < suru; do or make)

  Make it/him/yourself/etc. white, please.

For convenience of those who intend to commit Internet search, I favoured the term te-form in this post. This is the most dominant appellation in the literature (In our examples the verb kande is the result of forward assimilation like kami-te > kamte > kande).

My conviction is, though, that this is advervialisation for it is "suffixed to a verb to indicate that it serves as ongoing background to the action (M._Henri_Day)." I don't see any problem in including infinitive-like use of te-form in advervialisation. In view of the history that the English to-infinitive also started out from an adverbial phrase (constructed by virtue of preposition to), this may not be so wild a speculation.

Henri: Interesting analysis, Flam! I'm not sure that I find your view of the suffix «-te» as an infinite marker when used with verbal imperatives like kudasai or kure convincing ; rather I tend to see it as a marker for combining verbals (in Japanese, both verbs and adjectives) with other verbals, with the restrictions involving combinations of the two sub-categories that you mention.

In any event, even if this use of «-te» should, in fact, derive from the Chinese use of «zhe», it should be noted that in Japanese, unlike in Chinese, one does find a morphological construction closely akin to the progressive tenses in English, i e, V-te-iru/aru. Thus the little dialogue mentioned in my earlier posting would, in Japanese, come out something like the following (in language denuded of honorifics, etc) Nani(wo) yateiruka ? -Gohan(wo) tabeteiru. Or am I misinformed ?...

Anders: Yes, I mixed up the verbs for coming and going in the middle of the night (I think). I'm not perfectly sure on how to use chu/qu/chuqu 'come out' etc.; quchu however seems to be more of a noun. That may be the reason for suddenly? switching to lai 'come'.

It is fairly common for Chinese "adjectives" to be referred to as "stative verbs" when used predicatively. One argument is that no other verb is needed. But they can also be the subject of a sentence, and may then perhaps be compared to an English gerund: Leng bu hao '[Being/to be] cold [is] not good."

Russian adjectives are inflected in a nounish way, but they too can be used verbishly: Sankt Peterburg - krasiviy gorod "Sankt Petersburg [is a] beautiful town".

Garzo: I've got the feeling that predicative adjectives in these situations imply a zero copula. That is particularly the case in Russian. However, classifying the absense of something is not too easy. However, if, as in Japanese, an adjective can show tense, it might be fair to say that it is the 'verb' and not magic up a zero copula. In an isolating language, isn't this a subjective matter?